far clearer than the light of nature, and increases the responsibilities of those who enjoy it, and the condemnation of those who abuse it; but the light of nature is clear and true as far as it goes, and is enough to condemn every soul outside of the pale of Revelation.  For, in the day of judgment, there will not be a single human creature who can look his Judge in the eye, and say:  “I acted up to every particle of moral light that I enjoyed; I never thought a thought, felt a feeling, or did a deed, for which my conscience reproached me.”

It follows from this, that the language of the apostle, in the text, may be applied to every man.  The argument that has force for the Jew has force for the Gentile.  “Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest that a man should not steal, dost thou steal?” You who know the character and claims of God, and are able to state them to another, why do you not revere and obey them in your own person?  You who approve of the law of God as pure and perfect, why do you not conform your own heart and conduct to it?  You who perceive the excellence of piety in another, you who praise and admire moral excellence in your fellow-man, why do you not seek after it, and toil after it in your own heart?  In paying this tribute of approbation to the character of a God whom you do not yourself love and serve, and to a piety in your neighbor which you do not yourself possess and cultivate, are you not writing down your own condemnation?  How can you stand before the judgment-seat of God, after having in this manner confessed through your whole life upon earth that God is good, and His law is perfect, and yet through that whole life have gone counter to your own confession, neither loving that God, nor obeying that law?  “To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” (James iv. 17.)

The text then, together with the chains of reasoning that are connected with it, leads us to consider the fact, that a man may admire and praise moral excellence without possessing or practising it himself; that the approbation of goodness is not the same as the love of it.[1]

I. This is proved, in the first place, from the testimony of both God and man.  The assertions and reasonings of the apostle Paul have already been alluded to, and there are many other passages of Scripture which plainly imply that men may admire and approve of a virtue which they do not practise.  Indeed, the language of our Lord respecting the Scribes and Pharisees, may be applied to disobedient mankind at large:  “Whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do ye not after their works:  for they say, and do not.” (Matt, xxiii. 3.) The testimony of man is equally explicit.  That is a very remarkable witness which the poet Ovid bears to this truth.  “I see the right,”—­he says,—­“and approve of it, but I follow and practise the wrong.”  This is the testimony of a profligate man of pleasure, in whom the light