“By endeavoring to avoid the bog, you sink in the quicksands—while you are hiding the system of grace, and casting it, as it were, into the shade—duties without faith are not acceptable, for ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God.’ I compare you to a dry-goods merchant, who should hang up a piece of white cloth over the shelves of his store, where the cloths, fine linen, silks, &c., are kept, and thus hiding every article in his store, without exposing any thing to the view of his customers, yet he would stand at the counter, and address them in the language of surprise, Why do you not buy here, for I know you have wherewith? So some preach, standing like the store-keeper at the counter, saying, while the doctrine of grace is kept put of sight, Why do you not buy here? for we know that you have the money of ability; but you spend your money in the shops of the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life. But they reply, What shall we buy, sir? you tell us that there is salvation in your store—and fine linen wrought out from Bethlehem to Calvary, and white raiment; gold and pearls, and food and drink indeed; but you hide them under the vail: bring them to the counter, and open them before us; show us, carefully and plainly, whence this salvation proceeds, and by what means it has been procured;—has it been expensive to some one, seeing it is free for us?” Once more:— “I compare such preachers to a miner, who should go to the quarry where he raised the ore, and taking his sledge in his hand, should endeavor to form bars of iron of the ore in its rough state, without a furnace to melt it, or a rolling-mill to roll it out, or molds to cast the metal, and conform the casts to their patterns. The gospel is like a form or mold, and sinners are to be melted, as it were, and cast into it. ‘But ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you,’ {73} or into which you were delivered, as is the marginal reading, so that your hearts ran into the mold. Evangelical preachers have, in the name of Christ, a mold or form to cast the minds of men into; as Solomon, the vessels of the temple. The Sadducees and Pharisees had their forms, and legal preachers have their forms; but evangelical preachers should bring with them the ‘form of sound words,’ so that, if the hearers believe, or are melted into it, Christ may be formed in their hearts—then they will be as born of the truth, and the image of the truth will appear in their sentiments and experience, and in their conduct in the church, in the family, and in the neighborhood. Preachers without the mold, are all those who do not preach all the points of the gospel of the grace of God.”