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ent questions which God has yielded up to the controversies of men. You ought to undertake every thing, and to employ every exertion, to place appearances, at least, in your favour, and to find out a situation where prejudices would be on your side: and here, where every thing concludes against you, — where the law is unfavourable,— where you have nothing in your favour but some fallacious appearances of reason, upon which you would not hazard the smallest of your temporal interests, — and with manners, which to this period have saved none, and in which you only strengthen and comfort yourselves by the example of those who perish with you, — you are tranquil in this path; you admit of and acknowledge the wisdom of those who have chosen a more certain one: you saythat they are praiseworthy; that they are happy who can assume such a command over themselves; that it is much safer to live as they do; you say this, and you think it needless to imitate or follow their example! Madman! cries the apostle, what delusion is it which blinds thee? and wherefore dost thou not obey that truth which thou knowest? Ah! my brethren, in a choice which interests our glory, our advancement, our temporal interests, are ]we capable of such imprudence? Of all the various ways which present themselves to ambition, do we leave those where every appearance seems favourable to our success, and make choice of such as lead to nothing; where fortune is tardy and doubtful; and which have hitherto been only productive of misfortune? Of salvation alone, therefore, we make a kind of speculation, if I may venture to speak in this manner; that is to say, an undertaking without arrangement, without precaution, which we abandon to the uncertainty of events, and of which the success can alone be expected from chance, and not from our exertions. In a word, as my last reflection, allow me to ask, Why you search for, and allege to us so many specious reasons, as a justification to yourselves of the manners in which you live? Either you wish to be saved, or you are determined to be lost. Do you wish to be saved? Choose, then, the most proper means of attaining what you aspire to. Quit those doubtful paths, by which, none have hitherto been conducted to it; confine yourselves to that which Jesus Christ has pointed out to us, and which alone can safely lead us to it. Do not apply yourselves to lessen in your own sight the danger of your situation, and to view them in the most favourable light, in order to dread them less; rather magnify the danger to your mind: we cannot dread too much what we cannot shun too much: and salvation is the only concern where precaution can never be excessive, because a mistake in it is without remedy. See if those who once followed the same deceitful paths in which you tread, and who employed the same reasons that you make use of for their justification, have confined themselves to them from the moment that grace had operated in their hearts serious and sincere desires of salvation: they regarded the dangers in which you live as incompatible with their design: they sought more solid and certain paths; they made the holy safety of retirement succeed to the inutility and the