irits being fully called forth to the encounter, he could boldly
stand the brunt of sharper trials; let him be slow to give entertainment
to so beguiling a suggestion; and let him not forget that these little
instances, where no credit is to be got, and the vainest can find small
room for self-complacency, furnish perhaps the truest tests whether we
are ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, and are willing, on principles
really pure, to bear reproach for the name of Jesus.

The Christian too is well aware that the excessive desire of human
approbation is a passion of so subtile a nature, that there is nothing
into which it cannot penetrate; and from much experience, learning to
discover it where it would lurk unseen, and to detect it under its more
specious disguises, he finds, that elsewhere disallowed and excluded, it
is apt to insinuate itself into his very religion, where it especially
delights to dwell, and obstinately maintains its residence. Proud piety
and ostentatious charity, and all the more open effects it there
produces, have been often condemned, and we may discover the tendencies
to them in ourselves, without difficulty. But where it appears not so
large in bulk, and in shape so unambiguous, let its operation be still
suspected. Let not the Christian suffer himself to be deceived by any
external dissimilitudes between himself and the world around him,
trusting perhaps to the sincerity of the principle to which they
originally owed their rise; but let him beware lest through the
insensible encroachments of the subtle usurper, his religion should at
length have "only a name to live," being gradually robbed of its
vivifying principle; lest he should be mainly preserved in his religious
course by the dread of incurring the charge of levity, for quitting a
path on which he had deliberately entered. Or where, on a strict and
impartial scrutiny of his governing motives, he may fairly conclude
this not to be the case, let him beware lest he be influenced by this
principle in particular parts of his character, and especially where any
external singularities are in question; closely scrutinizing his
apparent motives, lest he should be prompted to his more than ordinary
religious observances, and be kept from participating in the licentious
pleasures of a dissipated age, not so much by a vigorous principle of
internal holiness, as by a fear of lessening himself in the good opinion
of the stricter circle of his associates,