The Worlds Great Sermons, Volume 3 | Page 4

without
being sensible of your danger.
What I say here is not merely a rash expression, or an emotion of zeal; nothing is more
real, or more exactly true: it is the situation of almost all men, even the wisest and most
esteemed of the world. The morality of the younger stages of life is always lax, if not
licentious. Age, disgust, and establishment for life, fix the heart and withdraw it from
debauchery: but where are those who are converted? Where are those who expiate their
crimes by tears of sorrow and true repentance? Where are those who, having begun as
sinners, end as penitents? Show me, in your manner of living, the smallest trace of
penitence! Are your graspings at wealth and power, your anxieties to attain the favor of
the great--and by these means an increase of employments and influence--are these
proofs of it? Would you wish to reckon even your crimes as virtues?--that the sufferings
of your ambition, pride, and avarice, should discharge you from an obligation which they
themselves have imposed? You are penitent to the world, but are you so to Jesus Christ?
The infirmities with which God afflicts you, the enemies He raised up against you, the
disgraces and losses with which He tries you--do you receive them all as you ought, with
humble submission to His will? Or, rather, far from finding in them occasions of
penitence, do you not turn them into the objects of new crimes? It is the duty of an
innocent soul to receive with submission the chastisements of the Almighty; to discharge
with courage the painful duties of the station allotted to him, and to be faithful to the laws
of the gospel. But do sinners owe nothing beyond this? And yet they pretend to salvation!
Upon what claim? To say that you are innocent before God, your own consciences will

witness against you. To endeavor to persuade yourselves that you are penitent, you dare
not; and you would condemn yourselves by your own mouths. Upon what then dost thou
depend, O man! who thus livest so tranquil?
These, my brethren, as I have already told you, are not merely advices and pious arts;
they are the most essential of our obligations. But, alas! who fulfils them? Who even
knows them? Ah! my brethren, did you know how far the title you bear, of Christian,
engages you; could you comprehend the sanctity of your state, the hatred of the world, of
yourself, and of everything which is not of God that it enjoys, that gospel life, that
constant watching, that guard over the passions, in a word, that conformity with Jesus
Christ crucified, which it exacts of you--could you comprehend it, could you remember
that you ought to love God with all your heart, and all your strength, so that a single
desire that has not connection with Him defiles you--you would appear a monster in your
own sight. How! you would exclaim. Duties so holy, and morals so profane! A vigilance
so continual, and a life so careless and dissipated! A love of God so pure, so complete, so
universal, and a heart the continual prey of a thousand impulses, either foreign or
criminal! If thus it is, who, O my God! will be entitled to salvation? Few indeed, I fear,
my dear hearers! At least it will not be you (unless a change takes place) nor those who
resemble you; it will not be the multitude!
Who shall be saved? Those who work out their salvation with fear and trembling; who
live in the world without indulging in its vices. Who shall be saved? That Christian
woman who, shut up in the circle of her domestic duties, rears up her children in faith and
in piety; divides her heart only between her Savior and her husband; is adorned with
delicacy and modesty; sits not down in the assemblies of vanity; makes not a law of the
ridiculous customs of the world, but regulates those customs by the law of God; and
makes virtue appear more amiable by her rank and her example. Who shall be saved?
That believer who, in the relaxation of modern times, imitates the manners of the first
Christian--whose hands are clean and his heart pure--who is watchful--who hath not lifted
up his soul to vanity, but who, in the midst of the dangers of the great world, continually
applies himself to purify it; just--who swears not deceitfully against his neighbor, nor is
indebted to fraudulent ways for the aggrandizement of his fortune; generous--who with
benefits repays the enemy who sought his ruin; sincere--who sacrifices not the truth to a
vile interest, and knows not the part of rendering himself agreeable by betraying his
conscience; charitable--who makes his house and interest the refuge