predictions concerning it: and the Apostles shewed a just con- sciousness of the depravity of our fallen nature, when each, believing that the words of Jesus would be fulfilled, inquired whether he himself were the person destined to fulfil them.]
2. That there is no person so eminent, but he has reason to distrust himself —
[Had our Lord said, that some alien from his family should betray him, it might have been supposed that a person impious enough should be found. But shall such an one be found amongst his own Disciples, who have heard all his public discourses, and been instructed also by him in private, and beheld all his mi- racles, and been distinguished by him above all others amongst the sons of men ? Yes, even amongst them shall this traitor be found. Not all the advantages that ever were enjoyed by mortal man, nor all the grace that was ever given to mortal man, will be sufficient to uphold him, if God, for one moment, withdraw from him his everlasting arms. A more holy man than David cannot be found : yet, after years of most distin- guished piety, he fell, as you well know, into sin of the deepest die. Who that had seen Solomon, too, at the dedication of the temple, would have supposed it possible that he should abandon himself to such a course as he pursued during the greater part of his life ? And who are we, that we should think ourselves beyond the reach of temptation and sin ? " Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." To the most devout and holy amongst you all will I say, " Be not high- minded, but fear." And when the most hateful picture of human deformity is exhibited to your view in the ministry of the word, do not begin to say with yourselves, " I wish that such or such an one were here to behold it ! " but rather, with holy jealousy over yourselves, lift up your hearts to God, and say, " Lord, is it I ? Lord, is it I?" Then pour out your souls before him ; and with fervent supplication cry, " Search me, O Lord, and know my heart ; try me, and know my thoughts ; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting f."]
3. That the foreknowledge of God does not at all lessen the criminality of our acts —
[The Apostles did not, for a moment, entertain the absurd and impious thought, that the impiety predicted would be less criminal because it was foreseen. The action would be not a whit the less voluntary on this account ; and the woe denounced by our Lord against the perpetrator of it was not, in any degree, the less merited or less severe.
f Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24.