other hand, many who do not believe
thereon. To them who believe, is He precious; so that my heart must
be glad if I repose my confidence and trust upon Him. Therefore he
says,--to you that believe, He is precious; that is, ye are greatly
dependent on Him; for although He in Himself is precious and
excellent, yet this may be of no service or help to me. Therefore He
must be precious to us for this reason, because He gives us so many
precious blessings; as an excellently precious stone, which does not
retain its virtue in itself, but breaks forth and imparts all its
powers, so that I have all that _it_ is.

But the unbelieving hold Him not as such a precious stone, but reject
Him, and stumble upon Him, because He is not pleasing to them, but
obnoxious and hateful; although He is yet delightful in Himself.
These are not only the great, openly avowed sinners, but much more
those great saints who rest on their free-will, on their own works
and righteousness, who must stumble on this stone and run upon it.
Now God pronounces the sentence, that they who rest thereon, without
works, come to be justified through faith alone; but these do not
attain thereto, for they would be justified by their own
righteousness, as St. Paul says, Rom. x.

Therefore this has become the stone, says St. Peter, which the
builders rejected. And here he dovetails the Scriptures into one
another, but explains the passage which he quoted above from the
cxvii. Psalm, "The stone which the builders rejected, has become the
corner stone." Who the builders are, I have sufficiently shown: even
those who taught, preached the law, and would justify men by works;
who agree with Christians, as summer and winter with each other;
therefore those preachers who preach of works, reject this stone.

Besides this, he quotes another passage still, from the prophet
Isaiah, chap. viii. The prophet has there described that which was to
take place, as St. Peter here does, and speaks thus: "The Lord shall
be your fear, who shall be to you for holiness; but for a stone of
stumbling and a rock of offence shall He be, to both houses of
Israel." This is the sense of the prophet: The Lord shall be to you
for holiness,--that is, He shall be hallowed in your hearts; ye are
to have no other sanctification, neither this nor that, except as ye
believe. To the others, He shall be a stone whereon they shall
stumble and be offended.

But what, now, is this offence and perplexity, or