the height of folly. For us to deny Christ or be ashamed of His Gospel; may get us a little of man's good opinion for a few years, though it will bring us no real peace. Sut for Christ to deny us at the last day will be ruin in hell to all eternity ! Let us cast away our cowardly fears. Come what will, let us confess Christ.
We are taught, secondly, in these verses, that there is such a thing as an unpardonable sin. Our Lord Jesus Christ declares, that " unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven."
These awfal words must doubtless be interpreted with scriptural qualification. We must never so expound one part of Scripture as to malce it contradict another. Nothing is impossible with God. The blood of Christ can cleanse a-way all sin. The very chief of sinners have been pardoned in many instances. These things must never be forgotten. Yet notwithstanding all this, there remains behind a great truth which must not be evaded. There is such a. thing as a sin '^ which shall not be forgiven."
The sin to which our Lord refers in this passage, appears to be the sin of deliberately rejecting God's truth with the heart, while the truth is clearly known with the head. It is a combination of light in the understanding, and determined wickedness in the will. It is the very sin into which many of the Scribes and Pharisees appear to have fallen, when they rejected the ministration of the Spirit after the day of Pentecost, and refused to believe the preaching of the apostles. It is a sin into whi^, it may be feared, many constant hearers of the Gospel now- a-days flail, by determined clinging to the world. And worst of all, it is a sin which is commonly aoeompaenied