Chapter 2: False Professors.
Sabbath, or give your property for religious objects? You answer, "For the sake of promoting my own salvation." Indeed! Not to glorify God, but to get to heaven! Do not you think the devil would do all that, if he thought he could gain his end by it and be a devil still? The highest style of selfishness must be to get God with all his attributes, enlisted in the service of your mighty self.
And now, my hearers, where are you all? Are you serving Jehovah, or are you serving your own gods? How have you been doing these six months that I have been absent? Have you done anything for God? Have you been living as servants of God? Is Satan's kingdom weakened by what you have done? Could you say now, "Come with me, and I will show you this and that sinner converted, or this and that backslider reclaimed, or this and that weak saint strengthened and aided?" Could you bring living witnesses of what you have done in the service of God? Or would your answer be, "I have been to meeting regularly on the Sabbath, and heard a great deal of good preaching, and I have generally attended the prayer meetings, and we had some precious meetings, and I have prayed in my family, and twice or thrice a day in my closet, and read the Bible." And in all that you have been merely passive, as to anything done for God. You have feared the Lord, and served your own gods.
"Yes, but I have sold so many goods, and made so much money, of which I intend to give a tenth to the missionary cause." Who hath required this at your hand, instead of saving souls? Going to send the gospel to the heathen, and letting sinners right under your own eyes go down to hell! Be not deceived. If you loved souls, in you were engaged to serve God, you would think of souls here, and do the work of God here. What should we think of a missionary going to the heathen, who had never said a word to sinners around him at home?
Does he love souls? There is burlesque in the idea of sending such a man to the heathen.
The man that will do nothing at home is not fit to go to the heathen. And he that pretends to be getting money for missions while he will not try to save sinners here, is an outrageous hypocrite.