This is a point of infinite importance: let it not be thought tedious to spend even yet a few more moments in the discussion of it. Put the question to another issue, and try it, by appealing to the principle of life being a state of probation; (a proposition, indeed, true in a certain sense, though not exactly in that which is sometimes assigned to it,) and you will still be led to no very different conclusion. Probation implies resisting, in obedience to the dictates of Religion, appetites which we are naturally prompted to gratify. Young people are not tempted to be churlish, interested, covetous; but to be inconsiderate and dissipated, "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." People again in middle age are not so strongly tempted to be thoughtless, and idle, and licentious. From excesses of this sort they are sufficiently withheld, particularly when happily settled in domestic life, by a regard to their characters, by the restraints of family connections, and by a sense of what is due to the decencies of the married state. _Their_ probation is of another sort; _they_ are tempted to be supremely engrossed by worldly cares, by family interests, by professional objects, by the pursuit of wealth or of ambition. Thus occupied, they are tempted to "mind earthly rather than heavenly things," forgetting "the one thing needful;" to "set their affections" on temporal rather than eternal concerns, and to take up with "a form of godliness," instead of seeking to experience the power thereof: the foundations of this nominal Religion being laid, as was formerly explained more at large, in the forgetfulness, if not in the ignorance, of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. These are the _ready-made_ Christians formerly spoken of, who consider Christianity as a geographical term, properly applicable to all those who have been born and educated in a country wherein Christianity is professed; not as indicating a renewed nature, as expressive of a peculiar character, with its appropriate desires and aversions, and hopes, and fears, and joys, and sorrows. To people of this description, the solemn admonition of Christ is addressed; "I know thy works; that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God."