I WOULD THOU WERT COLD OR HOT. SO THEN BECAUSE THOU ART LUKEWARM, AND NEITHER COLD NOR HOT, I WILL SPUE THEE OUT OF MY MOUTH.
THIS denunciation has been awfully fulfilled. Laodicea, once a flourishing city, and the mother-church of sixteen bishoprics, cannot now, says Bishop Newton, boast an anchorite's or hermit's cell, where God's name is invoked and praised.
But lukewarmness was not peculiar to the Laodiceans. It belongs to every age; and the infection is at this moment among ourselves. Who then are the lukewarm? They are not, we can at once reply, either the pious, on the one hand, or the openly wicked, on the other. They are often what are called good neighbours-obliging acquaintancesagreeable members of society. They dis