Acts 13:41

6. “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast made perfect praise, because of Thine enemies.” By enemies to this dispensation, which has been wrought through Jesus Christ and Him crucified, we ought generally to understand all who forbid belief in things unknown, and promise certain knowledge: as all heretics do, and they who in the superstition of the Gentiles are called philosophers. Not that the promise of knowledge is to be blamed; but because they deem the most healthful and necessary step of faith is to be neglected, by which we must needs ascend to something certain, which nothing but that which is eternal can be. Hence it appears that they do not possess even this knowledge, which in contempt of faith they promise; seeing that they know not so useful and necessary a step thereof. …

Behold Barnabas giving place to Paul, how should it be otherwise? to him whom he brought from Tarsus; just as we find John on all occasions giving way to Peter: and yet Barnabas was more looked up to than Paul: true, but they had an eye only to the common advantage. “Then Paul stood up,” it says; this was a custom of the Jews, “and beckoned with his hand.” And see how he prepares the way beforehand for his discourse: having first praised them, and showed his great regard for them in the words, “ye that fear God,” he so begins his discourse. And he says not, Ye proselytes, since it was a term of disadvantage. “The God of this people chose our fathers: and the people”, See, he calls God Himself their God peculiarly, Who is the common God of men; and shows how great from the first were His benefits, just as Stephen does. …

“Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham”, he also calls them after their father, “unto you was the word of this salvation sent.” ( v. 26 .) Here the expression, “Unto you,” does not mean, Unto (you) Jews, but it gives them a right to sever themselves from those who dared that murder. And what he adds, shows this plainly. “For,” he says, “they that dwell at Jerusalem, because they know Him not.” ( v. 27 .) And how, you will say, could they be ignorant, with John to tell them? What marvel, seeing they were so, with the prophets continually crying aloud to them? Then follows another charge: “And having found no cause of death in Him:” in which ignorance had nothing to do. For let us put the case, that they did not hold Him to be the Christ: why did they also kill Him? And “they desired of Pilate, he says, that He should be slain.” ( v. …

The Priest of God is Standing, offering up the prayer of all: and art thou laughing, having no fears? And while he is offering up the prayers in trembling for thee, dost thou despise all? Hearest thou not the Scripture saying, “Woe, ye despisers!” (cf. Acts xiii. 41 from Hab. i. 5 ); dost thou not shudder? dost thou not humble thyself? Even when thou enterest a royal palace, thou orderest thyself in dress, and look, and gait, and all other respects: and here where there is the true Palace, and things like those of heaven, dost thou laugh? Thou indeed, I know, seest [them] not, but hear thou that there are angels present everywhere, and in the house of God especially they stand by the King, and all is filled by those incorporeal Powers.

10. What are we to do now, my brethren, when crushed, cast down, and drunken but not with strong drink nor with wine, which excites and obfuscates but for a while, but with the blow which the Lord has inflicted upon us, Who says, And thou, O heart, be stirred and shaken, and gives to the despisers the spirit of sorrow and deep sleep to drink: to whom He also says, See, ye despisers, behold, and wonder and perish? How shall we bear His convictions; or what reply shall we make, when He reproaches us not only with the multitude of the benefits for which we have continued ungrateful, but also with His chastisements, and reckons up the remedies with which we have refused to be healed? Calling us His children indeed, but unworthy children, and His sons, but strange sons who have stumbled from lameness out of their paths, in the trackless and rough ground. …