2. *But Fulvius, you are a rational creature, and as such, are as much obliged to live according to reason, as a priest is obliged to attend at the altar, or a guardian to be faithful to his trust; if you live contrary to reason, you don’t commit a small crime, you don’t break a small trust; but you break the law of your nature, you rebel against God who gave you that nature, and put yourself among those whom the God of reason will punish as apostates and deserters.
Though you have no employment, yet as you are baptized into the profession of the Christian religion, you are as much obliged to live according to the holiness of the Christian spirit, as any man is obliged to be honest and faithful in his calling. If you abuse this great calling, you are not false in a small matter, but you abuse the precious blood of Christ; you crucify the Son of God afresh; you neglect the highest instances of divine goodness; and it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you.
3. It is therefore great folly for any one to think himself at liberty to live as he pleases, because he is not in such a state of life as some others are: for if there is any thing dreadful in the abuse of any trust; if there is any thing to be feared for the neglect of any calling, there is nothing more to be feared than the wrong use of our reason, nor any thing more to be dreaded, than the neglect of our Christian calling; which is not to serve the little uses of a short life, but to redeem souls unto God, to fill heaven with saints, and finish a kingdom of eternal glory.
No man therefore must think himself excused from the exactness of piety, because he has chosen to be idle and independent in the world; for the necessities of a holy life are not founded in the several conditions of this life, but in the immutable nature of God and the nature of man. A man is not to be reasonable and holy, because he is a priest, or a father of a family; but he is to be a pious priest, and a good father, because piety and goodness are the laws of human nature. Could any man please God, without living according to reason and order, there would be nothing displeasing to God in an idle priest or a reprobate father. He therefore that abuses his reason, is like him that abuses the priesthood; and he that neglects the holiness of the Christian life, is as the man that disregards the most important trust.
4. If a man was to chuse to put out his eyes, rather than enjoy the light, and see the works of God; if he should voluntarily kill himself, by refusing to eat and drink, every one would own that such a one was a rebel against God, that justly deserved his highest indignation. You would not say, that this was only sinful in a priest, or a master of a family, but in every man as such.
Now wherein does the sinfulness of this behaviour consist? Does it not consist in this, that he abuses his nature, and refuses to act that part for which God had created him? But if this be true, then all persons that abuse their reason, that act a different part from that for which God created them, are like this man, rebels against God, and on the same account subject to his wrath.
*Let us suppose that this man, instead of putting out his eyes, had only employed them in looking at ridiculous things, or shut them up in sleep; that instead of starving himself to death, by not eating at all, he should turn every meal into a feast, and eat and drink like an epicure, could he be said to have lived more to the glory of God? Could he any more be said to act the part for which God had created him, than if he had put out his eyes, and starved himself to death?
Now do but suppose a man extinguishing his reason, instead of putting out his eyes, and living in a course of folly and impertinence, instead of starving himself to death, and then you have found out as great a rebel against God.
[♦]6. *If we consider mankind as a redeemed order of fallen spirits, that are baptized into a fellowship with the Son of God; to be temples of the Holy Ghost; to live according to his holy inspirations; to offer to God the reasonable sacrifice of an humble, pious, and thankful life; to purify themselves from the disorders of their fall; to make a right use of the means of grace, in order to be sons of eternal glory: if we look at mankind in this true light, then we shall find, that all tempers that are contrary to this holy society; all actions that make us unlike to Christ, have every thing in them that can make us odious to God. So that tho’ pride and sensuality, do not hurt civil society, as cheating and dishonesty do; yet they hurt that society, and oppose those ends, which are greater and more glorious in the eyes of God, than all the societies that relate to this world.
[♦] Number 5 omitted in text.