516 ROMANS, XIII. Ik [1914.
when surrounded by an immense multitude of people who pressed upon him for instruction, began his dis- course with a solemn warning to his more immediate Disciples, to " beware of hypocrisy a." And on an- other occasion he said to them, " Take heed to your- selves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness \" Such an exhor- tation, now addressed to a believer, would be deemed superfluous and legal: but experience too sadly proves, that such warnings are yet necessary in the Church of Christ: and, if the teachers of religion, from an idea of taking a sublimer course, omit to warn their people against intemperance, impurity, or any other sin, they must consider themselves as accountable to God for those enormities in the Church, which they have neglected to hold up to public reprobation. If it be thought that this, though suited to the infant state of the Church, was needless when Christianity was more fully revealed, and more completely esta- blished ; what, I would ask, shall we say to that address of St. Paul to the Colossian Church ? " Mortify your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry :" and again, " Lie not one to another0." If, indeed no such things as these ever occurred amongst the professors of Christianity, we might, in our addresses to them at least, wave all notice of them : but, as this is not the case, we must still say to all without exception, " Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying :" and, as the only sure preven- tive of such excesses, we must add, " Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof."
In these words we have a most important admoni- tion conveyed,
I. In a way of plain direction —
Some have understood the Apostle's expression as
a Luke xii. 1. b Luke xxi. 34. c Col. iii. 5, 9.