*4. Do you think now, I have an eye to _your_ case? Doubtless I have; for I do not fight as one that beateth the air. “Why have not I a right to hinder my own wife or child, from going to a conventicle? And is it not the duty of wives to obey their husbands? And of children to obey their parents?” Only set the case seventeen hundred years back, and your own conscience gives you the answer. What would St. _Paul_ have said to one whose husband forbade her, to follow _this way_ any more? What directions would our Saviour have given to him whose father enjoined him, not to hear the gospel? His words are extant still, _He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me._ (Matthew x. 37, 38.) Nay more, _If any man cometh to me, and hateth not_ (in comparison of me) _his father, and mother, and wife, and children, yea and his own life, he cannot be my disciple_. (Luke xiv. 26.) *“O, but this is not a parallel case. For they were _Heathens_; but I am a _Christian_.” A Christian! Are you so? Do you understand the word? Do you know what a Christian is? If you are a Christian, you have the mind that was in Christ; and you so walk as he also walked. You are holy as he is holy, both in heart, and in all manner of conversation. Have you then the mind that was in Christ? And do you walk as Christ walked? Are you inwardly and outwardly holy? I fear, not even outwardly. No; you live in known sin. Alas! How then are you a Christian? What a railer, a Christian? A common swearer, a Christian? A sabbath-breaker, a Christian? A drunkard or whoremonger, a Christian? Thou art a Heathen barefaced; the wrath of God is on thy head, and the curse of God upon thy back. Thy damnation slumbereth not. By reason of such Christians it is that the holy name of Christ is blasphemed. Such as thou they are, that cause the very savages in the _Indian_ woods to cry out, “_Christian_ much drunk, _Christian_ beat men, _Christian_ tell lies, _Devil-Christian_! Me no _Christian_.” *And so _thou_ wilt direct thy wife and children in the way of salvation!――Woe unto thee, thou Devil-Christian! Woe unto thee thou blind leader of the blind! What wilt thou make them? Two-fold more the children of hell than thyself? Be ashamed, blush, if thou canst blush. Hide thy face. Lay thee in the dust. Out of the deep cry unto God, if haply he may hear thy voice. Instantly smite upon thy breast. Who knoweth but God may take thee out of the belly of hell?