Peter could not,
especially thrice, have done wrong in denying our Lord. He did wrong, or
the angel would not have chided and warned him. And to say that the
angel here forbade John personally to worship him, because he was a
fellow-servant and one of the prophets; and thus that the prohibition
only tended to exalt the prophetic character, not to condemn the worship
of angels, is proved to be also a groundless assumption, from the
angel's own words, who reckons himself as a fellow-servant with not St.
John only, but all those also who keep the words of the book of
God,--thus equally forbidding every faithful Christian to worship their
fellow-servants the angels. They are almost the last words in the volume
of inspired truth, and to me, together with those last words, they seem
with "the voice of a great multitude, and of many waters, and of mighty
thunderings," from the very throne itself of the Most High, to proclaim
to every inhabiter of the earth, Fall down before no created being;
adore no created being; pray to, invoke, call upon no created being,
whether saint or angel: worship {57} and adore God only; pray to God
only. Trust to his mercy; seek no other mediator or intercessor than his
own only and blessed Son. "He who testifieth these things saith, Surely,
I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ be with you all.
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