After this large explanation, the prolixity of which will we trust be pardoned on account of the importance of the subject, and the danger of mistakes both on the right hand and on the left, we are perfectly ready to concede to the objector, whose arguments we have so long been considering, that the religious affections must be expected to be more or less lively in different men, and in the same man at different times, in proportion to natural tempers, ages, situations, and habits of life. But, to found an objection on this ground, would be as unreasonable as it were altogether to deny the obligation of the precepts, which command us to relieve the necessities of the indigent, because the infinitely varying circumstances of mankind must render it impossible to specify beforehand the sum which each individual ought on the whole to allot to this purpose, or to fix in every particular instance, on any determinate measure, and mode of contribution. To the one case no less than to the other, we may apply the maxim of an eminent writer; "An honest heart is the best casuist." He who every where but in Religion is warm and animated, there only phlegmatic and cold, can hardly expect (especially if this coldness be not the subject of unfeigned humiliation and sorrow) that his plea on the ground of natural temper should be admitted; any more than that of a person who should urge his poverty as a justification of his not relieving the wants of the necessitous, at the very time that he should be launching out into expence without restraint, on occasions in which he should be really prompted by his inclinations. In both cases, "it is the _willing_ mind which is required." Where that is found "every man will be judged according to what he hath, and not according to what he hath not[30]."