told to " come out from the ungodly world, and not to touch the unclean thing," if we would have the presence and the bless- ing of our Godz. Our eyes, our ears, " our hearts, we must keep with all diligence3;" for it is by resisting Satan that we must overcome himb: and then only, when we, on our part, contend manfully with him, are we authorized to hope that " God will bruise him under our feetc."]
z 2 Cor. vi. 17. a Job xxxi. 1. Prov. iv. 23.
b Jam. iv. 7. c Eph. vi. 11, 13. Rom. xvi. 20.
1 John ii. 20. Ye have an miction from the Holy One, and ye
knoiv all things.
IT is a melancholy fact, that, in every age of the Church, persons have arisen from the bosom of the Church herself, not only to " speak perverse things, and draw away disciples after them*," but even to introduce " damnable heresies, and to deny the Lord that bought themV Such antichrists had been foretold by our Lord himself; and, even in the apostolic age they existed in great numbers0. These persons, for a length of time, could not be distin- guished from the truly pious : for though the more eminent Christians, who had "the gift of discerning spirits," might see something materially wrong in the spirit and temper of their minds, yet, inasmuch as their defects were not generally visible, nor of so determined a character as to call for public censure, they were suffered to grow up as tares among the wheat, till, by their own wilful apostasy, they mani- fested their character before all. From their conta- gion, however, the truly upright were preserved. And that which was made instrumental to their pre- servation was, " an unction from the Holy One," whereby they were enabled to " discern all things," and consequently, by " proving all things, to hold fast that which was good."
a Acts xx. 30. b 2 Pet. ii. 1. c ver. 18.