Some few, again, there may be, who, within their own recollection, could
not say that they have received the Holy Ghost: persons who have lived
among careless friends, to whom the way of life has never been steadily
pointed out; while the way of death, with all its manifold paths,
meeting at last in one, has been continually before them. Shall we say
that these, because they have been baptized, are therefore guilty of
having rejected grace given? that this sin is aggravated, because a
mercy was offered them once of which they were unconscious? We would not
say this; but we would say that it is impossible but that they must have
received the Holy Ghost within their memory; it is impossible but that
conscience must have sometimes spoken, and that they must have sometimes
been enabled to obey it; it is impossible but that they must have had
some notions of sin, and some desires to struggle against it; and so far
as they ever felt that desire, it was the work of God's Holy Spirit.
Man cannot dare to say how great the amount of their guilt may be; but
guilt there certainly is; they have grieved the Holy Spirit; and, though
we dare not say that they have utterly blasphemed him, yet they have a
long hardness to overcome, and every hour of delayed turning to God
increases it: it may be possible still to overcome it, but meanwhile it
is not overcome; they are not receiving the Holy Spirit; they are not
being renewed into the likeness of Christ, without which no man can
see God.

Here, then, are the four cases, one of which must belong to every one of
us here assembled. Either we have been always and still are receiving
the Holy Ghost; or we can remember when we were not, but yet are
receiving him now; or we can remember when we were, but yet now are not;
or we cannot remember to have received him ever, nor are we yet
receiving him. I cannot say which of the last two states is the most
dreadful, nor scarcely which of the first two states is the most
blessed. But yet as even those happy states admit not of
over-confidence, so neither do the last two most unhappy states oblige
us to despair. Not to despair; but they do urge us to every degree of
fear less than despair. There is far more danger of our not fearing
enough than of our being driven to despair. There is far more danger of
your looking on the season of youth, of our looking on to old age; you
trusting to the second freshness and tenderness of the first,--we to the
calmn