Though you have no employment, yet as you are baptized into the profession of the Christian religion, you are as much obliged to live according to the holiness of the Christian spirit, as any man is obliged to be honest and faithful in his calling. If you abuse this great calling, you are not false in a small matter, but you abuse the precious blood of Christ; you crucify the Son of God afresh; you neglect the highest instances of divine goodness; and it will be more tolerable for _Tyre_ and _Sidon at the day of judgment than for you_. 3. It is therefore great folly for any one to think himself at liberty to live as he pleases, because he is not in such a state of life as some others are: for if there is any thing dreadful in the abuse of any _trust_; if there is any thing to be feared for the neglect of any calling, there is nothing more to be feared than the wrong use of our _reason_, nor any thing more to be dreaded, than the neglect of our _Christian calling_; which is not to serve the little uses of a short life, but to redeem souls unto God, to fill heaven with saints, and finish a kingdom of eternal glory. No man therefore must think himself excused from the _exactness_ of piety, because he has chosen to be _idle_ and _independent_ in the world; for the _necessities_ of a holy life are not founded in the several conditions of this life, but in the immutable nature of God and the nature of man. A man is not to be reasonable and holy, because he is a _priest_, or a _father_ of a family; but he is to be a pious priest, and a good father, because piety and goodness are the _laws_ of human nature. Could any man please God, without living according to _reason_ and _order_, there would be nothing displeasing to God in an _idle_ priest or a _reprobate_ father. He therefore that abuses his _reason_, is like him that abuses the _priesthood_; and he that neglects the holiness of the _Christian life_, is as the man that disregards the most _important trust_. 4. If a man was to chuse to put out his eyes, rather than enjoy the light, and see the works of God; if he should voluntarily kill himself, by refusing to eat and drink, every one would own that such a one was a rebel against God, that justly deserved his highest indignation. You would not say, that this was only sinful in a _priest_, or a _master_ of a family, but in every man as such. Now wherein does the sinfulness of this behaviour consist? Does it not consist in this, that he abuses his _nature_, and refuses to act that part for which God had created him? But if this be true, then all persons that abuse their _reason_, that act a different part from that for which God created them, are like this man, rebels against God, and on the same account subject to his wrath.