man could be more careful of God's honour than God is of His own; as
if man could hate sin and guard against sin more carefully than God
Himself.

Just in the same way do people stumble at certain invaluable words
in the Church Catechism, which teach children to thank God for
having brought them into that state of salvation. Even very good
people, and people who really wish to believe and honour the Church
Catechism, and the Sacrament of Baptism, find these words too strong
to please them, and say, that of course a child's being in a state
of salvation cannot mean that he is saved, but that he may be saved
after he dies.

My friends, I never could find that we have a right to take
liberties with the Bible and the Prayer Book which we dare not take
with any other book, and to put meanings into the words of them
which, in the case of any other book, would be contrary to plain
grammar and the English tongue, if not to common sense and honesty.

If you say of a man, 'he is in a state of happiness,' you mean, do
you not, that he is happy now, not that he may perhaps be happy some
day? If you came to me and told me that you were in a state of
hunger, you would think it a very strange answer to receive if I
say, 'Very well then, if you become hungry, come to me, and I will
feed you?' You all know that a man's being in a state of poverty,
or of misery, means that he is poor or miserable now, here, at this
very time; that if a man is in a state of sickness, he is sick; if
he is in a state of health, he is healthy. Then what can a man's
being in a state of salvation mean, by all rules of English, but
that he is saved? If I were to say to any one of the good people
who do not think so, 'My friend, you are in a state of damnation,'
he would answer me quickly enough, 'I am not, for I am not damned.'
He would agree that a man's being in a state of damnation means that
the man is damned; why will he not agree that a man's being in a
state of salvation means that he is saved? Because, my friends,
God's grace is too full for fallen man's notions; and therefore
there is an evil fashion abroad in the world, that where a text
speaks of wrath, and misery and punishment, you are to interpret it
exactly, and to the very letter: but where it speaks of love, and
mercy, and forgiveness, you are to do no such thing, but narrow it,
and fence it, and explain it away, for fear you should make sinners
too comfortable,--a plan which seems