bidding them to hold fast the profession of their faith without wavering ; and warning them, that, if they turned back from God, it would be to their everlast- ing perdition.
In the words which I have just read, he sets forth, I. The evil of apostasy —
It is not of all sin, or even of all wilful sin, that he speaks : for, if there were no pardon for wilful sin after baptism, or after we have embraced the Gospel, who could hope ever to attain salvation, since there is not a man in the universe who has not, on some one occasion at least, knowingly and wilfully done what he ought not, or left undone what he ought to have done. The sin spoken of in the text, is, a total and wilful apostasy from the Gospel of Christ. This appears from the whole context, both from that which precedes, and that which follows. In the pre- ceding context he bids them to " hold fast the pro- fession of their faith without wavering;" and then he adds, "for, if we sin wilfully ;" that is, by re- nouncing our holy profession, we reduce ourselves to the most awful condition that can be imagined ; seeing that, having put away all affiance in the sacri- fice of Christ, there remains no other sacrifice for our sins. In the following context the sin is opened at large under three separate heads, which, whilst they mark distinctly the nature of the sin which is intended, display the evil of it in most tremendous colours.
Let us consider each of them in its order — [Apostasy, he tells us, is a " treading under foot the Son of God." The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, came down from heaven to seek and to save them that were lost. We, when we are baptized in his name, or make a profession of faith in him, acknowledge him before all to be the Saviour of the world. All other lords we then renounce ; and all other grounds of hope before God ; and in effect we say with Peter, " Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life : and we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God^" But when we renounce our faith in
a John vi. G8, 69.