How the Prophets, Jesus Christ, His Forerunner, and His Apostles, Prepared Sinners For Repentance.
HOW THE PROPHETS, JESUS CHRIST, HIS
FORERUNNER, AND HIS APOSTLES, PREPARED
SINNERS FOR REPENTANCE.
EVER faithful to the word of God, the minister of the Gospel endeavours to humble the impenitent, by appealing to the sacred writers, and particularly to the declarations of Jesus Christ.
The corruption of the heart is the most ancient and dreadful malady of the human race. Man had no sooner made trial of sin, but he was driven by it from an earthly paradise, Genesis 3:24. And so terrible were its first effects, that the second man was seen to assassinate the third, Genesis 4:8. This moral contagion increased through every age, to so astonishing a degree, that, before the deluge, “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” Genesis 6:5. “After the flood God still declared the imagination of man’s heart to be evil from his youth,” Genesis 8:21. “The heart of man,” saith he again, long after that time, “is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins,” Jeremiah 17:9, 10. Our Lord himself, who perfectly “knew what was in man,” John 2:25, being the Physician who alone is able to heal us, and the Judge who will render to every one according to his works,—our Lord has described mankind alienated from the chief good, filled with aversion to his people, and enemies to God himself. “I send you forth,” saith he to his disciples, “as lambs among wolves,” Luke 10:3. “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because I have chosen you out of the world,” that ye should walk in my steps, “therefore the world hateth you. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you,” John 15:18, 19, 20. “All these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because,” notwithstanding their Deism and Polytheism, “they know not him that sent me. For he that hateth me hateth my Father also,” John 15:21, 23. “These things have I told you, that, when” they shall chase you from their Churches, as demons would chase an angel of light, “ye may remember that I told you of them,” John 16:4.
The Jews were, doubtless, in one sense, the most enlightened of all people; seeing they offered the true God a public worship unmixed with idolatry, were in possession of the Law of Moses, the Psalms of David, together with the writings of the other prophets, in which the duties required of man, both with respect to God and his neighbour, are traced out in the most accurate manner. Nevertheless, Jesus Christ represents this enlightened people as universally corrupted, in spite of all these advantages. “Did not Moses,” saith he to them, “give you the law? And yet none of you keepeth the law,” John 7:19.
What appears most extraordinary in the sermons of our Lord, is the zeal with which he bore his testimony against the virtues of those Jews who were reputed men of uncommon devotion. Although they piqued themselves upon being eminently righteous, he declared to his disciples that, unless their righteousness should “exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,” they should “in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven,” Matthew 5:20. And observe the manner in which he generally addressed those religious impostors: “Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess [full of covetous desires and disorderly passions.] Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within, that the outside may be clean also,” Matthew 23:25, 26. Nothing is more common than that blindness which suffers a man to esteem himself better than he really is, and this blindness is, in every period, and in every place, the distinguishing characteristic of a Pharisee. This species of hypocrisy, with which St. Paul was once elated, agrees perfectly well with the ordinary sincerity of nominal Christians, who blindly regard amusements the most trifling and expensive as allowable and innocent pleasures; who look upon theatres as schools of virtue; intrigue and deceit as prudence and fashion; pomp and profusion as generosity and decorum; avarice as frugality; pride as delicacy of sentiment; adultery as gallantry; and murder as an affair of honour.
To all such modern Christians may we not, with propriety, repeat what our Lord once openly addressed to their predecessors? Without doubt, we are authorized to cry out against them, with a holy zeal, “Wo unto you, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness,” Matthew 23:27. “Ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” Of hypocrisy, because your virtues have more of appearance than solidity; and of injustice, because you render not that which is due to God, to Cesar, or to your fellow creatures, whether it be adoration, fear, honour, support, or good will, Matthew 23:28.
But if the depravity of the Jews in general, and of the Pharisees in particular, appears abundantly evident; must we suppose there were no happy exceptions among them? It is true the royal prophet declares, “The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good, no, not one,” Psalm 14:2, 3. But were not the disciples of our Lord to be considered in a different point of view? No. Even after the extraordinary assistance afforded them by the Son of God, the apostles themselves did but confirm the sad assertion of the psalmist. Our Lord, upon whom no appearances could impose, once testified to James and John that, notwithstanding their zeal for his person, they were unacquainted with his real character; and that, instead of being influenced by his Spirit, they were actuated by that of the destroyer, Luke 9:55. “Ye, then, being evil,” said he to all his disciples, Matthew 7:11. “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” John 6:70. “One of you shall betray me,”—Peter, who is the most resolute to confess me, shall “deny me thrice—and all ye shall be offended because of me,” Matthew 26:21, 34, 31. Lastly: our Lord constantly represented the unregenerate as persons diseased and condemned. “They that are whole,” said he, “have no need of the physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance,” Mark 2:17. “Ye are of this world, therefore I said unto you that ye shall die in your sins; for if ye believe not that I am He,” and refuse to observe the spiritual regimen I prescribe, “ye shall die in your sins,” John 8:23, 24. “Except ye repent, ye shall perish,” Luke 13:5.
It is notorious, that John the Baptist prepared the way of his adorable Master by preaching the same doctrine. “O generation of vipers,” said he to the Pharisees and Sadducees, to the profane and professing part of the nation, “who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance,” Matthew 3:7, 8. It is equally well known that the disciples were instructed by Christ himself to tread in the steps of his forerunner. “It behooved,” said he, “Christ to suffer; and that repentance should be preached in his name among all