of the covenant with God; Joshua and Caleb the only two of six hundred thousand Hebrews who saw the Land of Promise; Job the only upright man in the land of Uz; Lot, in Sodom.  To representations so alarming, would have succeeded the sayings of the prophets.  In Isaiah you would see the elect as rare as the grapes which are found after the vintage, and have escaped the search of the gatherer; as rare as the blades which remain by chance in the field, and have escaped the scythe of the mower.  The evangelist would still have added new traits to the terrors of these images.  I might have spoken to you of two roads—­of which one is narrow, rugged, and the path of a very small number; the other broad, open, and strewed with flowers, and almost the general path of men:  that everywhere, in the holy writings, the multitude is always spoken of as forming the party of the reprobate; while the saved, compared with the rest of mankind, form only a small flock, scarcely perceptible to the sight.  I would have left you in fears with regard to your salvation; always cruel to those who have not renounced faith and every hope of being among the saved.  But what would it serve to limit the fruits of this instruction to the single point of setting forth how few persons will be saved?  Alas!  I would make the danger known, without instructing you how to avoid it; I would allow you, with the prophet, the sword of the wrath of God suspended over your heads, without assisting you to escape the threatened blow; I would alarm but not instruct the sinner.

My intention is, to-day, to search for the cause of this small number, in our morals and manner of life.  As every one flatters himself he will not be excluded, it is of importance to examine if his confidence be well founded.  I wish not, in marking to you the causes which render salvation so rare, to make you generally conclude that few will be saved, but to bring you to ask yourselves if, living as you live, you can hope to be saved.  Who am I?  What am I doing for heaven?  And what can be my hopes in eternity?  I propose no other order in a matter of such importance.  What are the causes which render salvation so rare?  I mean to point out three principal causes, which is the only arrangement of this discourse.  Art, and far-sought reasonings, would be ill-timed.  Oh, attend, therefore, be ye whom ye may.  No subject can be more worthy your attention, since it goes to inform you what may be the hopes of your eternal destiny.

Few are saved, because in that number we can only comprehend two descriptions of persons:  either those who have been so happy as to preserve their innocence pure and undefiled, or those who, after having lost, have regained it by penitence.  This is the first cause.  There are only these two ways of salvation:  heaven is only open to the innocent or to the penitent.  Now, of which party are you?  Are you innocent?  Are you penitent?