life will admit you into heaven. This golden dream of
heaven has sent thousands out of this world unpardoned and unsaved.

A great many persons satisfy themselves with a mere confession and
acknowledgement of their sins. They seem to think they have done enough,
if to confession of sins they add some sorrow for it. They think all is
well if, when their fit of sinning is past and they are returned to
themselves, the sting remains, breeding some remorse of conscience, some
complaints against their wickedness and folly for having done so, and
some intentions to forsake it, though never carried into effect. There
are many persons in the churches of our country who seem to think the
church is a stage, whereon they must play their parts, who make a
profession every day of confessing their sins with humble hearts, and
yet, after having spent twenty, thirty or forty years in this manner,
their hearts are as stubborn as ever, and they as impenitent and
disobedient to the gospel of Jesus Christ. If giving thanks to God for
the blessing received at his hands is performed with words only, with
simple hosannas, and hallelujahs, and "_gloria patris_," and psalms, and
hymns, then I presume it is done very efficiently, (?) though our lives
are provoking to his majesty. _It is not the office of a friend (?) to
bewail a friend with vain lamentation._ To be thankful to God is not to
say God be praised, or God be thanked, but it is to remember what he
desires and execute what he commands. A dying Roman once said, "It is
not the office of a friend to bewail a dead friend with vain
lamentations, but to remember what he desires and execute his commands.
It is the office of the friends of Christ to remember his desires and
carry out his instructions. If we do so we are thankful, and if we do
not our thankfulness is nothing more than mere talk."

Jesus said to his disciples: "Ye are my friends if ye do what I command
you." And again: "If a man love me he will keep my words; he that loveth
me not, keepeth not my sayings." Again: "If ye continue in my word, then
are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free."

Those who love God love his cause. When that cause prospers they
rejoice; when it declines they are hurt. When clouds and darkness are
round about the church it is time to double our diligence and pray to
God for help. Circumstances, over which no human being can have control,
sometimes cause s