This will be followed by
gratification, unless some external obstacle should prevent him from the
commission of a sin which he had internally resolved on." "Every moment
of time," says our author, "that is spent in meditations upon sin
increases the power of the dangerous object which has possessed our
imagination." I suppose these reflections will be generally assented to.
III. Thirdly, had a teacher of morality been asked concerning a general
principle of conduct, and for a short rule of life; and had he
instructed the person who consulted him, "constantly to refer his
actions to what he believed to be the will of his Creator, and
constantly to have in view not his own interest and gratification alone,
but the happiness and comfort of those about him," he would have been
thought, I doubt not, in any age of the world, and in any, even the most
improved state of morals, to have delivered a judicious answer; because,
by the first direction, he suggested the only motive which acts steadily
and uniformly, in sight and out of sight, in familiar occurrences and
under pressing temptations; and in the second he corrected what of all
tendencies in the human character stands most in need of correction,
selfishness, or a contempt of other men's conveniency and satisfaction.
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