what harm can there be in my doing so?'

But there is something in each of us which tells us that that is not
right; that each man should act according to his own conscience, and
not blindly follow his neighbour, not knowing whither, like sheep
over a hedge; that a man is directly responsible at first for his
own conduct to God, and that 'my neighbours did so' will be no
excuse in God's sight. What is it which tells us this? St. John
answers, That in you which is born of God; and it, if you will
listen to it, will enable you to overcome the world's deceit, and
its vain fashions, and foolish hearsays, and blind party-cries; and
not to follow after a multitude to do evil.

What, then, is this thing? St. John tells us that it is born of
God; and that it is our faith. _Faith_ will enable us to overcome
the world. We shall overcome by believing and trusting in something
which we do not see. But in what? Are we to believe and trust that
we are going to heaven? St. John does not say so; he was far too
wise, my friends, to say so: for a man's trusting that he is going
to heaven, if that is all the faith he has, is more likely to make
the world overcome him, than him overcome the world. For it will
make him but too ready to say, 'If I am sure to be saved after I
die, it matters not so very much what I do before I die. I may
follow the way of the world here, in money-making and meanness, and
selfishness; and then die in peace, and go to heaven after all.'

This is no fancy. There are hundreds, nay thousands, I fear, in
England now, who let the world and its wicked ways utterly overcome
them, just because their faith is a faith in their own salvation,
and not the faith of which St. John speaks--Believing that Jesus is