o keep it, and misuse it still more?

You are afraid of death. You do not wish to die. But why should you not
die? Why should Christ save you from death? Of what use is your life to
Christ, or to any human being? If you are living a bad life, your life
is a bad thing, and does harm not only to yourself, but to your
neighbours. Why should Christ keep you alive to hurt and corrupt your
neighbours, and to set a bad example to your children? If you are not
doing your duty where Christ has put you, you are of no use, a cumberer
of the ground. What reason can you shew why He should not take you away,
and put some one in your place who _will_ do his duty? You are afraid of
being lost--why should you _not_ be lost? You are offensive, and an
injury to the universe. You are an actual nuisance on Christ's earth and
in Christ's Kingdom. Why should He not--as He has sworn--cast out of His
Kingdom all things which offend, and you among the rest? Why should He
not get rid of you, as you get rid of vermin, as you get rid of weeds;
and cast you into the fire, to be burned up with all evil things? Answer
that: before you ask Christ to save you, and deliver you from danger, and
from death, and from the hell which you so much--and perhaps so
justly--fear.

And how that question is to be answered, I cannot see.

Certainly the selfish man cannot answer it. The idle man cannot answer
it. The profligate man cannot answer it. They are doing nothing for
Christ; or for their neighbours, or for the human race; and they cannot
expect Christ to do anything for them.

The only men who can answer it; the only men, it seems to me, who can
have any hope of their prayers being heard, are those who, like the
Psalmist, are trying to do something for Christ, and their neighbours,
and the human race; who are, in a word, trying to be good. Those, I
mean, who have already prayed, earnestly and often, the first prayer,
"Teach me, O Lord, Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end." They
have--not a right: no one has a right against Christ, no, not the angels
and archangels in heaven--not a right, but a hope, through Christ's most
precious and undeserved promises, that their prayers will be heard; and
that Christ will save them from destruction, because they are, at least,
likely to become worth saving; because they are likely to be of use in
Christ's world, and to do some little work in Christ's kingdom.

They are God's: they are sold