when simple purifications are only demanded of you; nay, when you are required, as I may say, almost the same things which you do, but only to be practised with more fervour, fidelity, faith, and vigilance, are you excusable in declining them? Why will you render useless all your former efforts, by the refusal of a thing so easy? Why should you have renounced the world, and all its criminal pleasures, only to find in piety the same rock, which by flying from sin you thought to have escaped? And would it not be lamentable, if, after having sacrificed to God the principal parts, you should lose yourselves, by wishing still to dispute with him a thousand little sacrifices, much less painful to the heart and to nature?
Finish, then, in us, O my God! that which thy grace has already begun: triumph over our languors and our weaknesses, since thou hast already triumphed over our crimes: give us a heart fervent and faithful, since thou hast already deprived us of a criminal and corrupted one: inspire us with that willing submission which the just possess,^since thou hast extinguished in us that pride and obstinacy which occasion so many sinners. Leave not, O my God! thy work unfinished; and, since thou hast already made us enter into the holy career of salvation, render us worthy of the holy crown promised to those who shall have legally fought for it.
Now to God, &c. Amen.
SERMON V.
THE CERTAINTY OF THE LOSS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN A STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS.
" And he rose out of the syangogue, and entered into Simon's house: and Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her." — Luke iv. 38.
Since Simon thought the presence of our Saviour necessary for the cure of his mother-in-law, it would appear, my brethren, that the evil was pressing, and threatened an approaching death. The usual remedies must have been found ineffectual, and nothing but a miracle could operate her cure, and draw her from the gates of death: nevertheless, the Scriptures mention her being attacked by only a common fever. On every other occasion, we never find that they had recourse to our Saviour, but to raise people from the grave, to cure paralytics, restore sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf, from their birth: in a word, to cure diseases incurable by any other than the sovereign Master of life and death. In this instance he is called upon to restore health to a person attacked by a simple fever.
Whence comes it that the Almighty power is employed on so slight an occasion? It is, that this fever, being a natural image of lukewarmness in the ways of God, the Holy Spirit has wished to
