ministers of Christ have done all that is prudent and proper, and the effect does not answer, they must not run wild lengths in order to gain their point: for God will say to such persons, if you could not prevail by methods of my appointment, how could you hope to do it by weak devices of your own? You have run wide and far to make proselytes: but who sent you? or who required it at your hands? There is as much mischief in over-doing as in under-doing: both are equally transgressions of the Divine laws, and deviations from the rule of right. Are they eager and impatient to bring sinners to a sober life? It is well they are, and we commend them for it. But there is one thing of still greater importance to them, which ought to be attended to in the first place, which is, to rest content with God's appointed methods of reforming the world, and to proceed no farther than he has given leave; to make use of sound judgment and discretion in an affair of that high concernment; and to submit to stop where God requires it, as well as to run on where he has sent: otherwise religion will not be promoted, but greatly obstructed and exposed; and the world will not be made wiser or better, but ten times wilder than before.

These things I have here laid before you in as plain words, and in as strong a light, as I could.

May that Divine Spirit, whereof I have been speaking, dwell richly in us, in all wisdom, and in all virtues and graces; particularly in soundness of mind, and in humility of heart, and in purity of life and manners. Such are the fruits, such the marks of the Spirit's presence with us, and of his love towards us: which, that we may evermore plentifully enjoy, here and hereafter, God of his mercy grant, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

SERMON XXVIII.

The precise Nature of the Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.

MATT. xii. 31, 32.

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

THESE words will lead me to treat of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; a matter which has been much talked of, and not always rightly understood: for which reason I the rather choose to discourse upon it.

It will be convenient, in the first place, to observe how, and upon what occasion, the words of the text were brought in. We have an account in this chapter of our Lord's healing a blind and dumb man who had been possessed by a devil. The Scribes and Pharisees who came from Jerusalem, and observed what was done, very maliciously attributed that great miracle, which our Lord had wrought by the Spirit of God, to the assistance of the Devil. "This fellow," said they, (speaking in contempt of him,) "doth not cast out devils, but by Beel"zebub the prince of the devils a." Our blessed Lord,

• Matt. xii. 24.

well knowing the spite and venom of that execrable calumny, takes them up roundly for it; first confuting their cavils, and next rebuking their insolence, in very plain and strong terms. He puts them in mind how absurd and contradictory to common sense it must be, to imagine that the devils should be no wiser than to differ and disagree among themselves, in a matter relating to their common interest, which would be destroying their own kingdom. "If Satan cast out Satan-how shall then his kingdom stand b?" After this, he retorts their own calumny upon them, in order to manifest their grievous partiality and self-condemnation. "If I by Beelzebub "cast out devils, by whom do your children" (your own friends, the exorcists) "cast them out?" If they cast out devils by the help of God, calling on the God of Abraham; why am I, who do the same things, and greater, in the name of the same God, charged with doing them by the help of the Devil? He goes on to a third consideration, drawn from the nature of his doctrine, and from the whole tenour of his life and conduct, as being directly opposite to the Devil's interests, and plainly showing that he was so far from being a confederate with Beelzebub, that he was his most avowed and formidable enemy; binding that strong prince in chains, rifling his house, and spoiling his goods. These things being plain and undeniable, what unaccountable malice must it be in the Pharisees, and how grievous their sin, to impute the miracles wrought by a divine power to the prince of the devils? Our blessed Lord therefore closes his reply with this smart and tremendous rebuke: "Wherefore I say "unto you, that all manner of sin and blasphemy shall "be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the "Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven neither in this "world, neither in the world to come."

The phrases and idioms of speech (here made use of) may require some explanation, before we come to the

matter contained in them. "All manner of sin and blas"phemy shall be forgiven." The words are not to be taken absolutely, as if all kinds of slanders and calumnies should be forgiven; (for many, without question, while unrepented of, never will be forgiven;) but they are to be understood comparatively, as amounting to this; that all other unrighteous blaming or censuring, either of things or of persons, shall sooner and more easily be forgiven, than the blaming and slandering the Holy Spirit of God, that is, God himself. To revile angels or men is tolerable and pardonable in comparison: but to strike higher still, and to revile even God himself, is an unpardonable impiety. "Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of "man," (against Christ considered merely as a man,) calling him, for instance, a deceiver, a glutton, a wine-bibber, and the like; that, though a grievous sin in itself, yet being slight in comparison, may the more easily be forgiven: "but whosoever speaketh against the Holy "Ghost, it shall not be" so easily " forgiven, neither in "this world, nor in the world to come." In discoursing farther, my design is,

I. To examine what the sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost means, and wherein precisely it consists: where, by the way, I shall take notice also of some erro

neous accounts of it.

II. I shall consider the heinous nature and aggravations of it, together with the penalty attending it, or consequent upon it.

III. I shall inquire whether any sins committed at this day are the same thing with it, or which come the nearest to it.

I.

I am to examine what the sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost means, and wherein precisely it consists.

I said sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, because some call it the sin against the Holy Ghost, though Scripture itself never calls it any thing else but blasphemy; which is worth the observing. For from thence we may

be assured, that this sin (whatever it be) ought to be reckoned among the sins of speech, among the offences of the tongue. All the sins which men commit are reducible to three heads, as being either in thought, in word, or in deed: now the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost can properly be referred to the second only of the three now mentioned; it lies in words, is committed by speaking, and particularly by evil speaking; by reviling and defaming the Holy Spirit of God. In the text it is called

speaking against the Holy Ghost." And by St. Mark it appears that the sin consisted in something which the Pharisees said: for it is there remarked as the sum and substance of the guilt they were chargeable with, that they said of Jesus, that "he hath an unclean spiritd." And it is farther observable, that our blessed Lord, in the close of his discourse upon that occasion, pronounces thus: "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall "give account thereof in the day of judgmente." Idle words here mean malicious or impious expressions; alluding still to the main subject of his discourse, the spiteful and opprobrious words which the Pharisees had impiously thrown out against the Spirit of God. To be short then, the sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost was the belying, slandering, or reviling the Divine Spirit by which our Lord wrought his miracles, ascribing them to the Devil.

There may be and there have been several offences committed against the Holy Ghost, which yet do not amount to the blasphemy against him specified in the text. There is such a thing as grieving the Holy Spirit, and quenching the Spirits, when men refuse to hearken to his counsels, to follow his motions, or to obey his calls but this is not blaspheming him. There is also what St. Stephen calls resisting the Holy Ghosth, which is opposing him with an high hand, and rebelling against

d Mark iii. 30.

1 Thess. v. 19.

• Matth. xii. 36.

f Eph. iv. 30.

Acts vii. 51.