disposition of mind, or the circumstances of life, inclined or compelled to some laudable practices. Of this happy tendency it is common to take advantage, by pushing the favourite, or the convenient virtue, to its utmost extent, and to lose all sense of deficiency in the perpetual contemplation of some single excellence.
Thus some please themselves with a constant regularity of life, and decency of behaviour,—they hear themselves commended, and superadd their own approbation. They know, or might know, that they have secret faults; but, as they are not open to accusation, they are not inquisitive to their own disquiet; they are satisfied that they do not corrupt others, and that the world will not be worse by their example.
Some are punctual in the attendance on public worship, and perhaps in the performance of private devotion. These they know to be great duties, and resolve not to neglect them. It is right they go so far; and with so much that is right they are satisfied. They are diligent in adoration, but defective in obedience.
Such men are often not hypocrites; the virtues which they practise arise from their principles. The man of regularity really hopes that he shall recommend goodness to those that know him. The frequenter of the church really hopes to propitiate his Creator. Their religion is sincere; what is reprehensible is, that it is partial, that the heart is yet not purified, and that yet many inordinate desires remain, not only unsubdued, but unsuspected, under the splendid cover of some specious practice, with which the mind delights itself too much, to take a rigorous survey of its own motions.
In condemnation of those who presume to hope that the performance of one duty will obtain excuse for the violation of others, it is affirmed by St. James, that he who breaks one commandment is guilty of all; and he defends his position by observing, that they are all delivered by the same authority.
His meaning is not, that all crimes are equal, or that in
