the sin is not. It is difficult to sliow clearly what it is. We must not be surprised. The Bible would not be the book of God, if it had not deep places here and there, which man has no line to fathom. Let us rather thank God that there are lessons of w^isdom to be gathered, even out of these verses, which the unlearned may easily understand.
Let \is gather from them, in the first place, that there is nothing too blasphemous for hardened and 2^'>'ejudiced men to say against religion. Our Lord casts out a devil ; and at once the Pharisees declare that He does it "by the prince of the devils."
This was an absurd charge. Our Lord shows that it was unreasonable to suppose that the devil would help to pull down his own kingdom, and " Satan cast out Satan.'" But there is nothing too absurd and unreasonable for men to say, when they are thoroughly set against religion. The Pharisees are not the only people who have lost sight of logic, good sense, and temper, when they have attacked the Gospel of Christ.
Strange as this charge may sound, it is one that has often been made against the servants of God. Their enemies have been obliged to confess that they are doing a work, and i^roducing an effect on the world. The results of Christian labor stare them in the face. They cannot deny them. What then shall they say ? They say the very thing that the Pharisees said of our Lord, ^' It is the devil." The early heretics used language of this kind about Athanasius. The Koman Catholics spread reports of this sort about Martin Luther. Such things wiU be said as long as the world stands.
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