Practices, therefore, which, viewed in their naked merits, must excite the detestation of every Christian mind, might insensibly gain ground among those who were far from deserving the designation of thorough knaves. They were fervent and laborious in their zeal to propagate Christianity; they believed it cordially, and themselves hoped for eternal life in their faith; and in the strength of this hope were ready "to give their bodies to be burned." They prayed, they watched, they fasted, and crucified the flesh, and did everything which an enthusiastical intensity of feeling could prompt; and this feeling prompted them to promote the gospel, as well by juggling as by preaching. But had not these religious forgers read the unbending morality of the gospel? Or, reading it, was it possible that they could think the sacrifice of honesty an acceptable offering to the God of truth? The difficulty can be solved only by calculating duly the influence of imaginative pietism in paralyzing the conscience; and if the facts of the case still seem hard to comprehend, it will be necessary, for illustration, to recur to instances that may be furnished, alas! by most Christian communities in our own times. Is it impossible to find individuals fervent, and in a certain sense sincere, in their devotions, and zealous and liberal in their endeavors to diffuse Christianity, and, perhaps, in many respects amiable, who, nevertheless, admit into their habitual course of conduct very gross contrarieties to the plainest rules of Christian morality? When instances of this sort are under discussion, it is alike unsatisfactory to affirm of the parties in question, that they are, in the common sense of the term, hypocrites; or to grant that their piety is genuine, but defective. The first supposition, though it may cut the difficulty, does not by any means nicely accord with the facts: and the second puts contempt upon the most explicit and solemn declarations of our Lord and his ministers, whose style of enforcing the divine law will never allow those who are flagrantly vicious, those who are "workers of iniquity," to be called 'imperfect Christians.'