It is sad when there is no balm in Gilead,
and when there is no physician there. Hence it is, that the wounds
of churches become incurable, like the wounds of God's people of
old, either not healed at all, or else slightly healed, and to no
purpose. May it not be said of many churches this day, as God said
of the church of Israel, That he sought for a man among them that
should stand in the gap, and make up the breach; but he found none?
Remember what was said of old, Mal. ii. 7, The priest's lips
preserve knowledge: and the people should seek the law at his
mouth. But when this is wanting, the people will be stumbling, and
departing from God and one another; therefore God complains, Hos.
iv. 6, That his people were destroyed for want of knowledge; that
is, for want of knowing guides; for if the light that is in them
that teach be darkness, how great is that darkness! and if the blind
lead the blind, no marvel both fall into the ditch.
How many are there that take upon them to teach others, that had
need be taught in the beginning of religion; that instead of
multiplying knowledge, multiply words without knowledge; and instead
of making known God's counsel, darken counsel by words without
knowledge? The apostle speaks of some that did more than darken
counsel; for they wrested the counsel of God; 2 Pet. iii. 16. In
Paul's epistles, saith he, "are some things hard to be understood,
which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also
the other scriptures, to their own destruction.
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