[Professing that they know God, they take, of course, the Scriptures for their guide : but, with respect to the real Hfe of godliness, they are yet ignorant, because that " dark- ness has blinded their eyes'." In truth, they see every thing through a wrong medium, and as it were with a jaundiced eye ; and the very principles which they profess serve only to beguile them to their ruin. Unhappy souls ! " whose very light is darkness'^," and whose knowledge causeth them to errM]
With all imaginable opportunities for salvation, they improve not any for their good —
[They have the ordinances of religion, yea, and take pleasux-e in them too™; but they remain unhumbled, and " uncircumcised both in heart and life." The very word they hear, which to others is " a savour of life unto life," proves to them only " a savour of death unto death"." The more formal of these characters satisfy themselves with a mere round of duties ; and the more enlightened of them place their own feelings and conceits in the stead of vital godliness ; and thus both the one and the other turn the very means of salvation into occasions of augmented guilt and misery. The very sun and rain, which ripen others, do but prepare them for fuel in the fire of hell".]
Buoyed up v^rith the most glorious hopes and prospects, they have nothing awaiting them but the most fearful disappointment —
[They dream of heaven at the termination of their earthly pilgrimage : but, alas ! what horror will seize hold upon them at the instant of their departure hence ! It is not only the tree which hears bad fruit, but that which hears not good fruit, that will be cast into the fire^: not those only who had no lamps, but " those whose lamps were destitute of oil, that will be cast into outer darkness, where is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth 'i." They will carry their delusive hopes even to the bar of judgment : but their claims will be disallowed, and their pleas be of no avails Their eyes will then be opened to see their folly ; and they will be left to reap for ever the fruit which they have sown ^."]
Let me now entreat you to inquire into, 1. Your profession —
i 1 John ii. 11. k Matt. vi. 23. i Isai. xlvii. 10.
«» Isai. Iviii. 2. "2 Cor. ii. 16. ° Heb. vi. 7, 8.
P Matt. vii. 19. <i Matt. xxv. 8—12. with Matt. viii. 12.
' Matt. vii. 22, 23. » Gal. vi. 7, 8.