exactly in the state of these Scribes and Pharisees. They flatter themselves that they only require a little more proof to become decided Christians. They fancy that if their reason and intellect could only be met with some additional arguments, they would at once give up all for Christ's sake, take up the cross, and follow Him. But in the mean time, they wait. Alas ! for their blindness. They will not see that there is abundance of evidence on every side of them. The truth is, that they do not want to be convinced.
May we all be on our guard against the spirit of un- belief ! It is a growing evil in these latter days. Want of simple, childlike faith is an increasing feature of the times, in every rank of society. The true explanation of a hundred strange things that startle us in the conduct of leading men in churches and states, is downright want of faith. Men who do not believe all that God says in the Bible, must necessarily take a vacillating and undecided line on moral and religious questions. " If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.'' (Isaiah vii. 9.)
The second practical lesson which meets us in these verses is the immense danger of a partial and imperfect religious reformation.
Mark what an awful picture our Lord draws of the man to whom the unclean spirit returns, after having once left him. How fearful are those words, "I will return into my house from whence I came out !" How vivid that description, " He findeth it empty, swept, and gar- nished !" How tremendous the conclusion, "he taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, —
137
and the last state of that man is worse than the first V It is a picture most painfully full of meaning. Let us scan it closely, and learn wisdom.
It is certain that we have in this picture tJie history of tlie Jewish church and nation, at the time of our Lord's coming. Called as they were at first out of Egypt to be God's peculiar people, they never seem to have wholly lost the tendency to worship idols. Redeemed as they afterwards were from the captivity of Babylon, they never seem to have rendered to Grod a due return for His goodness. Aroused as they had been by John the Bap- tist's preaching, their repentance appears to have been only skin-deep. At the time when our Lord spoke, they ; had become, as a nation, harder and more perverse than J ever. The grossness of idol-worshij) had given place to • the deadness of mere formality. Seven other spirits '^^ Avorse than the first, had taken possession of them. '*'^'^^ Their last state was rapidly becoming worse than the thm first. Yet forty years, and their iniquity came to the - ^^f full. They madly plunged into a war with Rome. '^^^ Judcea became a very Babel of confusion. Jerusalem r.U^ was taken: The temple was destroyed. The Jews were /-^ scattered over the foce of the earth. J^
Again, it is highly probable that we have in this pic- ture the history of the lohole body of Christian churches. Delivered as they were from heathen darkness by the preaching of the Gospel, they have never really lived up to their light. Revived as many of them were at the time of the Protestant Reformation, they have none of them made a right use of their privileges, or " gone on to perfection." They have all more or less
lA
Aa