+III. The effect of Peter's sin.+--He drew the Jews and Barnabas to the like dissimulation. Here we see the contagion of an evil example. 1. Ministers of the Word must join with good doctrine the example of a good life. 2. Practice in the ministry is a part of the teaching. 3. All superiors are warned to go before their inferiors by good example. 4. The consent of many together is not a note of truth. Peter, Barnabas, and the Jews, all together are deceived; Paul alone has the truth. Ponormitane said, "A layman bringing Scripture is to be preferred before a whole council." Paphnutius alone had the truth, and the whole council of Nice inclined to error.--_Perkins._ Vers. 14-16. _Justification by Faith, not by Works._--1. Though private sins, which have not broken forth to a public scandal, are to be rebuked in private, public sins are to receive public rebukes, that public scandal may be removed, and others scared from taking encouragement to do the like (ver. 14). 2. Though the binding power of the ceremonial law was abrogated at Christ's death, and the practice in some things left as a thing lawful and in itself indifferent, yet the observance, even for that time, was dispensed with more for the Jews' sake, and was more tolerable in them who were born and educated under that yoke, than in the Gentiles, to whom that law was never given, and so were to observe it, or any part of it, only in case of scandalising the weak Jews by their neglecting of it (ver. 14). 3. Though every man by nature is a child of wrath and enemy to God, yet those born within the visible Church have a right to Church privileges and to enjoy the external means of grace and salvation (ver. 15). 4. The doctrine of justification by faith and not by works was early opposed, and no doctrine so much opposed, because no truth is more necessary to be kept pure, as if it be kept pure several other truths are kept pure also, and if it fall other truths fall with it (ver. 16).--_Fergusson._ Ver. 16. _Justification by Faith._ +I. Man is justified by the mere mercy of God.+--And there is excluded by justification all merit of congruity, all meritorious works of preparation wrought by us, all co-operation of man's will with God's grace in the effecting of our justification. +II. Man is justified by the mere merit of Christ.+--That is, by the meritorious obedience which He wrought in Himself, and not by anything wrought by Him in us.