devil; so it was in the days of old; to Simon Ma gus they had all respect as the great power of God, Acts viii. 10; but Christ, who declared that hypocrites could not escape the damnation of hell, they called Beelzebub, the prince of devils. These were of an open candid spirit; they preached one thing and lived another, as Peter talks of some who promised liberty to others while themselves are the servants of corruption. We read of prophets who prophesied of wine and strong drink, Mic. ii. 11; and no doubt but such filled their bottles by their pleasing candid prophecies, till they made sport of them that were prophets of the Lord, calling them fools, and spiritual men mad, or influenced by a bad spirit, Hos. ix. 7. David complains that he was the song of the drunkard. However the hypocrites may get into the church, yet they are in bondage under the sentence of God, as well as to their own sin; hence we read of such, who were of old ordained to this condemnation, Jude 4. Solomon had a navy of ships that came once in three years, bringing apes and peacocks, 1 Kings x. 22; but our eternal Solomon has no call to send so far for them; he has scarcely a palace or a lodge in Great Britain where the stewards of the household are not complaining that they are overstocked with these hairy ones. I have such an aversion to apes, that I would sooner keep a serpent or a scorpion in my house than one of those creatures; and as a minister, I would sooner preach to fifty careless unreformed sinners, who are called serpents and vipers, than to a thousand hypocrites, who sit under the gospel for base ends, abandon themselves to idleness, and by walking in craftiness get a livelihood out of simple people, or even stand pimp for drunkards, rather than work with their own hands, and with quietness eat their own bread; these are enemies to God, strangers to the power of religion, and the experience of it on the heart of the righteous. The poor seeker, who is sensible of his want, is of a teachable spirit, waits at Wisdom's gate, esteems them that fear the Lord, favours the Saviour's righteous cause, and longs for the manifestation of pardoning mercy, I love, pity, and pray for; but idle, empty hypocrites I cannot away with; for their whole study is to prejudice the minds of weaklings, and to injure the cause of God; with these I trust I shall ever carry on an offensive and defensive war; Christ came not to send peace between us and them, but a sword, therefore it is a just and an holy war. Perhaps you will answer, Peace is thy calling, friend, not war; Doth not thy calling and contention jar? The traitor's bridge and gate, by which some rebels came into the Tower to lose their lives, put me in mind of the archway by which some come into the church; and the traitor's gate that leads to the river, shews the wide gate by which many hypocrites go out, who, as Paul says, are drowned in destruction and perdition, 1 Tim. vi. 9. Let this bridge and gate caution us against the disloyalty and rebellion of hypocrites; it is dreadful to a loyalist to be imprisoned, though but for a time, by the great King; but it is a fearful thing to fall into the revengeful hands of the living God. We saw the ax by which some lost their heads; but to miss of Christ, to lose the Head of the church, is an infinite, irreparable, and eternal loss. The blackest character in the Bible, excepting Satan, the prime leader of angelic sinners, is Judas the traitor. The pieces of cannon that are mounted around the Tower, put me in mind of some of our present Boanergeses, falsely so called, who deliver every message from the mount that burns with fire, with blackness, darkness, and tempest, the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, Heb. xii. 18, 19. The prophet Elijah, who travelled so far to pay his visit to Horeb, found the same earthquake, wind, and fire, as Moses had done; a caution this to every believing soul not to attempt seeking the King of Zion at Sinai or Horeb. Moses put a vail on his face near this mount; and Elijah, who was the chariot and horsemen of Israel, was obliged to wrap his head in his mantle, when God demanded "What doest thou here, Elijah?" 1 Kings xix. 13. The fiery law is to be handled, in order to alarm, rouse, shake, and awaken the drowsy, careless sinner; but if you batter his ears and entertain his mind with nothing but repcated rounds of fiery salutations, you will soon sear his conscience as with an hot iron, and make his heart cannon and bomb proof; and, like Job's horse when his neck was clothed with thunder, he will paw in the valley; and instead of being afraid or awed, he will rejoice in his strength, and go forth even to meet the armed men, Job xxxix. 19-21. To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard, These but proclaim his style, and disappe ar The old shattered and neglected tower, which stands at the remotest part from the gate of entrance, and the lowness when compared to the white tower, brought to my mind our mystical Babel-builders, who, as the Saviour tells us, are intending to build a tower, the top of which is to reach heaven; like that which the ancient towering schemers, called by way of derision Babelbuilders, began in the plains of Shinar; but the Saviour tells us such tower-builders set not down first to count the cost; and for want of this they began to build, as the Babel-builders did, but have not wherewith to finish; hence the Saviour says, the beholders began to mock, as the Trinity did after Nimrod's architects had produced the plan, and got the royal command for the execution thereof: "Go to," said the builders, "let us make brick and burn them throughly: and they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth." The Trinity adopts their language: "Go to," says God, "let us go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech," Gen. xi. 7. This tower was intended to exceed the rainbow, that was not sufficient to secure them against a second deluge; its top was to reach heaven; it was intended to get them a name, and to prevent their being scattered; but they left it unfinished; for the Trinity had them in derision, laughed at their calamity, and mocked when their fear came. It is true they got a name, which will last as long as the world stands; it will never be forgot so long as a false prophet or a legal workmonger remains in the world; yea, even at the day of judgment there will be a confounding of the language of some builders; but from this the believer is secured; he is not to be ashamed or confounded world without end, Isaiah xlv. 17. This tower was first erected in their imagination; nothing will restrain them, says God, from that which they have imagined to do; they were all bent upon it, lest they should be scattered abroad; but their unanimous precaution against separation was the cause of their dispersion; "So the Lord scattered them abroad |