The Mystery of Lawlessness

That such mournful occasions as the present should continue to recur, year after year, in a Christian country; with symptoms apparently unmitigated by the progress which knowledge and refinement have for so long a time confessedly been making—this cannot but excite very serious and awful reflections in those, who are disposed to regard life in a religious point of view, and not to let things pass unthought of, only because they are frequent and familiar.

Indeed, if men will childishly look on these solemnities only as pageants, without intending to be at all the better for them—or if they take up with the narrow and short-sighted views of the mere worldly politician respecting them—it is no wonder if they go away, as under the same disposition of mind they go away from public worship, not the better, but the worse, for their attendance on it.

For the administration of justice, of criminal justice particularly, in the graver cases, is in many respects not unlike the public worship of God. To His especial presence there is constant appeal made in the one as well as in the other. In proportion as men allow themselves to attend on either out of mere levity or curiosity, they run a risk of hardening their own consciences, and deadening their sense of right and wrong (Cf. Butler's Analogy, p. 1. c. 5. p. 116. Oxf. Ed. 1807). And though public worship, of the two, be the more immediately concerned with men’s eternal welfare, yet, if the administration of justice have anything at all to do with it, however incidentally and indirectly, it is surely as real an offence against reason to leave another world out of sight on these occasions, as it would be to confine one’s estimate of the purposes of social worship to bare external decency, and the peace and order of civil society.

It is an absurdity, too, particularly unworthy of refined and educated minds. For they ought ever to be distinguished by taking the largest views, and selecting what is most important, in every subject, as matter of chief consideration. Considering, then, in this enlarged way of thinking, the abundance of crimes and lawsuits, so far as it is indicative, not now of the civil and social, but of the spiritual, condition of our age; considering it as one instance of “iniquity abounding” among us; we may find ourselves engaged in a train of thought, not only melancholy, but at first sight also perplexing.

For “what,” it may be enquired, “is, after all, the great benefit of Christianity? It came into the world, professing to bring with it a sovereign remedy for all the diseases of our moral nature. It has now been among men for eighteen hundred years, and the world seems, on a large view of it, to be much about where it was (cf. Miller's Bampton Lectures, pp. 71–76, 129—131). Some degrading customs may be obsolete, some brutish vices discountenanced. But the temper of men in general seems as worldly and selfish, as far from true goodness and happiness, as ever. “How,” it may be asked, “are such things consistent with the claim advanced in the Gospel to superior knowledge of what was in man, and to the praise of being exactly adapted to his nature? Or with what we are told of the temper and conduct of those, who first gave in their names to the Christian institution?”

Such thoughts as these may indeed make a Christian sorrowful, and ought to render him very circumspect. But he need not be long perplexed by them. For it may, without much difficulty, be shewn, that the very depravity, by which the Church is overrun, and by which unbelievers would startle and confound her advocates, furnishes, in fact, an irrefragable argument for her divine authority as the representative of our Blessed Lord. It was the great subject of His own express prophecy: and that prophecy so peculiar in its tone and circumstances, as to be distinguished, not only from casual coincidences, or sagacious glances at futurity, but also from all inspired predictions ever delivered by mere men.

Some perhaps may be inclined to doubt, whether it is correct to speak of the iniquity of our own times as having been within the immediate contemplation of our Savior, when He delivered the prophecy in the text. I would just observe, therefore, that the general argument on which I am about to enter, as well as many of the practical conclusions, to which the whole enquiry may give rise, will be found to stand unaffected by such a difference of interpretation.

But, indeed, it is hardly possible to explain this chapter of St. Matthew consistently, without considering it as a general description of the latter times, or days of the Messiah: i.e., of the whole period of time from the first promulgation of Christianity to the end of the world. The destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, the first great event of the New Dispensation, is brought prominently forward, to be, as it were, a voucher for the correctness of the whole representation, to such as lived in those times. And therefore it is given with more of detail, than any other part of the prophecy: so that when it should come to pass, the men of that generation, beholding the wonderful agreement of the event with the prediction, might be forced to confess, that all was indeed being fulfilled, exactly as Jesus Christ had foretold. The destruction therefore of Jerusalem stands in order of time rather as the beginning, than as the termination, of this awful prophecy.

In support of this it should be considered that the prediction, when first delivered, was a private one: not heard by the Jewish nation, but by four only of the chosen Apostles. We must then look upon it as addressed to Christians, not to Jews. And one should expect it to turn principally upon the fortunes of Christianity, not to terminate in those of the Jewish Church.

The question likewise of the Apostles, to which it was an answer, referred primarily indeed to the downfall of the temple, but principally to the establishment and fortunes of the New Dispensation. “Tell us, when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world!”

The Apostles seem to have imagined, not unnaturally, that when once the Jewish city and temple were destroyed, the old things passed away, and the days of the Messiah begun, all would be peace, righteousness, and mercy, and the sin and miseries of mankind would cease forever. Jesus Christ, therefore, is careful to explain to them, on this as on many other occasions, that although they judged quite rightly of the natural and essential tendencies of the Gospel, they were greatly mistaken as to its real results in this world. “Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to divide a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s another occasion, when the approaching reign of the Messiah had been the topic of discourse with the Pharisees, He turned to His disciples with an admonition, well calculated to check any too sanguine expectations, which the bare mention of His reign would be likely to excite within them. “Days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man,” (i.e. to recall the times when I was with you visibly on earth,) “and shall not see it.” “As the days of Noe were, and as the days of Lot were, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man.” He will not shew Himself again, till the world is sunk into such a state of irreligion and iniquity, as can only be paralleled by the sinners just before the flood, or by Sodom before the fire and brimstone fell upon it from heaven.”

It is reasonable to understand this later and not less solemn denunciation, of which the text forms a part, as addressed in great measure to the same state of mind in His Apostles. “You think all is going to be rectified, and the world to become a Paradise again. But I forewarn you to expect no such thing. There will still be false Christs, i.e., false religions, wars, earthquakes, famines, pestilences, troubles in the world at large: and what is worse, and more contrary to your expectations, there will not only be persecution against the Church from without, but all sorts of apostasy and iniquity within. Then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another: and many false prophets shall arise and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of the many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations: and then shall the end come.” The whole, I say, of the prophecy down to this point, appears to convey a general description of the latter times, or days of the Messiah, intended, amongst other purposes, to counteract the too flattering hopes of the disciples: which being provided for, the direct and immediate sign of the destruction of Jerusalem, (itself possibly a type of something to precede in like manner the end of the world”,) is distinctly specified: i.e. “the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place.”

From this it appears, that in describing the condition of mankind under the New Dispensation, which Jesus Christ was about to bring into the world, He expressly inserted this circumstance, that in it “iniquity should abound.” Iniquity, or transgression of the law, means sin, or immorality in general. This we know by St. John’s definition: “Whosoever committeth sin, transgresseth also the law. For sin is the transgression of the law.” This transgression Christ declares should be “multiplied:” the word is as strong as possible, to express almost unlimited increase and repetition”. And it is added, that in consequence of this, “the love of many”—it should be, of “the greater part”—would “wax cold.” That is, the prevailing immorality of the times would gradually extinguish charity, or the love of God, in the generality of mankind. They would no longer consent to forego their own wishes for His sake: they would no longer make it the business of their lives to please Him. And this, not from ignorance of the great things He had done for them: for it is not of dark ages that our Lord is speaking, but of times, in which “the Gospel is to be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations’.”

Now that iniquity, in this sense of plain dis obedience to God’s laws, does positively “abound” to a great extent among us: this seems so very evident, that one should hardly know how to go about to prove it, if it were denied. One or two obvious considerations may however help us to form a juster estimate of the amount of that evil, which, from its being so close and familiar to us, we are sure, without very particular attention, to underrate.

All the forms and rules of legal and commercial business imply, as much as ever they did, that mankind are, on the whole, wicked and immoral. Hardly anyone dares venture his property, his reputation, or his comfort, upon the chance of a stranger’s honesty or kindness, without the safe guard of human laws and punishments. That is, in other words, everyone shapes his conduct, in regard to his worldly interests, upon the notion that sin and wickedness abound.

More particularly are the enemies of Christianity witnesses, that in this prediction at least, Jesus Christ spake the truth. For one of their main objections to it—an objection, for which thousands are the worse, who never advanced it as an express proposition—is this: That Christians (i.e., the majority of men, for everyone is presumed to call himself a Christian, till we know to the contrary) act as immorally as if they were heathens, and therefore cannot be supposed themselves to believe what they profess.

Jesus Christ then anticipated and predicted the general failure of His Gospel, at least for a long period, in working anything like a complete reformation even among those who should profess it: and the event has shewn, by the confession of His adversaries themselves, that He anticipated and predicted truly.

Now it is notorious, that those who invent any project for the good of mankind, commonly entertain high hopes of the success of their inventions: at least in the outset of their career. A physician, who has discovered a new medicine—a mechanist, who has brought a new force into action—are seldom found to expect too little fruit of their labors. And it is matter of constant experience that the like holds good in those, who are the first to set on foot extensive plans for the moral and religious improvement of their fellow-creatures. They set out, almost invariably, with expecting, as was emphatically said of one of them, “to convert the world”:” and nothing short of actual experience will undeceive them.

A generous enthusiast, therefore, could not have spoken in the tone which our Savior uniformly adopts on this subject. It is against the very nature of enthusiasm. Still less would an impostor have thought it prudent thus openly to augur defeat.

Besides, it is clear that in either of these cases the prediction would have adapted itself to the Jewish prophecies, as they would be generally and obviously understood. Now the tone, which at first sight appears to prevail in the Jewish prophecies, whenever the reign of the Messiah is spoken of, is a tone as unlike what has been described, as can well be imagined. Consider such expressions as the following: “Thy people also shall be all righteous.” “I will direct their work in truth, and will make an everlasting covenant with them: and their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.” “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Any anticipations which could be derived from hence, would evidently be the very reverse of iniquity abounding, and the love of the greater part waxing cold.

Concerning these and similar passages of the Old Testament, I would farther remark, that even after all the warnings of our Savior, and after the event has gone so far towards leading us to seek another interpretation of them, they are still made to justify assertions, too sanguine, I fear, and fanciful to be of much practical use, of the actual improvement of Christendom in holiness and virtue, and of the apparent dawning of a state of things, even in this world, in which sin and sorrow shall be, comparatively, no more. Much more must it have appeared natural, in the time of our Savior, to expect something like a real reformation of the world upon the establishment of the New Dispensation. These anticipations would, of course, grow more and more sanguine, as the observer came to know more and more of the perfection of the new doctrines, and also of the overpowering evidence—the mighty hand and out-stretched arm—by which they were upheld and furthered. Now, no one could be so thoroughly aware of these things—could have such entire knowledge, either of the perfection of His doctrines, or of the amount of their evidence—as our Blessed Lord Himself. And therefore His foretelling, in spite of all this, the real state of things just as we behold it, is the strongest possible proof that He was indeed a Prophet, and more than a Prophet: and that He knew, in a way peculiar to Himself, all that was in man.

I say, “in a way peculiar to Himself.” For it will appear upon consideration, that there is indeed something very peculiar in the tone of these predictions: something quite different, not only from the natural expectations of uninspired men, but also from the manner of His inspired messengers themselves, whether before or after His coming.

It is true indeed, that the more we know of human nature, the less shall we be inclined to reckon certainly upon success in any method proposed for ameliorating it. Accordingly, we find that Socrates, the wisest, practically, of the ancient philosophers, was also, apparently, the least sanguine, openly declaring, that he did not expect men would ever be taught what was really good for them, except by an interposition from above”; and anticipating the probable fate of a perfectly righteous man, if such should appear on earth, in the following very remarkable words”: “Let us suppose him (says he) doing no injury, to have on him the strongest imputation of injustice: let him not swerve even unto death, accounted unrighteous throughout his life, but being righteous. Under these circumstances, the just man will be scourged, racked, imprisoned, his eyes burned out—at last, suffering all manner of evils, will perish by a vile and tormenting death.”

It is to be observed, however, that these words were not written, till after the event had shewn, what kind of success a philosopher might expect in his benevolent efforts for the good of mankind. There is nothing to make us believe, that Socrates did not look forward hopefully, at first, to the fruit of his labors, in the reformation of his countrymen. And when he speaks of a possible divine revelation, it does not appear that he at all contemplated any probability of its failing in this respect. The tone, in which that dialogue is conducted, would rather lead one to infer the contrary. Ill as his experience had taught him to think of the chance of bringing mankind to a truer sense of their own interest, it never entered his thoughts to apprehend, that an interposition even from God Himself might be so far frustrated by the wickedness of His creatures.

But the singularity of our Lord’s manner of speaking on this subject will be still more evident, upon comparing it with that of former Prophets; with Moses, for instance, or with Elijah; the most remarkably gifted of them all, and therefore the fittest to be brought into comparison with Him on this argument.

No portion perhaps of the Old Testament sounds so nearly in unison with His predictions, or speaks in so calm and decided a tone of the certain falling off of those, to whom it was addressed, as do the concluding chapters of the book of Deuteronomy: “I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death! Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them. For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger with the work of your hands.”

But when these words were written, Moses was very old, and had been used for forty years to see his countrymen rebel against God, even in sight of His glory, and while “the meat,” which they received by miracle, was yet “between their teeth.” Consider him in the outset of his ministry, and before the effect of those wonderful manifestations had been tried, and he too will appear to have been sanguine at first: as indeed who would not have been, with such means as he had in his hands? None but a sanguine person would have broken the tables of the Covenant, upon seeing the people worshipping the molten calf’. It was the act of a man bitterly disappointed: forced to part in a moment with expectations long and fondly cherished, and, humanly speaking, not unreasonable, of seeing the fruit of God’s mercy, and his own labors, in the steady obedience of his people.

Again: when God had so signally answered the prayers of Elijah by fire on mount Carmel, and the backsliders had been driven in spite of themselves to acknowledge the true God, and, what was more, to aid His minister in the slaughter of the worshippers of Baal; it was no wonder, if the Prophet expected much more lasting amendment than he found: if he felt weary of the world, and in his disappointment prayed to die, when he saw persecution and idolatry likely to be still as prosperous as ever.

But it is indeed a wonder and bespeaks evidently the presence of one greater than Elijah or Moses, to observe Jesus Christ, with all His miracles, and with such discoveries as He had to make, never for a moment miscalculating in the same way. There are no traces, in His demeanor, of any such revolution of thought, as most speculative men sooner or later experience, when their first visions of approaching general improvement are to be exchanged, more or less suddenly, for sadder, but more correct, and therefore (if it be not their own faults) more useful, views. He speaks sorrowfully indeed, and most affectingly, but not like one disappointed. There is no difference, in this respect, between the end of His ministry and the beginning: between His address to His own city Nazareth, where, if anywhere, He might fairly have depended upon doing much good, and His mournful expostulation with Jerusalem in the last week of His life. “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes”

His calm forebodings, every now and then, of the ruinous effect, which the knowledge of the Gospel would have upon very many, sound most exceedingly awful: “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” And, “If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” An evident allusion to the way, in which His last and greatest miracle would be generally resisted and made void, as the witness of the Old Testament had been. Yet farther: the very Apostles of our Lord, after all His warnings, could hardly bring themselves to anticipate anything like the present fallen state of the Church. The way to make this out most clearly, will be to compare their earlier with their later writings, and see which of the two exhibit most of the tone and manner of our Blessed Savior in this respect: St. Peter’s first Epistle, for instance, with his second: or St. Paul writing to the Galatians, evidently under a feeling of surprise at the introduction of a spirit of Judaism, with the same St. Paul, calmly warning the Hebrews against an approaching spirit of practical unbelief, and entire apostasy.

The second Epistle to Timothy, if carefully examined, will be found to present, in the tone of the writer, some remarkable points of difference from the first. Both contain prophecies of “a falling away” in the latter times. But the first speaks, apparently, of avowed unbelief: “In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits.” The other, of what is far more disheartening, and less likely to be calculated on beforehand: “In the last days perilous times shall come. For,” not “some,” but “the generality of men,” “the men of those times”—“shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, in continent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”

Both these Epistles, again, speak of individuals who had fallen away from Christ, but with a similar variation of manner. In the first Epistle, “Some having put away a good conscience, concerning faith have made shipwreck.” “Some have erred from the faith.” “Some have already turned aside after Satan:” as though it were matter of surprise. Whereas in the second Epistle, when he comes to speak of similar cases, the tone of surprise is greatly abated, and that of sorrow deepened. “This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me.” “Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world;” “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charges.”

Yet even in these instances, particularly the last, how unlike is the manner of speaking to that of Jesus Christ upon such occasions! “Do ye now believe Behold, the hour cometh, yea is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own and shall leave Me alone.” “Wilt thou lay down thy life for My sake Verily I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied Me thrice’.” The one speaks as an Omniscient Being, to whom nothing was wonderful. The other, as a poor frail man, liable to be deceived, from time to time, in his best hopes and surest reckonings.

Upon this subject, of what St. Paul anticipated, I cannot forbear citing one passage, as associating itself, more immediately, with the occasion of the present solemnity. Some of the Corinthians, it seems, being at variance one with another, had brought their cause before the customary judicature of the city. St. Paul denounces this as unchristian, and this is the remonstrance which he addressed to them”. “Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust,” i.e., the heathens, “and not before the saints. Do ye not know, that the saints shall judge the world! and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers’ Now, therefore, there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? Nay, ye do wrong and defraud, and that your brethren. Know ye not, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God?” He who writes in this strain, could he possibly have anticipated, in a country where Christianity has been long established, and in which it is an affront, to suppose a man an unbeliever—could he, I say, have anticipated such a state of things, as that of which we are witnesses? prisons so crowded, suits so numerous and various, statutes so rapidly multi plying, a large profession constantly and laboriously employed, courts almost incessantly sitting, assizes twice a year! It is plain, that no such thing ever entered into his thoughts: and if he had been to frame prophecies for himself, this was of all pictures the least likely for him to have drawn, of the times in which the Gospel should be very generally received.

One observation more, and the argument, as far as concerns the New Testament, may be regarded as tolerably complete. Let it be examined, which of all its human authors appear to have had the deepest sense of the universal degeneracy, which was to be looked for among Christians. They will appear to have been the very persons, who from birth or other causes were likely to have imbibed most of the sentiments of Jesus Christ Himself: St. James and St. Jude, who are called in Scripture His brethren; and St. John His beloved disciple, These, when they speak of approaching apostasy, speak calmly and decisively, as of a familiar, though very sorrowful, thought. When they recommend moral duties, they do it as men who are aware that the great majority of their hearers will devise how to slight or evade them. Everywhere they assume, that those to whom they address themselves know the truth, and that it is but the plain common sense of doing their duty, in which they are deficient. They, therefore, lay their danger before them, not as though they reckoned upon doing much good by it, but as if it were their best and only chance of doing any. This, though not without exception, is the prevailing tone of the three brethren of our Lord. But it is, I think, uniformly and without exception, the tone of our Blessed Lord Himself, in His public ministrations.

The falsehood, then, of our religion—the fraud or enthusiasm of its Author—is the very last conclusion, to which a reasonable man would be led, upon considering the abundance of iniquity in the Christian world. On the contrary, things have been so ordered, that the very degeneracy of the Church is bearing, at this moment, the strongest possible testimony to the divine authority of Jesus Christ. For in it a prophecy is accomplishing before our eyes, so unlike what could have been expected when it was first delivered, that His own friends and apostles, as we have now seen, could hardly bring themselves to receive it; and do not seem to have apprehended its full import, even when they repeated it themselves.

To find fault, therefore, with the Gospel, as many do, for not having made men better than they are, is to find fault with it for not having done that, which its Founder never expected it would do: nay, that in which He expressly predicted its failure.

If men will go on to ask, How these things should be? How we can possibly reconcile it to infinite wisdom and goodness, that so large a portion of the world should be in that strange and frightful condition, which is implied in the words, “immoral Christian;”—with a God, a Savior, and a judgment to come, known and believed by almost all in theory, and, almost as universally, slighted in practice:—the same account may be given of this, as of the permission of moral evil in general: that we cannot possibly be competent judges, how far it may conduce towards carrying on some greater scheme of Divine Wisdom, of which we, and all our concerns, form only a subordinate part. And we may apply, particularly, to the present subject, what Bishop Butler has remarked on this whole class of difficulties:

“It is not impossible, that men’s shewing and making manifest, what is in their heart, what their real character is, may have respect to a future life, in ways and manners which we are not acquainted with: particularly it may be a means (for the Author of Nature does not appear to do anything without means) of their being disposed of suitably to their characters; and of its being known to the creation, by way of ex ample, that they are thus disposed of.”

But whether this, or any other, be accepted, as a probable, though imperfect, solution of present appearances, (and surely anything is more probable than Atheism): it is clear that the difficulty, as far as it respects the Scripture, is entirely done away with, when it is seen, that the Scriptures themselves recognize and imply the very same state of things, which seems so unaccountable at first. There are some passages, which appear to represent it in this particular point of view: viz. as a cause of mental perplexity to speculative and curious men. Possibly the expression, “Mystery of Iniquity”,” used so significantly in one place, may have respect to something of this kind. It seems to be set in opposition to the Mystery of Godliness: the one standing for the whole of what God would do to save mankind; the other, for the whole of what they would do to ruin themselves: and the word Mystery giving us to understand, that there would be something, at first sight, startling and unaccountable, something contrary to all human speculations, in the one as well as in the other.

To conclude: It being morally demonstrable, as I am persuaded it is upon a general view of Scripture, (whatever may be thought of the aptitude of particular citations,) that we are living in the times, are ourselves among the persons, concerning whom these prophecies were delivered—this is indeed a thought, not hastily to be dismissed from the mind of any reasonable person. If a man knew on good authority, that Jesus Christ did, at such and such a time, make mention of the particular date and place of His own birth, declaring also that all persons, then and there born, would live in peculiar danger; in “a perilous time;” in “days which must be shortened, or no flesh could be saved;” would it not be a very pressing call upon that man, to walk in fear and trembling; to mistrust appearances, and the judgment of the world; to mistrust himself, and his own standard of right and wrong, and to feel no security, but in the constant exercise of humiliation, self-denial, and prayer? The words formerly addressed to one in the act of quitting a home just about to be destroyed, would very nearly describe, I should think, the temper most becoming and natural in one, who knew himself to be concerned in such a prophecy. “Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.” It would be particularly unsuitable for him to allow himself to be satisfied with the praise of an age, which, he knew on such high authority, measured things by so defective a standard. He could not reasonably flatter himself, upon having observed the law of the land, or kept up a good character among his neighbors. For all this, at most, would only show, that he was not the worst, outwardly, in a bad world. But of his progress in charity—in the love of God—in the resignation of the whole will and purpose of heart entirely to Him and His service, — it would prove absolutely nothing.

Now, whatever frame of mind would be natural and reasonable in a person so circumstanced, is natural and reasonable for every Christian living in the latter times: as much so, as if the prophecies had been addressed to each individual by name; unless we will say, that the danger is less imminent because there are so many to share in it; or that the description does not apply to us and our times, because it is spread over so large a portion of history besides and takes in so many who have lived before us.

These things, or something equivalent to them, may indeed and will be said. Nor does there seem much reason to hope, that any great portion of those concerned in our Lord’s warning, will ever be brought to see their own defection and danger in the just and true light. Warning has been long ago given, that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” And there is a sort of blinding power in this moral disease, which makes the result but too probable, even were it not a matter of prophecy. Men cannot comprehend their own perils, because, being more and more used to self-indulgence, they cannot perceive how it should be so ruinous as it is: much on the same principle that the Saints, entering most into the mind of Him Who was alone without sin, have all along been most thoroughly enabled to discern clearly from the beginning, and state as matter of course, the full amount of the mischief it would do.

Meanwhile it is infinitely important to observe, that great and near as the danger surely is, it is, as surely, in each individual’s own power to escape from it if he will. As an earnest of which, we see it is wonderfully ordered, that the visible Church of Christ should still continue among us according to His promise, in the full enjoyment of all the means of grace, and generally acknowledged even by those, whose lives are most adverse to the Gospel. And, as far as we can see, there is as little chance of its ever being extinguished, as there is of its members ever becoming, generally, such as they profess and ought to be.

Let us recollect also, that we have to do with a good and gracious Father, Who has promised in one instance, and will doubtless perform it in all, that “if there be first a willing mind,”—a sincere alacrity in doing His will,—He will accept it “according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.” We may hope that a less degree of positive holiness, if it were the very best a man could attain to, under his circumstances, may be as richly crowned hereafter, as a greater progress would have been in better and less seducing times. It ought not to need remarking, that this is said to prevent despondency, not to encourage sloth and self-indulgence.

Finally: If there be any one temper of mind, which suits better than others with so awful a situation as Christians are now placed in, it is the temper of perfect resignation and singleness of purpose: a constant inward appeal, as it were, from a bad and seducing world to a good God, Who cannot flatter or deceive us. These dispositions will carry us through all our duties, whether public or private, with the least possible countenance to the prevailing degeneracy; and with as much real inward satisfaction, as can prudently be looked for in the present state of things: thankfully remembering, that the very same persons, among whom it was foretold, “Iniquity should abound,” and “ the love of the generality wax cold,” are also those for whose benefit the gracious promise was added, “He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”