I will try and forget what the clergyman said
in his sermon, or what I learnt at school. I am grown up now, and I
will do what I like." Oh, my friends, is it a wise or a hopeful
battle to fight against the living God? Grieve not the Holy Spirit
of God, whereby ye are sealed to the day of redemption, lest He go
away from you and leave you to yourselves, spiritually dead, twice
dead, plucked up by the roots, whose end is to be burned. Grieve Him
not, lest He depart, and with Him both the Father and the Son. And
then you will not know right from wrong, because God the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of right, has left you. You will not know what a man
ought to be or do, because the Son of Man, the perfect likeness of
God, and therefore the pattern of man, has left you. You will not
know that God the Father is your Father, but only fancy him a stern
taskmaster, reaping where He has not sown, and requiring of you more
than you are bound to pay, because God the Father has left you.
You may, indeed, keep out ugly thoughts for a time. You may go on
wantonly in sin, and worldliness, and self-will. And then, by way of
falling deeper still, you may take up with some false sort of
religion, which makes people fancy that they know God, and are one of
His elect, while in works they deny Him, and their sinful heart is
unchanged.
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