the king's messengers, because they loathed the invitation, and were
irritated by the urgency wherewith the servants, remembering their
sovereign's command, felt themselves constrained to press it on every
man they met. In our own day, it does not require extraordinary sagacity
to perceive the same spirit in the relish and readiness with which
certain classes catch up a cry against any one who, not ashamed of the
Gospel of Christ, has discharged his commission in full.

But when you add together both classes of open antagonists--those who
shed the blood of Christians, and those who merely calumniate them, you
have only a very small company before you. On the one side I see a
little flock,--those who meekly receive Christ; on the other and
opposite side I see also a little flock,--those who loudly proclaim by
word and deed, "We will not have this man to reign over us:" but there
is a multitude, whom no man can number, in the midst, who neither accept
the king's message nor persecute the servants of the king. The character
of the company on either extreme is distinctly marked, and easily seen.
Those have manifestly closed with Christ's offer, and are accepted
through faith; these, on the other hand, have considered the offer, and
proved their rejection of it by killing its bearers. But the multitude
in the middle have not taken a decisive part; they have remained
apparently in a state of equilibrium. As yet they have not indeed
actually and personally closed with the Redeemer as their own; but
neither on the other hand have they determined and proclaimed that they
will not accept him. They have not moved to either side to take a
decisive part for or against the Lord.[46] This feature of their
condition and their history helps to deceive and so to destroy them. If
the condition of the world and the law of God were such that all would
be safe in the great day who did not blaspheme Christ's name, and mock
his Gospel, and put to death his ministers, this multitude in the middle
might remain where they are at ease. But this is not the state of the
case; life and death for us depend on our knowing and not mistaking the
state of the case here.

[46] These three different methods of treating the message were all
exhibited simultaneously at Athens when Paul preached there: "Some
mocked, others said, We will hear thee again of this matter....
Howbeit, certain men clave unto him and believed" (Acts
xvii. 32-34).

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