foolish to confound
the wise; yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought the
things which are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

That no flesh should glory in his presence. For mind, my friends,
our business is not to be high-minded but to fear. And we English
are too apt to be high-minded now. We pride ourselves on our
English character, English cleverness, English courage, English
wealth. My friends, be not high-minded but fear. We have no right
to pride ourselves on being Englishmen, if we do the very things
which our forefathers were ashamed to do even when they were
heathens. They honoured their fathers and mothers. Do we? They
were loyal and obedient to law. Are we? They were chaste and clean
livers: adultery was seldom heard of among them; and, when it was,
they punished it in the most fearful way: while what astonished
that old Roman gentleman, of whom I spoke, most of all, was the pure
and respectable lives of the young men and women. Is it so now-a-
days among us, my friends? They were honest, too, and just in all
their dealings. Are we? They were true to their word; no men on
earth more true. Are we? They hated covetousness and overreaching.
Do we? They were generous, open-handed, hospitable. Are we? My
friends, this was the old English spirit, which God accepted in our
forefathers. Is it in us now? We must not pride ourselves on it,
unless we have it. Nay, more, what is it but a shame to us, if,
while our forefathers were good heathens, we are bad Christians?
They had but a small spark, a dim ray, as it were, of the light
which lighteth every man who comes into the world: but they were
more faithful to that little than many are now, who live in the full
sunshine of God's gospel, in the free dispensation of God's spirit,
with Christ's sacraments, Christ's Churches, means of grace and
hopes of glory, of which they never dreamed. May they not rise up
against some of us in the day of judgment, and condemn us, and say,--
'Are you our children? Do you boast of knowing God better than we
did, while you did things which we dared not do? We knew that God
hated such sins, and therefore we kept from them. You should know
that better than we; for you had seen God's horror of sin in the
death of his own Son Jesus Christ; and yet you went on committing
the very sins which crucified the Lord of Glory.'

My friends, I speak sober earnest. God grant that our old heathen
fore