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Now it extends its aim to permanent delufion. Now it misleads in a special inftance by fuggefting unfound conclufions from juft and recognised principles of conduct. Now it attains its purpofe by exalting a falfe principle into the place and fovereignty of the true. Of all the machinations of error the laft, though among the most difficult to carry into effect, portends, when its victory is affured, the most durable and the most extenfive mifchief. The disease of a single branch infects but the fruit of that branch. The rill drawn afide from the main current is alone polluted by the impurities of the channel into which it is diverted. Is the whole produce to be corrupted? Canker the root. Is the whole ftream to be tainted? Poison the fountain.

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Such is the nature of the offence, against which in the paffage of Scripture before us a woe is denounced by the prophet. In other parts of the chapter, fpeaking, as here alfo, by the command and in the person of the Almighty, he proclaims vengeance from God against various defcriptions of finners: against the covetous, who join houfe to house and lay field to field: against fenfualifts, who follow ftrong drink, and cheer their feafts with the barp and the viol, but regard not the work of

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the Lord: against the self-righteous, who are wife in their own eyes and prudent in their own fight againft fcoffers, who deride the Jongfuffering of God, and call upon him to make Speed and baften his counfels against iniquitous judges, who for a bribe justify the wicked, and take away the righteousness of the righteous against thofe who, profeffing to be His people, through their own wilfulness have no knowledge of the real nature of religion, and are groaning under the appointed retribution of calamity and, by parity of reasoning, against all, who, like the finners felected as examples to illuftrate the general denunciation, have caft away the law of the Lord of hofts, and defpifed the word of the Holy One of Ifrael. In this catalogue of crimes and confequent woes the text has its ftation. Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for fweet, and fweet for bitter! Woe unto them, who in any one of the ramifications of the two component branches of religion, piety and morality; in any fubdivifion of human duties, whether it has God or man for its immediate object; establish a wicked principle in the place of the righteous oppofite either openly uphold the false rule of conduct, and openly vilify the true; or con

fine themselves to the tacit impeachment and fubverfion of the latter by a ftudied exaltation of the former.

I propofe, under the divine bleffing, to elucidate by fome inftances derived from modern life the guilt here ftigmatised by the mouth of God; and the present and future woes here denounced by the fame authority against every offender. The difcuffion lies at the root of all religion. Give me your diligent And may the Spirit of God bless the good feed, which I may be made the inftrument of fowing in your hearts!

attention.

I. Among the most prominent illuftrations of the prefent fubject we may produce those perfons, who represent enthusiasm as religion.

By enthusiasm, as applied with a reference to religion, I understand the fubjection of the judgement, in points of religious faith or practice, to the influence of the imagination. The forms under which this influence manifefts its predominance may be divers. The power which its exercises over one mind may in degree be greater or less than that which it poffeffes over another. But whereever, and in whatever shape and measure, it operates there, and in that shape and meafure, exifts enthusiasm.

In many inftances enthusiasm fuggefts unauthorised ideas of perfonal communication between the individual and the Deity; of perfonal inspiration fenfibly vouchfafed by the Holy Ghost in mode or measure different from that divine influence on the heart and understanding, which is promised to every Chriftian. Sometimes it deludes the mind with ideas equally unauthorised of the visible agency of the Spirit of God on others. On fome occafions it pronounces with no lefs decifion, and equally without the fanction of the Scriptures, that the miraculous interpofition of the finger of God is clearly discernible in a recent and perhaps customary event. And not feldom, it impels pious men to carry their views of a particular doctrine beyond the fober tenor of the Scriptural declarations concerning that doctrine. In this inftance, as the opinions of different perfons concerning the extent and importance of an individual doctrine may be various, enthusiasm is lefs eafily ascertained than when it appears under one of the preceding forms: and in confequence, is frequently imputed by the careless, the ignorant, and the prejudiced, when it does not exift. It is fufficient however for my prefent purpose, that under this shape also it is occasionally manifested.

Woe

Woe unto the world, faid our Lord, because of offences. For it must needs be that offences come: but woe unto that man, by whom the offence cometh. It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and be caft into the fea, than that he should offend one of thefe little ones (a). Enthusiasm entails a woe on the person whom it infects. It darkens his understanding it enflaves him more and more to the dreams of a heated fancy: it teaches him to judge whether he is in a ftate of falvation rather by internal impulfes and reveries than by a comparison of his own difpofitions and conduct with the characteristic marks, by which the Scriptures dif minate the true Chriftian: and thus contributes in various ways to enfnare him into errors dangerous to his foul, and to encrease the difficulties in the way of his return to the form of found doctrine, the words of truth and fobernefs. But its pernicious effects on others, the mischiefs fcattered far and wide by this evil when called good, are incalculable. Enthufiafm difparages genuine piety, and causes it to be defpised as lukewarm formality. It degrades many doctrines for the immoderate exaltation of one. It difgufts the fober and discourages the timid Chriftian. It expofes (a) Matth. xviii. 7. Luke, xvii. 2. Chrifti

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