than
others, they often talk for the sake of talking, or to show their
ability (as they think), their shrewdness and depth; and they speak
lightly of the All-Holy God, to gratify their empty self-conceit and
vanity. And often it answers no purpose to dispute with such persons;
for not having been trained up to obey their conscience, to restrain
their passions, and examine their hearts, they will assent to nothing
you can say; they will be questioning and arguing about every thing;
they have no common ground with you, and when they talk of religion
they are like blind persons talking of colours. If you urge how great
a gift it is to be at peace with God, or of the arduousness and yet
desirableness of perfection, or the beauty of saintliness, or the
dangerousness of the world, or the blessedness of self-control, or the
glory of virginity, or the answers which God gives to prayer, or the
marvellousness and almost miraculousness of His providences, or the
comfort of religion in affliction, or the strength given you over your
passions in the Most Holy Sacrament, such persons understand you not at
all. They will laugh, they will scoff, at best they will wonder: any
how what you say is no evidence to _them_. You cannot convince them,
because you differ from them in first principles; it is not that they
start from the same point as you, and afterwards strike off in some
wayward direction; but their course is altogether distinct, they have
no point in common with you. For such persons then you can only pray;
God alone can bring down pride, self-conceit, an arrogant spirit, a
presumptuous temper; God alone can dissipate prejudice; God alone can
overcome flesh and blood. Useful as argument may be for converting a
man, in such cases God seldom condescends to employ it. Yet, let not
such vain or ignorant reasoners convert you to unbelief in great
matters or little; let them not persuade you, that your faith is built
on the mere teaching of fallible men; do not you be ridiculed out of
your confidence and hope in Christ. You may, if you will, have an
inward witness arising from obedience: and though you cannot make them
see it, you can see it yourselves, which is the great thing; and it
will be quite sufficient, with God's blessing, to keep you stedfast in
the way of life.

Lastly, let me remark how dangerous their state is who are content to
take the truths of the Gospel on trust, without caring whether or not
those truths