For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
Ver. 10. He is guilty of all] The whole law is but one copulative,Exodus 16:18; Ezekiel 18:10,13. He that breaketh one commandment habitually breaketh all; not so actually. The godly keep those commandments that actually they break; but a dispensatory conscience keeps not any commandment. Deus non vult cum exceptione coli, God will not be served with an exception, saith a learned interpreter here. He that repents with a contradiction (saith Tertullian) God will pardon him with contradiction. A man must not be funambulus virtutum (saith the same author), going in a narrow track of obedience; but must do everything as well as anything, or all is lost; his obedience must be universal, extending to the compass of the whole law.