4. For consider the examples of the holy Prophets and Apostles, as also of the Son of God himself. They did not barely dispute against false prophets and apostles, and the superstitions maintained by them; but also with great zeal and vigor exhorted to true repentance, and a holy life. Their sermons were accompanied with power and energy; and they made it appear, that by wickedness and impenitence, true religion and worship were destroyed, the Church laid waste, and kingdoms and countries visited with the plague, war, and famine. And all this exactly came to pass even as they said. Of this complexion is that declaration of the Prophet, where he denounces to the Jews, “that because the vineyard of the Lord did not bring forth grapes, but wild grapes, the Lord had decreed to lay it waste.” Isaiah 5:4, 6. Whence it appears, that impiety is the cause, why God takes away his Word from us. And does not the Lord speak to the same effect, in the words recorded by St. John? “Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.” John 12:35. But what is it to walk in the light, except it be to imitate Christ in his life, and to have the same mind which was in him? And what does the Lord intimate by the “darkness coming upon us,” but the loss of the Gospel, and of the purity of the Christian doctrine? All this may abundantly convince us, that without repentance and holiness of life, no soul can be illuminated with the saving light of the Gospel. For the Holy Ghost, who is the true enlightener of hearts, flees from the ungodly, and chooses holy souls only, to make them friends of God. And if the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God (Ps. 111:10), who can doubt that impiety and carnal security are the beginning of folly, ignorance, and blindness?