difficult in the scriptures, will become intelligible, if we examine the occasion, and weigh the words.

The occasion is obvious to understand. Jesus had just cured a demoniac. The Pharisees had attested the fact, and could not deny its divine authority: their eyes decided in favour of Jesus Christ. But they had recourse to an extraordinary method of defaning his character. Unable to destroy the force of the miracle, they maintained that it proceeded from an impure source, and that it was by the power of the devil Jesus Christ healed this afflicted class of men. This was the occasion on which he pronounced the words we have recited.

The import of the expressions is equally easy to comprehend. Who is the Son of man? And who is the Holy Ghost? And what is it to speak against the one and the other? The Son of man is Jesus Christ revealed in human form. Without staying here to refute a mistake of the learned Grotius who pretends, because the article does not precede the word, it is not to be understood of our Saviour, but of men in general. To confirm the sense here attached to the term, we shall only observe, that St. Luke (chap. xii. 8.) after calling our Saviour the Son of man, immediately adds, Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: where it evidently follows, that by the Son of man, Jesus Christ must be understood. And though the expression may elsewhere have other significations, they have no connection with our subject.

By the Holy Ghost, must be understood the third person in the adorable Trinity; considered not only

as God, but as Author of the miracles achieved for the confirmation of the gospel. Hence, to speak against the Son of man, was to outrage the Lord Jesus; to render his doctaine suspected; to call his mission in question; and particularly to be offended at the humiliations which surrounded it on earth. Such was their conduct who said, Is not this the carpenter's son? Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? A gluttonous man, a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.

To speak against the Holy Ghost, was maliciously to reject a doctrine; when he who delivered it, confirmed the truth of it by so distinguished and evident a miracle as healing a demoniac ; and to ascribe those miracles to the devil, which, they were assured, had God alone for their author. Here, I conceive, is all the light we can derive from the text. And as many persons determine the sense of a text, not so much by the letter as the reputation of the interpreter, we must apprise them, that we have derived this explanation, not only from the writings of our most celebrated commentators who have espoused it, but also from the works of the most celebrated of the fathers -I mean Chrysostom. The following is the substance of his paraphrase on the text in St. Matthew" You have called me a deceiver, and an enemy of God; I forgive this reproach. Having some cause to stumble at the flesh with which I am clothed, you might not know who I am. But can you be ignorant that the casting out of demons, is the work of the Holy Ghost? For this cause, he who

says, that I do these miracles by Beelzebub, shall not obtain remission."

Such is the comment of Chrysostom, to whom we add the remark of an author, worthy of superior confidence; it is St. Mark, who subjoins these words: Because the Pharisees said he hath an unclean spirit. Hence it is inferred that the Pharisees, by ascribing the miracles of the Holy Ghost, to an unclean spirit, were guilty of the identical sin against the Holy Ghost, of which Jesus Christ had spoken; as to me is evidently proved.

The second text we shall explain, occurs in the fifth chapter of the first epistle of St. John. If any man see his brother sin, a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death: there is a sin unto death: I do not say that ye shall pray for it. On this question there are, as we usually say, as many opinions as parties.

Consult the doctors of the Roman church, and they will establish, on these words, the frivolous distinction between venial and mortal sins; a conjecture both false, and directly opposed to those from whom it proceeds. Because, if this sense be true, the moment a man commits a mortal sin, prayer must cease with regard to him; and he who commits a venial sin, will still need the prayers of saints to avoid a death he has not deserved: this is not only indefensible, but what the Catholics themselves would not presume to maintain.

Waving the various glosses of the Novatians, and other commentators, do you ask what is the idea we should attach to these words of the apostle, and what

is the sin of which he here speaks? We repeat what we have already intimated, that it is difficult to explain. However, on investigating the views of the apostle throughout the chapter, we discover the sense of this text. His design was, to embolden the young converts in the profession of the religion they had so happily embraced. With this view, he here recapitulates the proofs which established its truth: There are three that bear witness on earth, the water, and the spirit, and the blood. It is the innocence of the primitive Christians, which is called the water ; the miracles which are called the spirit; and martyrdom, by which the faithful have sealed their testimony, and which is called the blood: attesting that those three classes of witnesses, demonstrate the truth of the Christian religion, and render its opposers utterly inexcusable.

After these, and similar observations, the apostle says expressly, that he wrote for the confirmation of their faith, and closes with this exhortation: Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Between these two texts, occur the words we wish to explain: There is a sin unto death: I do not say that ye shall pray for it. Must not the sin unto death, be that against which he wished to fortify the saints; I mean apostacy?

What, say you, is a man lost without remedy who has denied the truth, and is every one in the sad situation of those for whom the apostle prohibits prayer? God forbid, my brethren, that we should preach so strange a doctrine; and once more renew the Novatian severity! There are two kinds of

apostates, and two kinds of apostacies: there is one kind of apostacy into which we fall by the fear of punishment, or on the blush of the moment, by the promises satan makes to his proselytes. There is another, into which we fall by the enmity we have to the truth, by the detestable pleasure we take in opposing its force. It would be cruel to account the first of these offences, a sin unto death; but the Spirit of God directs us to attach this idea to the second. There are likewise two kinds of apostates. There is one class, who have made only small attainments in the knowledge of the truth; weak and imperfect Christians unacquainted as yet, with the joys and transports excited in the soul by a religion, which promises the remission of sin, and everlasting felicity. There is another, on the contrary, to whom God has given superior knowledge, to whom he has communicated the gifts of miracles, and whom he has caused to experience the sweetness of his promise. It would be hard to reject the first; but the apostle had regard to the second. Those, according to St. John, who have committed the sin unto death, are the persons who abjure Christianity, after the reception of all those gifts.

These observations lead to the illustration of the two passages yet to be explained: the one is in the tenth chapter to the Hebrews; the other is our text. In both these passages it is obvious the apostle had the second class of apostates in view. This is very apparent from our text. Throughout the whole of this epistle, it is easy to prove, that the apostle's wish