s, have both enjoyed their health
better, and preserved it longer, as well as have turned it to better
account; and it may at least be urged against them, that they disparage
the laws of temperance, and fatally betray others into the breach of
them, by affording an instance of their being transgressed with
impunity.

But were the merit of the qualities in question greater than it is, and
though it were not liable to the exceptions which have been alleged
against it, yet could they be in no degree admitted, as a compensation
for the want of the supreme love and fear of God, and of a predominant
desire to promote his glory. The observance of one commandment, however
clearly and forcibly enjoined, cannot make up for the neglect of
another, which is enjoined with equal clearness and equal force. To
allow this plea in the present instance, would be to permit men to
abrogate the first table of the law on condition of their obeying the
second. But Religion suffers not any such _composition_ of duties. It is
on the very self same miserable principle, that some have thought to
atone for a life of injustice and rapine by the strictness of their
religious observances. If the former class of men can plead the diligent
discharge of their duties to their fellow-creatures, the latter will
urge that of their's to God. We easily see the falsehood of the plea in
the latter case; and it is only self deceit and partiality which prevent
its being equally visible in the former. Yet so it is; such is the
unequal measure, if I may be allowed the expression, which we deal out
to God, and to each other. It would justly and universally be thought
false confidence in the religious thief or the religious adulterer, (to
admit for the sake of argument such a solecism in terms) to solace
himself with the firm persuasion of the Divine favour: but it will, to
many, appear hard and precise, to deny this firm persuasion of Divine
approbation to the avowedly irreligious man of social and domestic
usefulness.

Will it here be urged, that the writer is not doing justice to his
opponent's argument; which is not, that irreligious men of useful lives
may be excused for neglecting their duties towards God, in consideration
of their exemplary discharge of their duties towards their
fellow-creatures; but that in performing the latter they perform the
former _virtually_, and _substantially_, if not in name?

Can then our opponent deny, that the Holy Scriptures a