w," said Mr. Worthy, "explained undesignedly the reason
why religion does so little good in the world. It is not a
mountebank; it does not work by a charm; but it offers to cure your
worst corruptions by wholesome, though sometimes bitter
prescriptions. But you will not take them; you will not apply to God
with the same earnest desire to be healed with which you apply to
your doctor; you will not confess your sins to one as honestly as
you tell your symptoms to the other, nor read your Bible with the
same faith and submission with which you take your medicine. In
reading it, however, you must take care not to apply to yourself the
comforts which are not suited to your case. You must, by the grace
of God, be brought into a condition to be entitled to the promises,
before you can expect the comfort of them. Conviction is not
conversion; that worldly discontent, which is the effect of worldly
disappointment, is not that _godly sorrow which worketh repentance_.
Besides, while you have been pursuing all the gratifications of the
world, do not complain that you have not all the comforts of
religion too. Could you live in the full enjoyment of both, the
_Bible would not be true_."

_Bragwell._ Well, sir, but I do a good action sometimes; and God,
who knows he did not make us perfect, will accept it, and for the
sake of my good actions will forgive my faults.

_Worthy._ Depend upon it, God will never forgive your sins for the
sake of your virtues. There is no commutation tax there. But he will
forgive them on your sincere repentance for the sake of Jesus
Christ. Goodness is not a single act to be done; so that a man can
say, I have achieved it, and the thing is over; but it is a habit
that is to be constantly maintained; it is a continual struggle with
the opposite vice. No man must reckon himself good for any thing he
has already done; though he may consider it as an evidence that he
is in the right way, if he feels a constant disposition to resist
every evil temper. But every Christian grace will always find work
enough; and he must not fancy that because he has conquered once,
his virtue may now sit down and take a holiday.

_Bragwell._ But I thought we Christians need not be watchful against
sin; because Christ, as you so often tell me, died for sinners.

_Worthy._ Do not deceive yourself: the evangelical doctrines, while
they so highly exalt a Saviour, do not diminish the heinousness of
sin, they rather magnify it. Do