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We often make a very bad use of the example of others; and this is not owing solely to the wickedness of the example, but to our own error and perverseness in applying it. It is very difficult to live well among bad companions. It is a proof of a strong sense of duty, as well as of a great command of resolution, to maintain our virtue and innocence in any particular branch of morals, in which there is a general relaxation of principle and insensibility of guilt prevailing among the persons around us. Men without principle, men without religion, men of unsteadfast minds, of easy consciences, of thoughtless dispositions, are swept away by the current; they go down with the stream of general practice, and of general conversation, with very little opposition to corruptions which have example to support them. Hence the infectious nature of vice, and the rapid progress of the infection. If licentious and lascivious sins have found their way into a neighbourhood, good and serious men are shocked to see how the youth of both sexes fall into the snare. It is with concern that they observe how many are undone, and how soon. When drinking, late hours, riotous proceedings, gain footing in a place, there is no computing what numbers are drawn in; at first, it is probable, those only who were bad beforehand, then the idle and unoccupied, who are ready for any seduction, then the giddy and foolish, then the pliant tempered; but the evil practice continues, till husbands and parents forget all those who ought to be the nearest and dearest to them, and share in the general profligacy, to the great grief, terror, and prejudice of their friends, and those who depend upon them. If swearing get into use, it is inconceivable how the horror of it wears away, and how soon oaths and imprecations become frequent in our streets, even from the lips of children; how all discourse, especially all mirth and diversion, become tainted with it; but the good Christian reflects, he knows, that sin is the same, whether it be common or uncommon, whether there be many examples to countenance it, or none, whether it be the fashion of

the place, or the contrary; that it is the same in the sight of God, the same in its final effects, the same in its punishment; and that all those, be they many or few, who are led away by the commonness of a vice, are either men of hollow and unsound principles, or foolish and ignorant, men wanting in firmness and selfcommand, men incapable of any moral proficiency; yet that is the true time to hold close to a man's innocency and resolutions, when he is beset, as I may so say, by the restless importunity of evil example, of a corrupt neighbourhood, of a licentious age.

These all are the natural consequences of bad examples; but what I rather propose to consider is, not so much the effects, as the misapplications of example. And of these one is the following; when a man of general good character has some particular failing mixed with his virtues, we without possessing his virtues, make them an excuse for the failings in ourselves ; than which nothing can be more absurd, for how far these virtues may extenuate the failings in him is certainly of no importance to us; if we have not his virtues to allege in our conduct, they can be of no benefit or profit to us. And if we take the argument the other way, if we suppose that the failing cannot have so much harm and guilt in it as some impute to it, otherwise so good a man would not have allowed himself in the practice, we advance the unsafest argument that can be alleged. Some are very mixed characters, very inconsistent with themselves; and men, otherwise good, are under surprising delusions in that part of their character in which they have suffered themselves to be overcome; so that to build upon their authority in the very point in which they betray their weakness, is to rely upon a very feeble support indeed. Thus, a man of honor and honesty in his dealings, in whom the world places great trust and confidence, may unfortunately, with all his character for general conscientiousness and integrity, have fallen into habits of sottishness and drinking; others who give themselves up to this insinuating and pernicious vice will plead his example, and appear to themselves to be sheltered, as it were, under his character, though not one of the qualities which compose his character belong to themselves. But, they say, could he be the man to permit himself these indulgences, if he thought them so wrong? Alas! we ought never to argue this manner; we cannot infer a man's judgment from his tice; we know not what passes in his mind; perhaps his conscience is struggling against it all the while; perhaps he has been so often overcome by temptation and by his propensity, that conscience has lost its force and its sensibility, which will

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happen; perhaps if he were to counsel and admonish, he would be the first man to warn or caution us against the very indulgence in which we think we are only following him; he would propose his own case to us, not as an encouragement or an example, which we make it to be, but as a lesson and a warning. Sensible of his infirmity and his unsteadiness, he does not undertake to defend it, although he has often found himself overcome by it. And what must be the And what must be the consequence of this kind of imitation? If we will imitate some particular person, let us imitate him in his good properties; at least, let us imitate him throughout. Picking out from each character the bad parts of it, and infusing those, and those only, into our own, is a plan which must end in gradual loss of virtue and growth of vice; and if others pursued it as well as we, in universal depravity and corruption. We are to judge of actions and conduct as they are in themselves, and not as they are joined with other actions and other conduct in the same person; that is the right and sound judgment; but the most wrong, and the most unsound, is that which would excuse vices which we have, by virtues which we have not; that which presumes that a man's judgment vindicates what his passions prompt him to.

A second misapplication of example is this; when we see a man of pious and religious carriage forget his character, so as to fall into some unjustifiable or loose conduct, we forthwith conclude that his former piety was all hypocrisy, his religion feigned. Now this is a very hasty conclusion; the experience of human life does not authorize it. On the contrary, we see men drawn into transgressions of their duty, without renouncing, or even disturbing their principles. There is a great deal of difference between secretly respecting religion, and religion not having so firm a hold on our minds as to guide and direct our conduct uniformly. We may infer the weakness of a man's principles and resolution, or we may infer the violence of his passions, and the mastery they have gained over him, from his giving way to temptation; but we cannot infer, either his former insincerity, or that any deliberate change in his opinions has taken place. A difference ought to be made whether the sin be casual or habitual; that is, whether it be a single offence, or a course of offending; if it be the first kind, it is a very harsh judgment to pronounce, because a man has been off his guard, and overtaken off his guard, that therefore, in truth he has no religion at all. There is no foundation for any such inference. Not only charity but probability is against it. If a man apparently religious falls not only into a single

act of transgression, but into a evil course of life, the presumption no doubt is more against him; yet even here it is far from decisive. Men in fact allow themselves a course of unlawful practices in some particular point, who retain a regard to duty in other points. We may perhaps argue that they deceive, even fatally deceive their own hearts; but we cannot argue that they reject the grounds of moral and religious obligation. I mention this case in particular, because vicious men are exceedingly apt to lay great stress upon it. It is a kind of ease to their minds to find out a hypocrite. If they can but point out in the neighbourhood a man of outward sanctity and apparent religious behaviour, who has been detected in some secret bad practices, or who, after years of sober and regular conversation, has fallen off from his character, and given himself up to licentious or dishonest courses, they draw a great comfort from it to themselves; they are fond of repeating such instances; they are willing to believe, and would have others believe, that all men at the bottom are very like themselves; that the difference between good and bad men is more in the appearance than the reality; that the opinion of the world, which reprobates and cries out against them, is unreasonable; for it is not, that they are in fact worse than others, but that they do not cover and mask their vices so well. Now I say, that this way of talking and thinking is very irrational, on two accounts; first because it presumes that every man who allows himself in some bad practice, or who falls off from his former character, is, and all the while has been, secretly, a disbeliever and contemner of religion; which presumption is by no means true; it is neither generally true, nor absolutely true. It is a conduct which arises from inconsistency much oftener than from insincerity. And secondly, were it true, the inference they draw from it to the encouragement of their own vices is to the last degree fallacious Because there are hypocrites in the world, does it follow that there are no solid grounds of virtue? True it is, that some who make a profession of religion, in their hearts reject it. Does it follow that religion has no foundation to stand on? It is only the judgment of these partial persons after all, that is shown; and what is most material, it is that judgment corrupted and influenced by a bad life; because theirs is always, by the very supposition, a case of concealed or newly commenced wickedness.

Another species of deceptious argument from example is this; when we see, or rather imagine that we see, other persons perform any act of religion from selfish or unprincipled motives,

we avoid their example by not performing the act of religion at all; which is the most perverse turn to give to the matter that can be. The true reflection from such an example is this; the duty does not cease to be such, the act of religion is not therefore less an obligation, because certain persons of our acquaintance perform it with very improper views and motives; if they comply with it from bad reasons, we ought to comply with it from better, instead of not complying with it at all, in order to show our dislike of their example. Thus because we think some persons come to church or the sacrament, to be thought religious; others because it has been their custom; others because they are obliged to it by their situation, calling, or the authority of their parents and masters; others because they have nothing else to do, therefore we will not go to church or the sacrament at all. This example shows what shifts and pretences men are driven to in excuse of their neglect of duty. Good and wise men would be very unwilling and scarcely able to believe, that any persons performed religious acts from any other than religious motives; but they immediately reflect that if the case be not so, it is nothing to them; it is no extenuation of their guilt, should they neglect what is their duty, if others debase their performance of it by unworthy motives; nor, on the other hand, can it ever detract from the worthiness and acceptability of those services which proceed from a sincere wish to please God.

In like manner, because it sometimes happens that men who are remarkable for their attendance upon religious ordinances, are not equally remarkable for their honesty and virtue, and good conduct in other respects, therefore we take up a mean opinion of religion and religious ordinances. This is a very loose consequence that we draw. Religious ordinances never pretended to possess such a check and irresistible efficacy in them as to make men good universally or necessarily. Great allowances must be made for the difference of men's engagements, and the temper of their minds with respect to them, and some for the difference of men's apprehension of the importance of particular offices; and after these allowances, I believe it will turn out that the soundest virtue, the truest morality, is found in conjunction with a pious veneration for the offices of religion.

The sum of my discourse amounts principally to this; If unfortunately there be any in our religious congregations who are found out to have carried on concealed practices of wickedness along with outward sanctity and devotion; who, after