doing, and therefore the inability here fpoken SER M. of is not natural but moral only. If we VIII. confider the reafon of the cafe, it will appear

at first fight very strange to affert, that men should, by a repetition of criminal acts, difcharge themselves from the obligation of their duty, and the more frequently they tranf grefs thereby become the more faultless. But there is nothing else in a custom of doing evil than a frequent repetition of finful acts. Let us attend seriously to what paffeth in our own minds upon a review of our offences, and the state into which they bring us with refpect to the judgment of God, for that is the fureft way we have to judge concerning the quality of our actions, and according to the fentence pronounced by conscience, fo may we expect the decifive judgment of the fupreme tribunal will be. If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things; if our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God. Now, it is certain no man ever did, or poffibly could, think himself the lefs guilty for an ill habit, but the more. It may indeed render him more difinclined to reflect, and more unattentive and averse to the light which maketh manifeft his evil deeds; but if he doth reflect at all, and he may fometime find

VIII.

SER M. it inevitable, and if that light breaketh in upon him whether he will or not, the customary commiffion of fins and the frequent repetition will make them appear the highest aggravation of his guilt, because he cannot help being confcious that they were always his own voluntary acts. If it be fo, the confequence is, that the impotence to good, contracted by vicious habits, is not equal to a natural impotence, nor is to be fo understood by us. Let us never entertain a thought fo injurious to the honour of Almighty God, the fupreme ruler and judge of the whole earth, as that he requireth of his creatures, what it is abfolutely impoffible for them to perform, or that he will punish them for what they were utterly unable to do. This unjuft imputation is reprefented by our Saviour in his parable of the talents, as caft upon his proceedings in judgment by the flothful and wicked fervant, that he is auftere, reaping where he did not fow, and gathering where he did not fraw: But the wicked, who maketh fuch an impious pretence, shall be condemned out of his own mouth, his plea fhall be turned upon him, and he fhall be forced to witnefs against himfelf particularly, men must be self-condemned in alledging that they are excufable from the impotence contracted by bad habits,

becaufe

because they know in their hearts, that every SER M. step of their progress to the most confummate VIII. ftupidity, is voluntary; and that all the inftances of their hardened wickednefs are the effects of their own choice. Secondly, That the difability of habitual finners to do good, to alter their courfe, to forfake their wicked practices, and do that which is lawful and right, is total and abfolute, equal to the incapacity of creatures to change their very nature and conftitution, fuch as the Ethiopian changing his fkin; this is contrary to fact and experience. It is very well known in a multitude of inftances, that men by strong refolutions, and a vigorous exertion of the natural force of their minds, have actually conquered very inveterate habits, and turned to a quite different way of living. Some reduced to extreme poverty by their idleness, and vices, and finding themselves upon the point of ftarving, have formed in their distress ftrong purposes of future honeft and fober industry, which they executed with so much, vigor, as to find the effects in their happy recovery to an easy and reputable condition in life, and to a virtuous ftate of mind. Others, brought to the very gates of death by intemperance and exceffes, have been restored to health by a refolved abftinence. Now, thefe

3

SERM. these habits of idleness and debauchery are VIII. as difficultly reformed as any other, and multitudes have perished by them. There are violent temptations to them; custom hath as great a force as in any other case, and nature joineth with it, which it doth not in these vices darken the understanding and enervate the mind, yet even they have been actually overcome. No reason therefore can be given why the mind may not, by a peremptory refolution, break through the oppofition of any evil habit.

many;

The inftances I have mentioned are of reformation effected by the ftrength of temporal motives, by the feelings of pinching poverty, languishing bodily distempers, and by the fear of death; and one would think the motives of religion as ftrong. However that be, what I aim at at prefent, is only to fhew the innate force of the mind itself, to conquer bad habits, whatever the confiderations are which determine it to exert that force. But that the event doth not altogether depend upon the ftrength of the motives which are oppofite to evil cuftoms, is evident from the cafes already referred to. Suppose two men placed in exactly parallel circumftances, both, for example, in extreme want, as the confequence of floth or of riotous living

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living, confirmed by a long habit; one of SERM. them meanly dejected fhall yield to his ap- VIII. prehended ill fate, and without looking for a remedy, which he thinketh utterly hopelefs, fuffereth himself to be carried down the ftream of his accustomed paffion to his deftruction; the other fheweth himself a man, and being fully fenfible of the urgent neceffity, armeth himself with courage to encounter all difficulties, and with hope to furmount them. Suppofe, again, as in the other cafe, two men languishing under dangerous distempers contracted by luxury, and abftinence is the only remedy; the one from a juft way of thinking, having fortified his mind with invincible refolution, fubmitteth to rules, and however uneafy it may be for a time, denieth his appetite, whereby he getteth the better of his former ill habit, and at last his health is re-established; the other with a reproachful and unmanly weakness, though he is told and hath the greatest reafon to apprehend what the confequence will be, continuing the flave of his brutifh inclination, indulgeth it, and by it perisheth. You fee then where the difference lieth, that it is in ourselves, and what that impotence is which arifeth from habits, that it is no more than irrefolu VOL. IV.

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