unredeemed men thus given. Let us not put it lightly away. But we must
note how deep into the centre of Christ's work this teaching leads us.
Translated into plain language it just means that Christ by
incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and present work
from the throne, has broken the power of evil in its central hold. He
has crushed the serpent's head, his heel is firmly planted on it, and,
though the reptile may still 'swinge the scaly horror of his folded
tail,' it is but the dying flurries of the creature. He was manifested
'that He might destroy the works of the devil.'

No trace of indignation can be detected in Christ's answer to the
hideous charge. But His patient heart overflows in pity for the
reckless slanderers, and He warns them that they are coming near the
edge of a precipice. Their malicious blindness is hurrying them
towards a sin which hath never forgiveness. Blasphemy is, in form,
injurious speaking, and in essence, it is scorn or malignant
antagonism. The Holy Spirit is the divine agent in revealing God's
heart and will. To blaspheme Him is 'the external symptom of a heart
so radically and finally set against God that no power which God can
consistently use will ever save it.' 'The sin, therefore, can only be
the culmination of a long course of self-hardening and depraving.' It
is unforgivable, because the soul which can recognise God's revelation
of Himself in all His goodness and moral perfection, and be stirred
only to hatred thereby, has reached a dreadful climax of hardness, and
has ceased to be capable of being influenced by His beseeching. It has
passed beyond the possibility of penitence and acceptance of
forgiveness. The sin is unforgiven, because the sinner is fixed in
impenitence, and his stiffened will cannot bow to receive pardon.

The true reason why that sin has never forgiveness is suggested by the