ON THE DUTY OF MUTUAL EXHORTATION

Summary

Exhort one another daily while it is called to day, lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Heb. iii. 13.

THIS advice of the author of this epistle is not less seasonable at the present day than when it was given. It is even more deserving of attention now than it was then. At that time the Christian church was in a state of persecution. At least the open profession of christianity was attended with more danger than it is at present. It was not then patronized by the great, the learned, or the fashionable; but was a sect every where spoken against, and the teachers of it were generally considered as men who turned the world upside down, the enemies of peace, and the authors of innovation and revolution.

Such, indeed, will ever be the character of reformers. It was so in every period of the reformation from popery. In this light were Wickliffe, Huss, Luther, Calvin, and Socinus considered in their day; and such is the light in which every person who in the present times, having by any means acquired more light than others, is desirous of communicating it, and to improve upon any established system, must expect to stand. The bulk of mankind wish to be at their ease, and not to have their opinions, any more than their property, of their government, disturbed.