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own heart. > > “Let him consider in how different a degree of detestation, numbers of wicked actions stand there , though equally bad and vicious in their own natures;⁠—he will soon find, that such of them as strong inclination and custom have prompted him to commit, are generally dressed out and painted with all the false beauties which a soft and a flattering hand can give them;⁠—and that the others, to which he feels no propensity, appear, at once, naked and deformed, surrounded with all the true circumstances of folly and dishonour. > > “When David surprised Saul sleeping in the cave, and cut off the skirt of his robe⁠—we read his heart smote him for what he had done:⁠⸺⁠But in the matter of Uriah , where a faithful and gallant servant, whom he ought to have loved and honoured, fell to make way for his lust,⁠—where conscience had so much greater reason to take the alarm, his heart smote him not. A whole year had almost passed from the first commission of that crime, to the time Nathan was sent to reprove him; and we read not once of the least sorrow or compunction of heart which he testified, during all that time, for what he had done. > > “Thus conscience, this once able monitor,⁠⸺⁠placed on high as a judge within us, and intended by our Maker as a just and equitable one too,⁠—by an unhappy train of causes and impediments, takes often such imperfect cognizance of what passes,⁠⸺⁠does its office so negligently,⁠⸺⁠sometimes so corruptly⁠—that it is not to be trusted alone; and therefore we find there is a necessity, an absolute necessity, of joining another principle with it, to aid, if not govern, its determinations.