From this error good men are not wholly exempted; and example becomes even to them, and much more to others, a fruitful fource of fecret faults. "Evil communication corrupts good manners," and, at the fame time, hides the corruption from the eye of confcience. The greater part of the world follow juft as they are led-active minds prevail over the indolent, and the daring over the weak-and the multitude of finners refign their confcience and their conduct to the direction of men more criminal than themselves. Ah! it is not by the customs of men but by the law of God that we fhould judge our hearts. How many fins, that are now hidden from our view by the predominant influence of custom and example, will be disclosed to us by affliction that ftrips the falfe and feductive colouring from the world-by the approach of death that draws forth from beneath every covering and difguife the inmoft principles of the heart--by the penetrating light of eternity that, fhed upon the foul in the article of dying, fearches and reveals its deepest, and its darkest receffes. Oh! how vain are the opinions and example of men, which are made the encouragement and juftification

of fo many faults, when weighed against the law and the judgment of God. A good man, fenfible of his frailty and his danger, will daily confefs and deplore the evils that may be concealed from his view by this unhappy influence, and will ftudiously difentangle truth from the vain fafhions of opinion, and of manners with which it is combined, and by which it is diftorted. But, finners, refting upon the multitude of their fellow finners, are contented to wrap themfelves up in a fatal fecurity till God comes at length to rent the veil that covers their crimes, and to fhed upon them the dreadful and confuming light of his juftice.

IV. Another caufe of fecret faults may be found in the effects of habit.

Propenfities or actions that have become habitual we are apt to confound with the original tendencies of nature, and, equally, to ascribe them to the author of our being. They operate almoft without our thinking of them; and men feldom take the pains to examine their rectitude, or their relations to the divine law. If any faults, therefore, have gradually grown up with them, and

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become incorporated into their manners, they are rarely, and with difficulty curedthey are hardly feen as faults.

Habits advance by fuch infenfible degrees that it is difficult to remark their progress. They fleal us imperceptibly away from the fountain of truth, and the standard of perfection. And when once we begin to yield to the tendencies of corrupted nature, or to the ftream of fafhionable vice, even good men may fometimes be borne far down the filent and contaminated current before they are aware, till fome palpable mifcarriage awaken their fleeping confcience, and oblige them to remount to the fource of the evil in order to purify it. David could not have paffed at once from thofe fublime and pious fervors that glow in his facred compofitions, and still animate the devotions of the church, to that act of grofs fenfuality and injuftice that was the ftain of his life, and embittered to him the remainder of his days: gradually he must have yielded to the temptations of his fortune-the habits of pleasure muft have infenfibly ftolen upon him, till, in an unfufpecting moment, they plunged him into the gulph, and, by his mi

feries, recalled him to himself, and reftored the obliterated fentiments of duty on his heart.

Habit has likewise a paffive influence upon the foul that greatly contributes to this dangerous effect. Of this influence every day furnishes us with innumerable proofs. Cuftomary appearances attract little attention, and cuftomary actions are performed almost without thought. Hence vices, which are common in fociety, and which enter into the character and manners of a people, come, at length, to be viewed with a kind of indifference even by a good man, which may expofe him, at fome times, to be betrayed into criminal compliances with them. Hence faults that have entered into our own habits are flightly remarked, if they are remarked at all, and they fpeedily pafs into an oblivion from which they are never recalled. These forgotten fins, however, leave upon the confcience an indelible taint; and, not improbably, prove the cause of many of thofe ftrokes and chastisements in the course of divine providence of which we do not difcern the immediate cause, nor the end.

V. Another and much more pernicious fource of faults of this kind is to be found in falle principles.

The innocence of error, fays a great writer,* is the master prejudice of the present age. And a falfe and dangerous maxim has, perhaps, been too generally received, that it is of fmall moment what principles in morals and religion men may embrace, it is conduct alone which we are to regard; as if conduct could be fafely, or was in reality ever feparated from principles. It is a truth established upon the foundest reason, and demonftrated by conftant experience, that practice and principles have a close and intimate relation, and a powerful influence upon one another. Whole nations have had their character and manners formed by the spirit of their legiflation, and the maxims of their education. And certain doctrines are daily, among the wife and learned, vindicated or refuted by the confequences that are fuppofed to refult from them. Do we not fee that loofe manners and licentious opinions tend to beget one

Warburton, Bishop of Gloucefter.