"I hope, Sir, you know."
"But, my dear," said Mr. Lawson, "how should this gentleman, who is a stranger among us, know the cause unless you tell him?"
"If, then," said Mrs. Lawson, "I must speak, though it is with great reluctance that I bring forward such a heavy charge, they do not preach the gospel. They are in general mere moral lecturers, and their sermons are mere essays on some one branch of relative duty; but those who are called 'evangelical,' I consider most censurable; because, though they profess to know the truth, yet they are afraid to preach it."
"I presume you except Mr. Inglebly from this sweeping charge?"
"He may be a good man, but his knowledge of the gospel is very superficial. I have occasionally heard him preach a sermon which has given me a little pleasure, but his light merely serves to make his darkness the more visible. He preaches what I call a legalized gospel; instead of preaching a free salvation, he is always exhorting his hearers to be doing something; and tells them that they must look into their own heart, or to their own life, for the evidences of a work of grace."
"And pray, Madam, where is a person to look for a genuine proof of his personal religion, unless he does look into his own mind? Are we not told that a tree is to be known by its fruit? And is not this figure employed by Jesus Christ to teach us that if our moral principles are good, we shall exhibit the visible signs of their goodness in our life and conversation?"
"I hear a great deal about moral goodness in the present day, but I very seldom see any; human nature is awfully depraved; some preach about its being made better by the grace of God, but I believe it never can be improved. The heart after conversion is as deceitful and as desperately wicked as before, and if we are saved it must be by free and sovereign grace."
"I admit, with you, Madam, that those who are saved 'are saved by grace through faith;' but does not that faith purify the heart and overcome the temptations of the world? Where the principle of grace is implanted, is it not represented as reigning through righteousness unto eternal life?"
"Yes, Sir, and our evangelical moralists tell us that the principle of grace will gradually extend its influence over the whole mind, till every disposition is subdued, and we are fitted for the kingdom of heaven."
"And do we not read that he that hath the hope of future blessedness 'purifieth himself, even as God is pure?'"