d about
Protestant doctrine, and Gospel truths, while all the fruit of it
seems to be, to teach men to abuse the Pope, and to fancy that every
one is going to hell, who does not agree with their opinions; while
their own lives, their own conduct, their own morality, seems not
improved one whit by all this preaching. And yet men like such
preaching, and run to hear it. Of course they do; for it leaves
them to behave all the week as if there was no Law of God, if only
they will go on Sundays, and listen to what is called, I fear most
untruly, the Gospel of God; leaves them, on condition of belonging
to some particular party, and listening to some favourite preacher,
free to give way to their passions, their spite, their meanness; to
grind their servants, cheat their masters, trick their customers,
adulterate their goods, and behave in money-matters as if all was
fair in business, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ had nothing to do
with common honesty; and all the while,

Compound for sins they are inclined to.
By damning those they have no mind to.

My friends, these things ought not so to be. There is a Gospel of
God, which preaches full forgiveness for the sake of Jesus Christ,
to all who turn from their sins. But there is a Law of God,
likewise, which executes sure vengeance against all who do _not_
turn from their sins; be their professions as high, or their
doctrines as correct as they may. A law which is in the Gospel
itself, and says, by the mouth of the Apostle St. John, 'Little
children, let no man deceive you: he that _doeth_ righteousness is
righteous, even as God is righteous'--he--and not he who expects to
be saved by listening to some false preacher who teaches his
congregation how to go to heaven without having thought one heavenly
thought, or done one heavenly-deed.

Yes. There is an eternal law of God, which people are forgetting, I
often fear, more and more, in England just now. I sometimes dread,
lest we should be sinking into that hideous state of which the old
Hebrew prophet speaks--'The prophets prophesy falsely, and the
priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so:
and what will ye do in the end thereof?' What, indeed; if people
are to be taught more and more, that religion is a matter merely of
doctrines and fancies and feelings, and has nothing to do with
common morality, and common honesty, and common self-control and
improvement of character and conduct?

M