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IIOLY
FORTITVDE,
CSSRM. XXYi.
-comply
with the
warmest temptations
toa
fashionable
sin?
Hast
thou
got
such a
victory over thyself
as to
dare
to be
singular, if
thy
company would
lead
thee into any modish
vice
?
This
is
an
hard
lesson to
youngand
tender
minds,
but
it must
be
learned,
O
my
soul,
if
thou wilt
be
a
christian indeed.
Hast
thou courage to vindicate
the innocent,
when he
is
assaulted
with
slanders, and to
frown
upon those
who
delight
in
scandal
?
Or
art
thou
so
meanly spirited, as
to
join
in
a
common
jest,
that
is
thrown upon the absent,
and
to mix
with
the odious
tribe
of
back biters
?
Re-
member
this
is
a
shameful baseness
of spirit;
but
a
christian must
be a
man
of
honour
Canst
thou
see thy
friends,
thy.companions,,indulge
a
sinful course, and
hast thou
not one
kind
admonition for
them
?
Hast
thou
not
virtue and courage enough
to
warn thy
brother, and
to
turn
his
foot
from
the path
of
iniquity,
that leads
to
ruin and death
?
But remember
also,
that
gentleness
and
love
must
attend
thy
rebukes,
if
thou
ever
desirest
they should
attain success.. A
re
prover
should have a
bold,
but
a
tender
spirit.
What
zeal host
thou,
O
my
soul,
for reformation
?
Or
canst
thou
bear
with
immoralities
and corruptions
of
every kind
?
And
rather
than
venture
to
displease man,
wilt
thou let
thy
neighbours
go
on
for ever
to displease
God
?
Ghat
wouldest thou
do,
if
thou wert
called to
face
the
great, and
to profess religion before the mighty men
of
the
earth Is
thy faith grown bold enough to shew
itself
in
a court, in
a
palace,
and
to venture
all thy
earthly in-
terests
for
the defence
of it
?
Thus
far concerning
thy
active fortitude.
But
how
stands
the case
with
regard to
passive
valour, and
endur-
ing,of
sùfferirrgs
?
Is
thy
heart
firm
under
sharp trials
of
providence
?
Canst thou
resign thy
health
and
thy
ease
into the
.:hand
of God
without fretting or repining
?
Or
doth
thy
courage
faint, and thy
impatience shamefully
discover
itself
under
the
common pains
and diseases
of
nature
?
.I
grant, there
is
much
of
weakness derived
even'
to
a
manly spirit, from
the distempers
of
the
flesh
:
When
the nerves are
unbraced, and the tabernacle
òf
the
body tottering, the soul
partakes
of
the infirmities
of
this
poor
fleshly
engine. O frail
unhappy state of human
na-