MORAL INTEGRITY.

JAMES II. 10.

Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

Ir is a general characteristic of the Sacred Writings, that they employ both a popular method and a popular language. They nowhere adopt the form and order of scientific exposition, and rarely ever use the language of philosophical precision. Their statements of doctrines and of principles are expressed in the ordinary language of common life; and the precise extent and force of meaning in each, is to be gathered in the exercise of judgment and reason, and from the comparison of one part with another. It is always presumed that there exist in the reason and moral judgment of men certain necessary and universal principles of belief, which are to be applied in the interpretation of the Scriptures; and there is a constant necessity

of applying these principles in settling the meaning of Scriptural declarations. Otherwise, from the nature of the popular method and popular language employed, the Scriptures will not only often be involved in contradiction with themselves, but will appear to contain assertions contradictory to the universal and necessary convictions of reason.

The passage in question: Whosoever shal. keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all, is one in regard to which it is especially necessary to recur to those convictions which are presumed to exist in our reason and conscience, in order to qualify and limit its meaning; for without such a qualification it must strike the mind as an exaggerated and even false assertion.

In explaining this passage, there are two fundamental facts that should be distinctly brought before the mind. The first is, that a virtuous character does not consist in single actions, but in the course of life being habitually governed by a sense of duty; the second, that all the various duties of men are prescribed by the same ultimate authority.

As the virtue of any particular act does not consist in its outward form, but in the sense of duty or the right intention by which it was dictated;

so a virtuous character is not constituted by single acts of virtue, but by a right principle of action habitually governing the whole course of conduct. The essential principle of virtue is in the intention or will to obey the Law of Duty, to do right, and that because it is right; and the person whose habitual course of life is such as the law of duty requires, and who acts from an inward principle of obedience to that law, is virtuous. The terms, virtuous character, seem properly to express a habit of right action as distinguished from occasional acts of duty; just as we denominate a man covetous or benevolent, not from particular instances of conduct, but from the active principle which habitually controls his life. Thus one of the oldest definitions of virtue describes it as "the habit of doing what is right." It has also been described to consist in "the fixed purpose or resolution to act according to our sense of duty." Whether, however, it be distinctly expressed or not, all the definitions of virtue proceed upon the fact that a person is properly to be denominated virtuous, not from single deeds, but from the general current of his life from a regard to duty as the governing principle of his conduct, controlling him in all his relations.

In the next place, it is to be noted that all the

duties of men are prescribed by the same authority, and all partake of the common character of being obligatory.-With the conception of our relations arises the conviction of certain actions as right or wrong; and with the idea of right and wrong springs up immediately, and irresistibly, the conviction of obligation, of moral law, imposed upon us by conscience with the voice of absolute authority. All the various actions which, in the consideration of our various relations, we term duties, are but different articles of the same law. The Law of Duty is one law applied to innumerable particulars. All our duties are therefore alike in being imposed by the same authority, and all are alike in the nature of the obligation imposed upon us an obligation which in all cases is alike absolute, which we may indeed violate, but can never deny. The most that can be said of any wrong action, is, that we are under an absolute obligation not to do it; and there is no wrong action, how trivial soever it may appear, of which this not only may but must be said. With whatever authority conscience enjoins the performance of an action in one case, its authority is equally indisputable in another and in every case in which it utters its voice of command. When Conscience bids us to the performance of one