paths, that the multitude of men walk in, and never challenge, nor will
endure to be challenged as if they were in an error! In other journeys,
men keep the plain highway, and are afraid of any secret by-way, lest it
lead them wrong: _At hic, via quaeque tritissima maxime decipit._ Here the
high-pathed way leads wrong, and O, far wrong!--to hell. This is the
meaning of Christ's sermon, "Enter in at the strait gate, but walk not in
the broad way where many walk, for it leads to destruction." Therefore I
would have this persuasion once begotten in your souls, that the course of
this world,--the way of the most part of men,--is dangerous, is damnable. O
consider whither the way will lead you, before you go farther! Do not
think it a folly to stand still now, and examine it, when you have gone on
so long in their company. Stand, I say, and consider! Be not ignorant as
beasts, that know no other things than to follow the drove; _quae pergunt,
non quo eundum est, sed quo itur_; they follow not whither they ought to
go, but whither most go. You are men, and have reasonable souls within
you; therefore I beseech you, be not composed and fashioned according to
custom and example, that is, brutish, but according to some inward
knowledge and reason. Retire once from the multitude, and ask in earnest
at God, What is the way? Him that fears him he will teach the way that he
should choose. The way to his blessed end is very strait, very difficult;
you must have a guide in it,--you must have a lamp and a light in it,--else
you cannot but go wrong.

The principles of reason within us are too dark and dim; they will never
lead us through the pits and snares in the way. These indeed shined so
brightly in Adam that he needed no light without him, no voice about him;
but sin hath extinguished it much; and there remains nothing but some
little spunk or sparkle, under the ashes of much corruption, that is but
insufficient in itself, and is often more blinded and darkened by lusts.
So that if it were never so much refined--as it was in many heathens--yet it
is but the blind leading the blind, and both must fall into the ditch. Our
end is high and divine,--to glorify God and to enjoy him; therefore our
reason _caligat ad suprema_; it can no more steadfastly behold that
glorious end, and move towards it, than our weak eyes can behold the sun.
Our eyes can look downward upon the earth, but not upward to the heavens:
so we have some remnant of rea