bulwark of the church and of the kingdom? It is from the ignorance of all principles with respect to the union of church and state; to the silence of all preachers upon these most needful topics; to the withdrawing from public observation, and from public audience, of the doctrines established at the Reformation concerning these vital matters: to this most shameful dereliction of their duties and desertion of their posts, on the part of that established clergy of the Church of Scotland and the Church of England, it is owing, upon the one hand; and to the unwearied diffusion in every way, from the pulpit, from the periodical press, from the platform, of the contrary doctrines, under the affectation of liberality and the guise of charity, upon the other hand: to these two causes, I say, it is owing, in a main degree, that the dissolution of the bonds of political society hasten at such a pace. This is, indeed, a main cause of that breaking-up of human society-or I should rather say, of Christian communitywhich hath been exposed in the foregoing discourses: and next after this I place the entire ignorance, or disbelief, of the ordinances of the church. But this I separate to another discourse.

III. And now I come, in the third and last place, to improve this great subject to my own flock, and to each individual thereof: in the fulfilment of which office, methinks I cannot be guided so well as by observing how the Apostle

instructeth his son Timothy to conduct himself towards such of this spirit as had already appeared in the church. His exhortation immediately follows his description of the last times, and is in these words, "From such turn away;" but the words, being literally translated out of the original, are, " And such turn away:" to understand the exact import of which we must give heed to the structure of the context, which consisteth of two exhortations from the Apostle to Timothy the former contained in the first verse, exhorting him to "know this" for certain, that in the last days of the dispensation now begun, perilous times should come; for this reason, that men-that is, men in general, men professing godliness-should have given up the fear and love of God, and departed from the Spirit and mind of Christ, yielding themselves up to selfish and worldly and diabolical passions, which he describeth. This general defection having exhorted Timothy to believe and bear in mind, as being in the last days about to be realized, without mentioning when these last days should occur-which I believe to have been known neither to the Apostle nor to the Evangelist, that they might be ever on the alert; for which reason I believe the exhortation to be given---he immediately proceeds to point the attention of Timothy to characters of this sort already present in the church, and exhorts him in the text to "turn away such :" not, as I conceive, to turn away from them, but, actively,

to turn them away. The structure of the context, therefore, is a general warning, and a particular instance of the thing warned against, with instructions how to treat it. The general warning is, that the church in the end was to become reprobate, to grow apostate, to lose faith and a good conscience, to relax all the bonds of discipline, and otherwise make shipwreck of the cause of Christ: which certain result and pre-determinate purpose of God being forewarned of, it became so much more the duty of the Evangelist Timothy to arm himself and defend the church against the snare of Satan, of which he had been warned. And the Apostle, to help his son, and to strengthen his hands in the diligence and watchfulness of a pastor, as he had helped him by his prediction unto the knowledge of a teacher, doth in our text admonish him to turn away these: "And these turn away,” reject, or repel, or repudiate: not only have nothing to do with them, but act and feel and speak against them. Then, to make his example more definite, he describes the goings on of such; which are as follows:-First, they "creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come unto the knowledge of the truth." This soft and carpet ministry; this shunning of the controversy with men, and avoiding of all perilous encounters; this proselytism, insinuation, and seduction of

the weak and unstable, he setteth in contrast with his own "teaching, and manner of life, and purpose, and faith, and long-suffering, and charity, and patience, and persecution, and suffering" in various places, from which the Lord had delivered him; and unto which all who would live godly in Christ Jesus should be exposed. Whether there be any parallel between these in-door and carpet preachers of the Apostles' times, and certain in our own days, I leave you to judge. The second procedure of these forerunners and types of the men of the last times is, that "as Jannes and Jambres (the Egyptian magicians) withstood Moses, so these also resist the truth, being men corrupted in mind, and of no insight or experience in the faith;" whose folly he declares should be speedily exposed, as was that of the magicians, and so they should meet with a check. This I believe doth refer to the confusion which was brought upon all those Judaizing teachers by the destruction of the Jewish state and worship, which took place not many years after this was written, whereby all their idle tales and disputations were put an end to. For that they were chiefly of the circumcision who did then pervert the church with their vain traditions is manifest from these words of Titus, i. 10: "There are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision; whose mouths must be stopped; who subvert whole houses, teaching things which

they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake." These men, clinging to their old traditions, would have kept the Jews in bondage, and brought the Gentiles into bondage of the Law of Moses; even as Jannes and Jambres would have kept them under the bondage of Pharaoh; setting themselves up against Paul, as those set themselves up against Moses. And as Jannes and Jambres received their check, and haply their destruction, in the overthrow of Egypt and its king by the hand of Moses; so these Jewish opponents of Christian liberty-concerning whom the Apostle saith in another place, that " they please not God, and are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always; for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost"-did receive the check and exposure which the Apostle threatened, by the overthrow and dissolution of the Jewish state, which would have held the Christian church in thraldom. But that their place would be supplied by others; that Satan would find other agents with whom to carry on the antichristian work; and that the purpose of God concerning the wickedness of men, and the perilousness of the last times, would certainly accomplish itself; is expressly declared in the 13th verse: "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived:" whereby is declared the gradual embittering and enlarging of that spirit of error and seduction, which should in the end bring