proclamation of the power of the Name was fitly followed by pressing
home the guilt and madness of rejecting Jesus, and that again by the
glad tidings of salvation for all, even the rejecters. Is not the
sequence in Peter's defence substantially that which all Christian
preaching should exhibit? First, strong, plain proclamation of the
truth; then pungent pressing home of the sin of turning away from
Jesus; and then earnest setting forth of the salvation in His name,--
a salvation wide as the world, and deep as our misery and need, but
narrow, inasmuch as it is 'in none other.' The Apostle will not end
with charging his hearers with guilt, but with offering them
salvation. He will end with lifting up 'the Name' high above all
other, and setting it in solitary clearness before, not these rulers
only, but the whole world. The salvation which it had wrought on the
lame man was but a parable and picture of the salvation from all ills
of body and spirit, which was stored in that Name, and in it alone.

The rulers' contempt had been expressed by their emphatic ending of
their question with that 'ye.' Peter expresses his brotherhood and
longing for the good of his judges by ending his impassioned, or,
rather, inspired address with a loving, pleading 'we.' He puts
himself on the same level with them as needing salvation, and would
fain have them on the same level with himself and John as receiving
it. That is the right way to preach.

Little need be said as to the effect of this address. Whether it went
any deeper in any susceptible souls or not, it upset the schemes of
the leaders. Something in the manner and matter of it awed them into
wonder, and paralysed them for the time. Here was the first instance
of the fulfilment of that promise, which has been fulfilled again and
again since, of 'a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall