322 k CAVEAT AgAINST IICFIDELITY. lest there be in any ofyou an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God, and lest you be hardened through the deceit- f ulness of sin ; Heb. iii. 12, 13. While you give ear to the little criticisms and sophistries of the adversary, remember you are upon slippery ground : Look well to your feet, lest you are be- trayed on a sudden, and carried away into frightful lengths of doubt and darkness, for want of a helping hand near you. It is true, the gospel of Christ has wrong and immoveable founda- tions richly sufficient for the support of it; there are abundant vindications of it published in theworld, against all the assaults of wit and reasoning. But a sly and perplexing sophismmaybe cast into the mind and seize thesoul in an unguarded hour, when you may not have an answer reády at hand, and the poisonmay penetrate too far, and corrupt the mind before the antidote is found and applied. XII. "Maintain a solemnity of spirit, and a serioustemper of mittd in all your enquiries and discourses on a theme of such everlasting importance." While our modern deists affect to shew themselves men of wit, and makea jest serve for an argu- ment, they do not appear to be in good earnest, enquiring the way to please God and save their own souls. God and souls, and eternity are no trivial ideas. It is no ludicrous matter to treat or discourse of them. Such jesters have no reason to hope for divine irradiations. Ifyou have occasion to speak of the ob- scure and difficult parts of scripture, do it not in a trifling hu- mour, or with a licentious levity of spirit, nor indulge your lips to mix them with sneer and merriment. It is dangerous to jest withweapons that will wound the soul. When christians give themselves a loose, and venture at this rate upon the border of profaneness, they may be left of God, and be righteously given up to a spirit of unbelief. There are thosewho once thought themselves believers in Christ, but by sporting on the borders of this precipice with wanton and unwary feet, they have found themselves carried down strangely into the deeps of apostasy: They have at last learned roundly to renounce Christ whom they worshipped, and ridicule the gospel which they once revered.; they have been plunged into vices which they once abhorred : they have let go the name of Christ, and God has let them go out of his holykeeping, till at last they havebecome perfect heathens in every sense, without virtue or truth, without hope and without God in the world. The Al- mighty Governorof the world has made some tremendous monu- ments of justice and vengeance ; his warning-pieces demand our awful notice. XIII. " Think often how much safer youare hi the profes- sion and practice of christianity, than if you should relinquish the ggspei, and change it for mere natural religion." And the
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