just regard to the Holy Scriptures. Whatever was contrary to their preconceived opinions, they ridiculed as enthusiasm'. Their lives, as might be expected, were in perfect consistency with their sentiments : they lived, almost as much as the heathen themselves, " without God in the world."
Behold in them, as in a mirror, the present generation ! The rich, the gay, the men of learning and philosophy, are too generally of this description. Though they have never searched the Scriptures for themselves, they are as confident of the truth of their sentiments as they could be, if they had laboured ever so diligently to ascertain the mind of God. They laugh at all serious religion ; and represent the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of a true Christian, as symptoms of melancholy, and as the offspring of a heated imagination.
Can we wonder that our blessed Lord cautioned his disciples against such a state as this ? Or can any of us be too much on our guard against it ?]
The propriety of this caution will further appear, while we proceed,
II. To assign some reasons for it —
We shall not insist on any reasons that were peculiar to the Apostles ; but touch rather on those that are applicable to every age. The caution is necessary at all times :
1. Because of our proneness to the evils we are guarded against —
[We need only notice the habits of all around us, from youth to manhood, and from maturity to old age ; we shall then see to what every man is by nature inclined. Pleasure beguiles the earlier periods of life, and care corrodes our ad- vanced or declining years. Nor is this peculiar to any time or place. In these respects, human nature is every where, and at all times, the same. Some indeed are more inclined to Pharisaic pride, and others to Sadducean indifference : and it is common to see persons, after a life of dissipation, passing from one to the other of these states. But where do we find those who are of themselves inclined to unreserved piety ? Who ever was by nature humble and contrite ? Who ever by nature hated all kinds of sin, and delighted in the exercises of vital godliness? Instances of early piety, it is true, may be found : but their piety was the fruit of the Spirit, and not the product of unassisted nature.
Is not this then a reason why the caution should be given ?
1 Acts xvii. 32.