But it is not only from the spots of gross criminality, or the commission of flagrant offences, that religion teaches us to keep ourselves pure and undefiled. Even the smallest approaches to these, or a _temptation_ to any, in the secret workings of inward depravity, give the Christian infinitely more pain, than acts of injustice do the fraudulent; a life of unremitted excess, the licentious; or adultery, that epitome of all villanies, the wretch, who, by committing it, gives the most deadly stab to his own reputation, and the deepest wound to his neighbour’s peace. An idea in the imagination, a thought, a word, any sudden sally of unguarded temper, that cannot be justified or harboured, without grieving the Holy Spirit, and violating truth, will give him pain, and excite resistance, and produce humiliation. The conscience of the believer being “cleansed from dead works to serve the living God,” is susceptible of the slightest spot; while that, which is totally defiled by long accumulated guilt, feels no uneasy sensation, and sees not its own pollution. Being made the seat of sensibility as well as of purity, the conscience, though wounded with even a slight offence, is like the tender organ of the eve, when only a mote incommodes or lacerates its delicate texture. It makes him weep, and robs him of repose, till that blood which washes out the deepest or the slightest stain of sin, and that Spirit who subdues its power, renew their respective and sovereign influence. This guard against the access of inward defilement, and this gospel mode of cleansing it, are the only safe preservatives from grosser corruptions. Therefore, as the heart, like tinder, is too susceptive of the sparks of temptation, he shuns the converse of those, through whom he might be drawn aside; thinking his character too sacred to be habitually mixed or trusted with the company of the gay and irreligious; and his peace too precious, to be lost by what, in review, must often give so much pain, without the smallest real advantage. Even if there were no other argument to enforce the necessity of keeping ourselves unspotted from the world, this is sufficiently strong and alarming; that that very world, by a sinful conformity to which, men contract guilt and risk salvation, after having acted as _tempter_, will, like Satan, be the very first to turn _accuser_, and _tormentor_. The _consolations_ of religion. When we recommend the consolations of religion, as an argument to engage men to enter upon the experience and practice of it, we cannot so far delude their hopes, as to insinuate, that it excludes every idea of trouble and conflict, as well as every sensation of sorrow and solicitude. As compared to a warfare, a pilgrimage, a race, religion must, of course, presuppose enemies, who cannot be overcome without fighting; a journey, that cannot be undertaken and completed without difficulties; and a prize, which cannot be won by indolence and inaction.