may bring forth, or what a change may, through the influence of some unforeseen temptation, be speedily wrought in his moral or religious character.
Consider farther, what both Scripture and experience teach us on this very subject. Do not the Scriptures tell us, that many had already " made shipwreck both of faith and a good conscience d," and that in the latter times such defections would be very numerouse ? St. Paul's expostulation with some of the Galatian Church deserves particular notice in this point of view : " Now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage ? I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed on you labour in vain f." Why are we so often and so urgently cautioned against " being moved away from the hope of the Gospel," and " falling from our own steadfastness," if no such instance could occur ? Is the case of Demas no warning to us ? And have we not our- selves either known, or heard of, many, who, like him, " after running well for a season, have been hindered," and, like Lot's wife, become monuments and warnings to all around them 1 Are the stony-ground hearers, and the thorny-ground so rare in the Church, that there is no foundation for the supposition in our text ?]
To attempt to invalidate the supposition by an appeal to human systems, is highly inexpedient —
[We never can sufficiently deplore the use which is made of human systems. Men will attach themselves to some fallible creature like themselves, and so adopt his sentiments, as to reject even the Scripture itself, when its declarations militate against their favourite opinions. There are in the Church of God not a few, who would shut their ears against a faithful exposition of our text, as much as they would against blas- phemy itself; because they cannot reconcile the leading senti- ment contained in it with the dogmas of their party. But who are we that we are to sit in judgment upon the sacred records, and to wrest from its obvious meaning every sentence which does not accord with our views ? That there is no real contradiction between the supposition in our text, and many declarations in Scripture which have an opposite aspect, we could easily shew, if it would not draw us too far from our subject: but suffice it to say, that many assertions, which are erroneously thought opposite to each other, have in reality a subserviency the one to the other, and, like wheels moving in an opposite direction, concur to the production of one common end. I therefore entreat you, brethren, not to attempt to
d 1 Tim. i. 19. e 1 Tim. iv. 1. f Gal. iv. 9, 11.