them  again",  should  not  be  denied  them. Now  every  body
understands  by  this  his  death  and  resurrection,  with  those
things  that  followed  upon  it,  the  sending  of  the  Holy  Ghost,
to  enable  his  apostle  to  go  and  teach  all  nations,  as  Jonas  went,
after  he  came,  as  we  may  say,  out  of  his  grave,  and  preached
to  the  great  city  Nineveh. But  then  this  was  still  the  Spirit,
that  was  thus  continued  to  them  (by  that  our  Lord  being
raised,  and  it  working  wonders  also  at  his  death) ;  which  if
they  continued  to  resist,  when  it  had  fully  done  the  whole  office
of  a  witness,  and  was  all  poured  forth,  then  they  were  under
the  absolute  sentence  of  condemnation. In  brief,  to  blaspheme
the  Spirit,  in  this  comprehensive  sense  of  the  word,  (including
the  resurrection  and  that  which  followed  to  prove  it,)  was  the
unpardonable  sin,  and  none  else. And  thus  our  Saviour's
meaning  is  to  be  expounded  ;  If  one  should  speak  a  word
against  the  Son  of  man  (that  is,  him),  despising  him  because
of  his  poor  parentage,  and  calling  him  the  son  of  a  carpenter,
or  some  such  name,  this,  though  blamable,  might  be  pardon-
ed, propter  corporis  vilitatem,  as  St. Hierome  speaks v,  *  be-
cause of  the  meanness  of  his  outward  appearance.'  Nay,  if  a
man  proceeded  so  far  as  to  call  him  a  glutton,  a  winebibber,  a
friend  of  publicans  and  sinners ;  this  also  might  find  pardon,
because  he  did  not  hitherto  speak  evil  of  the  works  proper  to
a  God,  but  only  of  those  belonging  to  a  man. And  more  than
this,  should  he  call  him  deceiver  or  seducer,  when  he  heard
him  teach  the  people,  it  would  not  be  unpardonable,  because
no  man  is  to  be  believed  merely  upon  his  own  word. But  if,
when  these  men  saw  the  mighty  works  of  the  Spirit  justify  his
preaching  to  be  divine,  they  still  continued  to  speak  evil  of
him,  this  was  a  very  dangerous  blasphemy ;  because  they  could
not  after  this  call  him  a  seducer  or  false  teacher,  but  they  must
reproach  the  Holy  Spirit  as  well  as  him,  and  call  that  the  work
of  the  devil  which  was  performed  by  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of
God. 