When a poor sinner first comes into a profession, he is full of legality, and being full of sin and darkness, he generally flies to those kind of preachers that will set him to work; and these commonly argue with such poor sinners, “Why, as you have done so much against God, it is now high time you did something for God.” This sounds well in the ears of such, and to work they go, to try to please God; and if the Preacher does not immediately send them to the Moral Law, they are generally sent to some tradition of the Elders; they must become teachers in the Sunday Schools; they must form a Society and visit the Sick; they must attend upon Prayer Meetings and other religious Societies. Here those who have no spiritual life can rest; upon these husks they can feed; but where there is real hungering and thirsting after the bread of life, the mind cannot be fed with such things; not but that they are praise-worthy in themselves, but they should not be carried on by souls in such a state, their place is to wait at the door of mercy; to be in spiritual labour to get the bread of life, and having found him, then to observe their call in Providence to visit others. But many are at this work all their days, and will be found with no other title or qualification for glory but this. When death comes, then they will, perhaps, have to reflect with pleasure on the use they have been to others. But this will be a miserable foundation; and if they do not expect salvation upon this ground, yet they must confess they have looked upon these things as fruits and evidences; but eternity will convince them they are not the fruits of the Spirit. Hypocrite and Pharisees can feed here, but a quickened soul cannot; this every truly converted character must acknowledge. Those hypocritical professors not only feed on these eternals, but on the failings, sins, and falls, either real or supposed, of God’s people, every fall they hear of is marrow and fatness to them: these they sweetly enjoy, quite forgeting that they cannot be said to fall themselves, for, as they never stood, either by faith or love, they cannot fall; they have but few temptations, and those only what a worldly man has, and not what is peculiar to God’s elect. Hence the Apostle says, Let him that _thinketh_ he standeth—he only thinks so, yet he may fall from his profession altogether; and as he exulted in the supposed falls of the saints, God may cast him down from his excellency. I have often observed this myself, and the sacred Scriptures strikingly set it forth; _the net they spread for others_, _the pit they have digged they have been taken in_; so God has always testified, sooner or later, as it is written, He that rolleth a stone it shall turn upon him, and he that diggeth a pit shall fall therein.—He that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby. Read the 10th of _Eccles._ from the 8th to the 15th verse.