51. Bear with me a little longer: my soul is distrest for you. _The God of this world hath blinded your eyes_, and you are _seeking death in the error of your life_. Because you do not commit gross sin, because you give alms, and go to the church and sacrament, you imagine that you are serving God; yet in very deed you are serving the devil. For you are doing still your own will, not the will of God your Saviour. You are pleasing yourself in all you do. Pride, vanity, and self-will, (the genuine fruits of an earthly, sensual, devilish heart) pollute all your words and actions. You are in darkness, in the shadow of death. Oh! That God would say to you in thunder, _Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light_. 52. But blessed be God! He hath not yet left himself without witness! “All are not lost! There be, who faith prefer, Tho’ few, and piety to God!” Who know the power of faith, and are no strangers to that inward, vital religion, _the mind that was in_ Christ, _righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost_. Of you who _have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come_, I would be glad to learn if we have _erred from the faith_, or walked contrary to _the truth as it is in_ Jesus. _Let the righteous smite me friendly, and reprove me_; if haply that which is amiss may be done away, and what is wanting supplied, till we all come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. 53. Perhaps the first thing that now occurs to your mind, relates to the doctrine which we teach. You have heard, that we say, “Men may live without sin.” And have you not heard that the scripture says the same? (We mean without committing sin.) Does not St. _Paul_ say plainly, that those who believe, _do not continue in sin_?――――That they cannot _live any longer therein_? Romans vi. 1, 2. Does not St. _Peter_ say, _He that hath suffered in the flesh, hath ceased from sin?――――that he no longer should live――――to the desires of men, but to the will of God_, 1 Peter iv. 1, 2. And does not St. _John_ say expressly, _He that committeth sin is of the devil.――For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God, doth not commit sin: for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot commit sin, because he is born of God_, 1 John iii. 8. &c. And again, _We know that whatsoever is born of God sinneth not_, chapter v. 18.