beyond resource, and which is worthy both of horror and pity; but I say to you, that the surest and most established mark of a light and frivolous mind, of a weak and limited reason, of an ill-formed heart, equally incapable of elevation and dignity, is that of finding nothing which strikes, which astonishes, which satisfies, and which interests you, in the wise and sublime truths of the morality of Jesus Christ.
For the sinners of another character still preserve at least some remains of respect for, and a certain consciousness of, the truth which subsists with a life altogether criminal, but which is always the mark of a good heart, of a heart which still retains a relish for good, of a judicious reason, which, though led away by the world and the passions, knows to do justice to itself, still feels the force of that truth which condemns it, and leaves within us resources of salvation and repentance. These sinners, at least, acknowledge that we are right: they change nothing, it is true, of their manners; but the truth at least affects, disturbs, agitates, and excites within them some feeble desires of salvation and hopes of a future conversion; they are sorry to find themselves even too susceptible of the terrors of faith; they are almost afraid of listening to us, lest they lose that false tranquillity which is the only comfort of their crimes; on quitting our instructions, they seek, in dissipation, to enliven a fund of anxiety and sadness which the truths they come from hearing have left in their soul; they immediately hurry into the world and its pleasures, with that inward sting which the word of God hath left in their heart, there to seek out a soothing and deceitful hand which may draw it out, and which may close up that wound from which alone its cure ought to flow; they dread the breaking of their chains; they turn away their head, that they may not see that light which comes to disturb the comfort of their sleep. They love their passions, I confess, but at least they insult not the truth; on the contrary, they render glory to its might, by erecting defences against it; they are feeble sinners, who, dreading their incapability of defence against God, fly from, and shun him. But for you, you make a vain-glorious boast of listening to him with indifference, and of not dreading him; you find it grand and philosophical to have placed yourselves above all these vulgar terrors; you believe that the pride of your reason would be dishonoured by any religious dread; and while you are internally the meanest and the most cowardly soul, the most dejected by the first danger which threatens you, the most disheartened by the smallest accident, the very shuttlecock of every frivolous hope and fear of the earth, you pique yourself upon an undaunted courage against the truth; that is to say, that you are possessed of every thing which is mean and vulgar in fear, and you are ashamed of having that only portion of it which is dignified and reasonable; you have no resistance to offer against the world, and you make a vain parade of a senseless valour against God.
Second disposition which ought to accompany you to our instructions,— a sorrow for the little fruit you have hitherto reaped from
