them. They never once suspect, that to " walk according to the course of this world is to walk according to the prince of the power of the air," or that " the broad road is that which leadeth to destruction." They have satisfied others; and therefore they have satisfied themselves.
But some take a far higher standard, even the law of God itself, (as far as they understand it,) and aim at obedience to the whole will of God. But they take only the letter of the law ; and if they abstain from the actual commission of murder, adultery, and theft, they imagine that they have no reason to reproach themselves with any violation of the commandments which forbid those crimes. Hence, like the Young Man in the Gospel, they will recite the commandments, and say, " All these have I kept from my youth up : what lack I yet ? " This was the source of Paul's self-deception, in his unconverted state. He knew not the spirituality of the law ; and therefore he imagined himself to be alive, whilst he was really dead, with respect to all spiritual obedience a. He thought himself to be something, when he was nothing ; and thereby deceived himself]
2. From comparing ourselves with others —
[Some look at those who are of the same rank and age with themselves : and, if they fall not below them, they con- clude that they are right. Others look at those rather who live without any particular regard to morals : and, from seeing a manifest superiority in themselves to these, they will with a self-complacent air say, in their hearts at least, if not with their lips, " I thank thee, O God, that I am not as other men are, or even as this Publican." Others again will compare themselves with the religious world. They will select those who have in any respect dishonoured their holy profession, and hold them forth as a proper specimen of all. Or they will take the more defective part of a good character, and re- present it as exhibiting a just picture of the man himself. In doing this too they will believe all they hear, without any examination or inquiry : they will make no allowances for any thing as arising out of peculiar circumstances : they overlook entirely all the humiliation and contrition which in a real saint follow the commission of a fault: they will go further still, and impute all this evil to wilful and deliberate hypocrisy : and then they will bless themselves that they are at least as good, if not better than those who make so much profession of godliness; yea, therefore better, because they make no such profession.
But to these we may apply what the Apostle said of the
a Rom. vii. 9.