dangers of society; the habit of prayer to the dissipation of gaming and amusements: the guard of the senses to the indecency of dress, and the danger of public spectacles; Christian mortification to the softness of an effeminate and sensual life; the gospel to the world: they considered that it would be absurd to wish their salvation through the same means by which others are lost. But, if you are determined to perish, alas! why will you still preserve measures with religion? Why will you always seek to place some specious reasons on your side, to conciliate your manners with the gospel, and to preserve, as I may say, appearances still with Jesus Christ? Why are you only half-sinners, and still leave to your grossest passions the useless check of the law? Cast off the remains of that yoke which is irksome to you; and which, in lessening your pleasures, lessens not your punishment. WThy do you accomplish your perdition with so much constraint? In place of those scruples, which permit you only doubtful gains, and deny you still certain low, and manifestly wicked profits, but which place you in the number of those reprobates who shall never possess the kingdom of God; overleap these bounds, and no longer place any limits to your guilt, but those of your cupidity: in place of those loose and worldly manners, which will equally prove your ruin, refuse nothing to your passions, and, like the beasts of the earth, yield to the gratification of every desire. Yes, sinners, perish with all the fruits of iniquity, seeing you will equally reap tears and eternal punishment.
But, no, my dear hearer, we only give you these counsels of despair, in order to inspire you with a just horror at them: it is a tender artifice of zeal, which only assumes the appearance of exhorting you to destruction, that you may not consent yourselves. Alas! follow rather those remains of light, which still point out the truth to you at a distance. It is not without reason that the Lord hath hitherto preserved within you these seeds of salvation, and has not permitted all, even to the principles, to be blotted out; it is a claim which he still preserves to your heart: take care only, that you found not upon this, the vain hope of a future conversion: we are not permitted to hope till we have begun to labour. Begin, then, the grand work of your eternal salvation, for which alone the Almighty has placed you upon the earth; and on which you have never as yet bestowed even a thought. Esteem so important a care; prefer it to all others; find your only pleasures in applying to it; examine the surest and most proper means to succeed, and fix upon them, whatever they cost, from the moment you have found them out.
Such is the prudence of the gospel, so often recommended by Jesus Christ; beyond that, all is vanity and error. You may possess a superior mind, capable of every exertion, and rare and shining talents; if you err with regard to your eternal salvation, you are a child. Solomon, so esteemed in the East for his wisdom, is a madman, whose folly we can now with difficulty comprehend. All worldly reason is but a mockery, a dazzling of the senses, if it
