Page images
PDF
EPUB

blessed Lord, and were very sensible that they were real and true miracles: they knew also that they were wrought in direct opposition to the Devil and his kingdom, having all the fair appearances possible of being divine: nor would they have scrupled to have received them as divine, had they been wrought by any one else, excepting Christ or his disciples but such was their envenomed hatred and inveteracy against him and his, that, at all adventures, contrary to all candour or equity, and in contradiction to reason and common sense, they resolved to say however, scarce to believe, (for they hardly could be so stupid,) that he was in league with the Devil; and that all his mighty works, which he wrought in the name of God, were the works only of Beelzebub the prince of the devils. There could not be a more insolent slander or a more provoking outrage against the Divine Majesty than this was. All other calumnies, against men or against angels, come short of this; for it was calumniating God himself, the tremendous and most adorable Deity; and was done very maliciously and designedly, to hinder and obstruct, as much as possible, the first planting of the Gospel, to the universal hurt and detriment of mankind in a word, it was sacrificing the honour of Almighty God, and both the present and future happiness of men, to their own private humours and party passions; being resolved to take up with any wretched cavil, any improbable and self-contradictory lies and slanders against God, rather than permit the honest and well-meaning people to believe in Christ Jesus, upon the brightest evidence of his miracles.

Such was the heinous nature and the transcendent guilt of blaspheming against the Holy Ghost, in that instance: and therefore it is, that our blessed Lord took so particular care, first, to confute the calumny, and next, to pass a most righteous but dreadful censure upon the sin contained in it. The Divine vengeance should pursue a crime of that deep die, both in this world and in the world to come. The offenders in that kind, being unreclaimable and incurable, should, by the just judgment of God, be

sealed up to everlasting destruction; like Pharaoh or like Judas, like Sodom or like Gomorrah, ripe for perdition, and fit to be delivered over to eternal ruin.

Having thus largely considered what the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost means, and how heinous a sin it was; it remains now only,

III.

To inquire whether any sins committed at this day are the same thing with it; or which of them come the nearest to it. Of this very briefly, having no room to enlarge.

I. First, for the sake of the over-tender and scrupulous consciences, I would observe, that roving, and which some call blasphemous thoughts, which rise up accidentally, and as accidentally go off again, are nothing akin to the sin which I have been speaking of; which consisted in premeditated lies and slanders against God, formed with design to obstruct or darken the evidences of the true religion, and to prevent others from looking into them, or being convinced by them. None but professed Atheists or infidels can be guilty of such spite and malice against the Gospel salvation. No one, while he believes the Christian religion, and seriously professes himself a member of Christ's Church, can be guilty of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.

2. I observe, secondly, that even the Atheists or infidels of these times can scarce come up to the same degree of guilt with the Pharisees of old; because they have not seen the miracles of Christ with their own eyes. It is some mitigation of their sin, and it makes their infidelity the more excusable, that they have not altogether so strong and glaring evidences of the truth of Christianity, as those had who lived in the first ages, and saw the "won"derful works of God." Rational and historical evidence may be as convincing as the other, when duly considered: but as it strikes not upon the senses, it does not awaken the attention, and alarm every passion of the soul, in such a degree as the other does. For which reason the un

believers of our times, though abandoned and profligate men, are not altogether so blameable in the opposition they make to Christianity, as the unbelievers of old time were. They may indeed, at this day, attribute the miracles of Christ and his Apostles, (which they read of in credible history,) to the Devil, as the Pharisees of old did; and this will be blaspheming the Holy Ghost: but it will not be exactly the same sin; not the same in degree, (though in kind the same,) because circumstances are different; and upon the circumstances depend the heightening aggravations.

Nevertheless it must be said, that the obstinate rejecting the miracles of our Lord and of his disciples, (which have been so fully attested,) and much more the ridiculing and bantering them, and the endeavouring to run them down by lies and slander, (as the way of some is ;) this is a very high and heinous crime, as well as horrid blasphemy ; especially if committed in a Christian country and in a knowing age, and where men have all desirable opportunities of learning the truth, as well as the strongest motives offered for submitting to it. Scoffers of this kind come very little short of the Pharisees of ancient time, either in spleen and malice, or in perverseness and hardness of heart, or in an impious and desperate defiance to God and Christ, and to the Holy Spirit of both. From such blasphemers turn away, and have nothing to do with the tents of these wicked men, lest ye be consumed in their iniquities. Look upon them as vessels of Divine wrath, sons of perdition, prepared for vengeance, which will either suddenly overtake them in this world, or will fall the heavier upon them in a world to come. The Christian religion has been so abundantly proved and settled by great variety of evidences, beyond reasonable exception, that all gainsayers are now left without excuse. It has had the concurrent testimony of Christ and his Apostles, and both established by many and great miracles, unparalleled and uncontrolled: and were there nothing else, its prevailing and triumphing so much, so early, and so

361 long, over Jewish superstition and Pagan idolatry, is itself a miracle as great as any, and manifestly shows that the finger of God was in it, and that an Almighty power went along with it. What remains then, but that we learn from all to set a just price and value upon this our most holy profession; evermore defending and maintaining it against all opposers, and adorning the same, as it becomes us to do, with suitable lives and conversations.

SERMON XXIX.

The Case of Deceivers and Deceived considered.

EPHES. iv. 14.

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.

HERE are two sorts of persons marked out by the Apostle in the text, the deceivers and the deceived; the one, subtle and crafty, and full of intrigue; the other, easy and credulous, and unsuspecting; the one supposed to have all the wiliness of the serpent, without the innocency of the dove; the other, all the tameness and simplicity of the dove, without the serpent's wisdom. Both are blameable, though in different respects, and not in the same degree; one, for abusing and misemploying their talents, and the other, for not employing them at all to discern between true and false, between good and evil. Both are accountable to God as delinquents; one, for high contempt, and the other, for great supineness and neglect. The world has never been without both these kinds of men, since men have multiplied upon the earth, and sin and folly have taken place among them. The Church of Christ, from the beginning and downwards, has suffered much by both. Heresies and schisms have disturbed its peace and broken its union; while crafty and intriguing men have

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »