Sermons, On Practical Subjects - new book

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON LXIX. Matthew xii. 31. Rut the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men . nnHE severity of the sentence here pronounced has been the unhappy occasion of much distress and difficulty to persons of timid or ill-informed understandings; who, whilst they have laboured under the horrors of a mind conscious of having deserved the divine displeasure, have but too readily persuaded themselves, at the same time, that they have beenguilty of that dreadful and atrocious crime, here mentioned, which " shall " not be forgiven, neither in this world, " neither in the world to come." I hope, therefore, that an attempt to set this crime in a clear and intelligible light, (for the benefit of my less instructed hearers) will be received with candour, though it should neither come recommended with the graces of diction, which would ill accord with a subject of this nature, nor convey, perhaps, any new discovery to those, who want not the means of better information, I mean not, however, to enter into that mass of controversy, which has unhappily been accumulated on this, subject, or to develope the several mj-ste- rious interpretations, which have been given of the words of the text. We are happy enough to see the time, when religion is equally divested of those meretricious, ornaments and unintelligible subtle ties which belong not to it; and when the plain and updisguised truth, as it is in Jesus, wants neither the glare of false embellishments to recommend, nor the sophistry and jargon of the schools to supportport and defend it. I shall therefore content myself with explaining the nature of the sin against the Holy Ghost, as it is clearly to be collected from considering the occasion on which the words of the text were spoken, and also some collateral passa...