disposition : and it is equally true that they act under the immediate influence of Satan1'. Now the great employment of Satan is to blind men's eyes, so that they may not see the Gospel ; precisely as the great office of the Holy Spirit is, to open men's eyes, that they may behold it1 : and, conse- quently, in doing Satan's work, they approve themselves his children k. And are they not in this enemies of all righteous- ness ? Where is there any true righteousness to be found, but among those who embrace the Gospel ? Look at the life of Christ and his Apostles, and see, if any thing like it ever was produced under the influence of false religion ? It is a curious fact, that they who are most adverse to the principles of the Gospel, are always complaining that its friends are too strict, and too precise, and "righteous over-much;" and thus they shew themselves enemies no less to the holiness of the Gospel, than to its free and full salvation.
How great then must be the evil of a conduct which entails on men such epithets as these !]
The danger of it is marked in the judgment he denounced —
[God smote this malicious adversary with blindness, agreeably to the declaration of St. Paul : and this blindness was an awful emblem of the blindness of his soul. We do not indeed expect that the enemies of the Gospel shall now receive such open demonstrations of God's displeasure ; (though we are far from thinking that such judgments are never executed:) but we are sure that spiritual blindness is the common fruit of hostility to the Gospel ; and that they who labour to blind others, can expect nothing but to be blinded themselves1. The blindness of Elymas was inflicted only " for a season," that he might repent, and " recover himself out of the snare of the devil, by whom he was led captive at his will:" and in like manner there is yet space given for repentance, even to the most inveterate opposers of the Gospel : but if they do not speedily acknowledge their guilt, they have reason to fear that ere long they will be given over to final impenitence, and their present blindness be succeeded by " the blackness of darkness for ever"1."]
Address —
1. Those who are inquiring after truth — [Of Sergius Paulus it is said, " He was a prudent man ;" and " he called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God." Moreover, when he had heard it, he disregarded
h Eph. ii. 2. » 2 Cor. iv. 4, 6. k John viii. 44.
1 Isai. vi. 9, 10. with Mark iv. 11, 12. m Isai. xxviii. 22. and Jude, ver. 11, 13.