Pharisees, the unbelieving Sadducees, all the highest orders both in Church and State, as well as the profane and licentious popu- lace, were of one heart and mind in relation to this matter : they who agreed in no other thing under heaven, agreed in this, a deadly hatred to Christ, and an inveterate opposition to his cause.
And is not the same phaenomenon seen at this day ? In this one point there is perfect unanimity, wherever we come. As Herod and Pontius Pilate, who were before at variance, united cordially with each other for the purpose of oppressing Christ, so now persons who are most remote from each other in political and moral sentiment, or even in the general habit of their lives, all unite in decrying the Gospel as visionary in itself, and as inju- rious to the world. Let the Gospel be brought into any place, and this universal hatred to it immediately appears : nor can the Gospel be cordially embraced by any individual, without exciting in the minds of his friends and relatives a measure of indignation against him^]
This opposition is founded in an aversion to his strict and holy laws —
[Had the Apostles brought forward the Gospel as a matter of speculation only, they would never have been so bitterly per- secuted in every place. The Jews were ready enough of them- selves to follow false Apostles, and false Christs : and the Gentiles would have welcomed the inventors or advocates of a new phi- losophy. It was the requiring of all persons to submit entirely and unreservedly to the dominion of Christ that irritated and in- flamed the whole world against the preachers of Christianity. Thus, at this time, if we only brought forward the great truths of the Gospel in a speculative and argumentative way, no man would be offended with us : (multitudes of preachers do this without exciting any hatred or contempt in the minds of their hearers :) but the practical exhibition of divine truth, the shew- ing that all men must receive it at the peril of their souls, the insisting upon an entire surrender of their souls to Christ, to be washed in his blood, to be renewed by his grace, and to be em- ployed for his glory, this is the offence : we are then too earnest, too strict, too enthusiastic, too alarming : we then are represented as " turning the world upside down," and are deemed little better than *^ the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things." Nor will any thing screen us from this odium: we may be as learned, as blameless, as benevolent, as active as Paul himself, and yet, if we have any measure of his fidelity, we shall be sure enough to have some measure also of his treatment from an ungodly world.]
But the experience of all ages abundantly attests,
II. The
f Matt. X. 22—25, 34—36.