you have hitherto preserved? But I have shown you that it is either guilt itself, or that it will not fail soon to lead you to it. Is it the love of ease? But in that you enjoy neither the pleasures of the world nor the consolations of virtue. Is it the assurance that the Almighty requires no more of you? But how can the lukewarm and unfaithful soul satisfy or please him, when from his mouth he rejects him? Is it the irregularity in which the generality of men live, and who carry it to an excess which you avoid? But their fate is perhaps less to be mourned, and less desperate than your own: they at least know their malady, while you regard your own as a state of perfect health. Is it the dread of being unable to support a more mortified, watchful, and Christian life? But since you have hitherto been able to support some remains of virtue and innocence, without the comfort and consolations of grace, and in spite of the wearinesses and disgusts which your lukewarmness has spread through all your duties, what will it be when the Spirit of God shall soften your yoke, and when a more fervent and faithful life shall have restored to you all the grace and consolation of which your lukewarmness has deprived you? Piety is never sad or insupportable but when it is cold and unfaithful.
Rise, then, says a prophet, wicked and slothful soul; break the fatal charm which lulls and chains thee to thine indolence. The Lord, whom thou believest to serve, because thou dost not openly affront him, is not the God of the wicked, but of the faithful; he is not the rewarder of idleness and sloth, but of tears, watchings, and combats: he establisheth not in his abode, and in his everlasting city, the useless, but the vigilant and laborious servant; and his kingdom, says the apostle, is not of flesh and blood, that is to say, of an unworthy effeminacy and a life devoted to the appetites, but the strength and virtue of God; namely, a continued vigilance, a generous sacrifice of all our inclinations, a constant contempt of all things which pass away, and a tender and ardent desire for those invisible blessings which fade not nor ever pass away: which may God, in his infinite mercy, grant to all assembled here. Amen.
SERMON VI
ON EVIL-SPEAKING.
" But Jesus did not commit himself unto them; because he knew all men." John ii. 24.
These were the same Pharisees, who a little before had been decrying to the people the actions of Jesus Christ, and endeavouring to poison the purity and sanctity of his words, now make a show of believing in him, and classing themselves among his disciples. And such is the character of the evil-speaker; under
