altogether by faith on the Son of God;" and " determined to know nothing, and trust in nothing, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified?" Say, Brethren, can you indeed appeal to God, that, from day to day, he witnesses your sighs and groans and tears, in your secret chamber, and sees you fleeing to the Lord Jesus Christ, just as the manslayer fled from the pursuer of blood to the city of his refuge? Alas! alas! if the truth be spoken, there have been in you as great and liabitual devi- ations from the Gospel, as even from the law itself!]
3. From the line of duty prescribed even by your own conscience —
[Every one has some line which he has prescribed to
himself. Now it is not my intention to inquire how far the
line of any man accords either with the law or with the
Gospel. The point to ascertain is, how far your conduct has
agreed with the dictates of your own conscience ? You have
seen no evil in many of those things which are practised by
the world at large : and it is not my intention to arraign your
conduct in relation to any thing which your own mind has
approved. But the question is, Have you not deviated, and
very widely too, from the path which you yourselves have
acknowledged to be right? Have you not left undone much
which you were persuaded it was your duty to do ; and done
many things which you knew to be wrong? I again say,
whatever latitude your own conscience has allowed you, have
you not, in ten thousand instances, gone beyond it; and erred,
both by defect and excess, from the very line which you have
marked out for yourselves ? I cannot doubt one moment
what the testimony of your own consciences must be; and that
you stand convicted, even in your own minds, of having " made
to yourselves crooked paths."]
Having declared the habits of those spoken of in my text, I proceed to mark,
II. The awful condition of their souls —
" Whosoever walketh in the paths before described, cannot know peace." He cannot know it,
1. In life—
[I grant that those who are young and gay, and those who are prospering in the world, may enjoy something which they call peace : they may, for the most part, be free from anxieties and troubles in relation to their souls; and may go on in a round of pleasure without any material abatement, so as to account themselves, and be accounted by others, happy. But this continues only whilst they are able to shake off all sense
l l 2