If the Scripture has so judged of Esau and Jacob, it must be the model for our judgments of those whose circumstances, on account of their belonging to a society consisting wholly of persons young in age, greatly resemble the circumstances of the early society of the world.  I lay the stress on the belonging to a society wholly formed of young persons; for the case of young persons brought up at home, is extremely different; and their circumstances would be best suited by a different scriptural example.  But here, with you, I am quite sure that the great distinguishing mark between good and evil, is the endeavouring, or not endeavouring, to rise above the carelessness of the society of which you are members; the determining, or not determining, to judge of things by another rule than that of school morality or honour; the trying, or not trying, to please God, instead of those around you:  for the notions and maxims of a society of young persons are like the notions and maxims of men in a half-civilized age, a strange mixture of right and wrong; or rather wrong in their result, although with some right feeling in them, and therefore as a guide, false and mischievous.  That it is natural to follow these maxims, is quite obvious:  they are the besetting sin of your particular condition; and it is always according to our corrupt nature to follow our besetting sin.  It is quite natural that you should be careless, profane, mistaking evil for good, and good for evil; but salvation is not for those who follow their nature, but for those in whom God’s grace has overcome its evil; it is for those, in Christ’s language, who take up their cross and follow him; that is, for those who struggle against their evil nature, that they may gain a better nature, and be born, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit of God.

What is to be said to this? or what qualification, or compromise, is to be made in it?  The words of the text will authorize us, at any rate, to make none:  their language is not that of indulgent allowance; but it is a call, a loud and earnest, even a severe, call, it may be, in the judgment of our evil nature,—­to shake off the weight that hangs about us; to deliver our hearts from the dominion of that which cannot profit, and to submit them to Christ alone.  This is God’s judgment, this is Christ’s word; and we cannot and dare not qualify it.  They are evil, for God and Christ declare it, who judge and live after the maxims of the society around them, and not after Christ; they are evil who are careless; they are evil who live according to their own blind and capricious feelings, now hot, now cold; they are evil who call evil good, and good evil, because they have not known the Father nor Christ.  This, and nothing less, we say, lest we should be found false witnesses of God:  but if this language, which is that of Scripture, seem harsh, to any one, oh! let him remember how soon he may change it into the language of the most abundant mercy, of the tenderest love; that if he calls upon God, God is ready to hear; that if he seeks to know and to do God’s will, God will be found by him, and will strengthen him; that it is true kindness not to disguise from him his real danger, but earnestly to conjure him to flee from it, and to offer our humblest prayers to God, for him and ourselves, that our judgments and our practice may be formed only after his example.