How is it then, my brethren (so I can call you now, although I could not have done it heretofore;) how is it, that the generality of you also are fallen from your stedfastness? In the times of persecution ye stood as a rock, tho’ _all the waves and storms went over_ you. But who can bear ease and fulness of bread! How are you changed, since these came upon you! Do not many of you now (practically I mean) put something else, in the room of _faith that worketh by love_? Do not some of you suppose that gravity and composedness of behaviour, are the main parts of Christianity? Especially, provided you neither swear, nor take the name of God in vain. Do not others imagine, that to abstain from idle songs, and those fashionable diversions commonly used by persons of their fortune, is almost the whole of religion? To which if they add family prayer, and a strict observation of the sabbath, then doubtless all is well! Nay my brethren, this is well, so far as it goes: but how little a way does it go toward Christianity? All these things, you cannot but see, are merely _external_; whereas Christianity is an _inward_ thing; without which the most beautiful outward form is lighter than vanity. Do not others of you rest in _conviction_? Or good _desires_? Alas, what do these avail? A man may be _convinced_ he is sick, yea deeply convinced, and yet never recover. He may _desire_ food, yea with earnest desire, and nevertheless perish with hunger. And thus I may be _convinced_ I am a sinner; but this will not justify me before God. And I may _desire_ salvation (perhaps by fits and starts, for many years) and yet be lost for ever. Come close then to the point, and keep to your principles. Have _you_ received the Holy Ghost; the Spirit which is of God, and is bestowed by him on all believers, _that we may know the things which are freely given to us of God_? The time is short. Do you experience now that _unction from the Holy One_? Without which you confess _outward_ religion, whether negative or positive is nothing. Nay, and inward _conviction_ of our wants is nothing, unless those wants are in fact supplied. Good _desires_ also are nothing, unless we actually attain what we are stirred up to desire. For still, _if any man_ have _not the Spirit of_ Christ, whatever he desires, _he is none of his_. O my brother, beware you stop not short! Beware you never account yourself a Christian, no not in the lowest degree, till God _hath sent forth the Spirit of_ Christ _into_ your _heart_, and that _Spirit bear witness with_ your _spirit, that you are a child of God_. 3. One step farther from us, are you who are called (though not by your own choice) _Anabaptists_. The smallness of your number, compared to that of either the _Presbyterians_, or those of the _church_, makes it easier for you to have an exact knowledge of the behaviour of all your members, and to put away from among you every one that _walketh not according to the doctrine you have received_.