Learn whatever you will from men and books, or even from Christ himself, besides, or without these virtues, and you are only a poor wanderer in a barren wilderness, where no water of life is to be found. For Christ is no where, but in these virtues, and where they are, there is he in his own kingdom. From morning to night, let this be the object you follow, and then you will fully escape all the religious delusions that are in the world, and what is more, all the delusions of your own selfish heart. For when these tempers live and abide in you, as the spirit and aim of your life, then Christ is in you of a truth, and the life that you then lead, is not yours, but Christ liveth in you. For this is following Christ with all your power: you cannot possibly make more haste after him, you have no other way of walking as he walked, no other way of being like him, of truly believing in him, but by wholly giving up yourself to patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God. But observe. There is no way to attain this without a total despair of all human help. When a man is brought to such an inward, full conviction, as to have no more hope from all human means, than he hopes to see with his hands, or hear with his feet, then it is, that he is truly prepared to die to sin; that is, to give up all thoughts of having or doing any thing that is good, in any other way but that of a meek, humble, patient, total resignation of himself to God. All that we do before _this conviction_ is in great ignorance of ourselves, and full of weakness and impurity. Let our zeal be ever so wonderful, yet if it is not led and guided by this conviction, it is full of delusion. For God must do all, or all is nothing; but God cannot do all, till all is expected from him; and all is not expected from him, till _despairing_ of ever human help, we trust in Christ alone for a patient, meek, humble, total resignation to God. And now, my dear friends, I have brought you to the very place for which I desired this day’s conversation; which was, to set your feet upon sure ground, with regard to the _spirit of love_. For all that variety of matters, through which we have passed, has been only a variety of proofs, that the _spirit_ of divine love can have no place, in any fallen creature, till it wills and _chooses_ to be dead to _all sin_ in a patient, meek, humble resignation to the power and mercy of God.