one would suppose that a man's points of belief and smallest determinations of outward conduct, — however pure and charitable his intentions, and however holy or blameless the inward source of those intentions or convictions in his past and present state of moral being, — were like the performance of an electrical experiment, and would blow a man's salvation into atoms from a mere unconscious mistake in the arrangement and management of the apparatus.
See Livy's account of Tullus Hostilius's unfortunate experiment with one of Numa's sacrificial ceremonies.
trick not being performed
secundum artem,
Jupiter enraged shot him dead.
Before God our deeds, which for him can have no value, gain acceptance in proportion as they are evolutions of our spiritual life. He beholds our deeds in our principles. For men our deeds have value as efficient causes, worth as symptoms. They infer our principles from our deeds. Now, as religion or the love of God cannot subsist apart from charity or the love of our neighbour, our conduct must be conformable to both.
Ib.
p. 305.