Some talk of “Piety!” Piety! Piety! Piety! Were it not that it does once occur in the Word of God I should hate the very word; people make so much of it, as though piety were to save them. Their parents were pious, they were brought up pious, and they have continued pious. But even where the word does occur in the New Testament (1 Tim. 5:4), it simply means kindness, as the margin has it—let them show kindness at home. The word has nothing to do with salvation.

     True religion humbles a sinner. Angels assemble together in the court of heaven and rejoice over brokenhearted sinners. O then, to rely upon Christ, to plead his love and blood, and to lean upon him and upon him alone and not upon your own repentance; this is the effect of grace. It is said of some kind of stones that they will not break until they have been steeped for a certain length of time in goat's blood; this may be so, but whether or not, it is so with your adamantine hearts; nothing will break them but being steeped in blood, the blood of the Scape-goat of the wilderness.