principle with an impartial judgment to as-sively on miraculous changes, that they certain that the habit is really good, or the leave little to do for the convert, but to con mischief will be great in proportion to the sider himself as an inactive recipient of pertinacity. For who can conceive a more grace; not as one who is to exhibit, by the miserable state, than for a man to be goaded change in his life, that mutation, which the on by a long perseverance in habits, which both his conscience and his understanding condemn? Even if upon conviction he renounces them, he has a long time to spend in backing, with the mortification at last, to find himself only where he ought to have been at setting out.

divine Spirit has produced on his heart. This too common error appears to arise, not only from enthusiasm, but partly from want of insight into the human character, of which habits are the ground-work, and in which right habits are not less the effect of grace for being gradually produced. We cannot, Without insisting on the difficulty of total- indeed, purify ourselves, any more than we ly subduing long-indulged habits of any gross can convert ourselves, it being equally the vice, such as intemperance; we may re- work of the Holy Spirit to infuse purity, as mark, that it requires a long and painful pro-well as the other graces, into the heart; but cess-and this even after a man is convinced it rests with us to exercise this grace, to reof its turpitude, after he discovers evident duce this purity to a habit, else the Scripmarks of improvement-to conquer the ha- tures would not have been so abundant in inbits of any fault, which, though not so scan-junctions to this duty.

dalous in the eyes of the world, may be 'We must hate sin,' says bishop Jeremy equally inconsistent with real piety.-Take Taylor, 'in all its dimensions, in all its disthe love of money for instance. How re-tances, and in every angle of its reception.' luctantly, if at all, is covetousness extirpa- St. Paul felt this scrupulousness of Christian ted from the heart, where it has long been delicacy to such an extent, that, in intimarooted! The imperfect convert has a con- ting the commission of certain enormities to viction on his mind, nay he has a feeling in the church of Ephesus, he charged that they his heart, that there is no such thing as being should not be so much as named among them. a Christian without liberality. This he This great master in the science of human adopts, in common with other just senti- nature, a knowledge perfected by grace, ments, and speaks of it as a necessary evi- was aware that the very mention of some dence of sincerity. He has got the whole sins might be a temptation to commit them; christian theory by heart, and such parts of it he would not have the mind intimate with as do not trench upon this long-indulged cor- the expression, nor the tongue familiar with ruption, he more or less brings into action. the sound. He who knew all the minuter But in this tender point, though the profes- entrances, as well as the broader avenues to sion is cheap, the practice is costly. An oc- the corrupt heart of man, knew how much casion is brought home to him, of exercising safer it is to avoid than to combat, how much the grace he has been commending. He easier the retreat than victory. He was acknowledges its force, he does more; he aware, that purity of heart and thought, feels it. If taken at the moment, something could alone produce purity of life and conconsiderable might be done; but if any de- duct. lay intervene, that delay is fatal; for from From the unhappy want of this early ha feeling, he begins to calculate. Now there bit of restraint, many, who are become sinis a cooling property in calculation, which cerely pious, find it very difficult to extrifreezes the warm current that sensibility had cate their minds from certain associations set in motion. The old habit is too powerful established by former habits. Corrupt books for the young convert, yet he flatters himself and evil communications have at once left a that he has at once exercised charity and sense of abhorrence on their hearts, with an discretion. He takes comfort both from the indelible impression on their memory. They liberal feeling which had resolved to give the find it almost impossible to get rid of sallies money, and the prudence which had saved of imagination, which, though they once adit, laying to his heart the flattering unction, mired as wit, they now consider as little less that he has only spared it for some more than blasphemy. The will rejects them; pressing demand, which, when it occurs, but they cling to the recollection with fatal will again set him on feeling, and calculating, pertinacity. Vices, not only of the conduct, and saving. but of the imagination, long indulged, leave Some well-meaning persons unintention-a train of almost inextinguishable corrupally confirm this kind of error. They are tions behind them. These are evils of which so zealous on the subject of sudden conver-even the reformed heart does not easily get sion, that they are too ready to pronounce, clear. He who repents suddenly, will too from certain warm expressions, that this often be purified slowly. A corrupt pracchange has taken place in their acquaintance, tice may be abolished, but a soiled imaginawhile evident symptoms of an unchanged tion is not easily cleansed. nature continue to disfigure the character. They do not always wait till an alteration in the habits has given that best evidence of an interior alteration. They dwell so exclu

We repeat, that these rooted habits, even after the act has been long hated and discontinued, may persist in tormenting him who has long repented of the sin, so as to keep

rial things, but to rest in such as are intelectual and spiritual. By a general neglect of serious thinking, virtue is sometimes withered and decayed; in minds where it is not torn up by the roots, there remains in them that vital sap which may still, upon habitual cultivation, not only vegetate, but produce fruit.

him to the last in a painful and distressing | taneous effusion. This will assist to stir up doubt as to his real state; but if this doubt the flame which was kindled by the morncontinue to make him more vigilant, and to ing sacrifice, and preserve it from total exkeep alive his humility, the uneasiness it tinction before that of the evening is offered causes may be more salutary than a greater up. We may learn from the profane pracconfidence of his own condition. Many have tice of some, that an ejaculation takes as litcomplained, after years of sincere reforma- tle time, and obtrudes less on notice, than an tion, that they did not possess that peace oath or an exclamation. It implores in as and consolation which religion promises; few words, the same divine power for a not suspecting, that their long adherence to blessing, whom the other obtests for destrucwrong habits may naturally darken their tion. views and cloud their enjoyments. Surely One great benefit of science is allowed to the man whose mind has abandoned itself for be derived from its habituating the mind to years to improper indulgences has little right shake off its dependance upon sense. Deto complain, if bitterness accompany his re-vout meditation, in like manner, accustoms pentance, if dejection break in on his peace. it not to fly for support to sensible and mateSurely he has little right to murmur, if those consolations are refused to him, which, in the inscrutable wisdom of Providence, are sometimes withheld from good men, who have never been guilty of his irregularities in conduct, who have never indulged his disorders of heart and mind. When we see holy men, to whom this cheerful confidence is sometimes denied, or from whom, One great obstacle to habitual meditation in the agonies of dissolving nature, it is with- must not be passed over. It is the pernicious drawn, shall they whose case we have been custom of submitting to the uncontrolled doconsidering, complain, if theirs are not all minion of a roving imagination. This prohalcyon days, if their closing hour is rather lific faculty produces such a constant budding contrite than triumphant? But this, if it be of images, fancies, visions, conjectures, and not a state of joy, may be equally a state of conceits, that she can subsist plentifully on safety. her own independent stock. She is perpeThe duty of keeping up this sense of puri-tually wandering from the point to which she ty is of great extent. One of the many uses promised to confine herself when she set out; of prayer is, that, by the habit of breathing is ever roaming from the spot to which her out our inmost thoughts of God, the sense powerless possessor had threatened to pin of his being, the consciousness of his pre- her down. We retire with a resolution to sence, the idea that his pure eye is imme- reflect: Reason has no sooner marshalled her diately upon us, imparts a temporary purity forces, than this undisciplined run-away esto the soul, which it vainly aims to maintain capes from duty, one straggler after another in an equal degree in its intercourse with joins the enemy, or brings home some foreign mankind. The beatitude of the promised impertinence. While we meant to indulge vision of God is more immediately annexed only a harmless reflection, we are brought to this grace; and it is elsewhere said, 'that under subjection to a whole series of reveevery one who hath this hope, purifieth him-ries of different characters and opposite deself, as He is pure.' The holy felicity of scriptions. Fresh trains obliterate our first the creature is thus made to depend on its as- speculations, till the spirit sinks into a sort of similation with the Creator. There is a deliquium. We have nothing for it, but rebeautiful intimation of the purity of God in solutely to resist the enfeebling despot. Let the order of construction in the prayer us stir up some counteracting force: let us taught by our Saviour. We pray that his fly to some active employment which shall name may be hallowed, that is, that our break the charm, and dissolve the pleasant hearts, and the hearts of all men, may ho- thraldom. No matter what, so it be innocent nour his holy name; may be deeply impress- and opposite. We shall not cure ourselves ed with a sense of his purity and holiness, by the sturdiest resolution not to do this before we proceed to the subsequent peti- thing which is complained of, unless we comtions. We thus invest our minds with this pel ourselves to do something else. Courapreparatory sentiment in order to sanctify geous exertion is the only conqueror of irrewhat we are about to implore. In addition solution: vigorous action the only supplantto the necessity of stated prayer for the pro-er of idle speculation.

motion of purity, it may be observed, that if, Habits are not arbitrary systems and preby habitual devotion, we bend our thoughts determined schemes. They are not always into that course, they will in time almost laid down deliberately as plans to be pursued, voluntarily pursue it. The good effect of but steal upon us insensibly; insinuate themprayer will, on our return to society, be selves into a train of successive repetitions, much increased by the practice of occasion- till we find ours elves in bondage to them, ally darting up to heaven, a short ejacula-before we are aware they have gotten any tion, a laudatory sentence, or some brief spon-fast hold over us. But if rooted bad habits

VOL. II.

27

that when, in a better frame of mind, the good one is called up, the corrupt associate never fails to present itself unbidden, and, like Pharaoh's blasted corn, devours the wholesome ear.

are of such difficult extirpation, that, as we have already observed, they not only destroy the peace of him who continues them, but embitter the very penitence of him who has forsaken them, there is a class of beings in whom they are not yet inveterate. If I could speak with the tongues of men and of angels, never could they be employed to a more important purpose, than in represent-more distinctly we shall perceive those which ing to my youthful readers the blessedness cf avoiding such habits now, as may take a whole life to unlearn.

'Man,' says one of the most sagacious observers of man, Dr. Paley, 'is a bundle of habits.' The more we attend to them, the

are right, and the more dexterity we shall acquire in establishing them. In setting out in our moral course, we can make little proO you to whom opening life is fresh, and gress, unless we suffer ourselves to be gogay, and tempting! you who have yet your verned by certain rules; but when the rules path to choose, whose hearts are ingenuous, are once worked into habits, they in a manand whose manners amiable, in whom, if ner govern us. We lose the sense of that rewrong propensities discover themselves, yet straining power which was at first unpleaevil habits are not substantially formed-sant though self-imposed. To illustrate this could you be made sensible, at a less costly by an instance :-The accomplished orator price than your own experience, that though is not fettered by recurring to the laws of through the mercy of God, the long-erring the grammarian, nor the canons of the diaheart may hereafter be brought to abhor its lectician, though it was by being habitually own sin, yet the once initiated mind can ne-trained in their respective schools, that he ver be made to unknow its knowledge, nor acquired both his accuracy and argument. to unthink its thoughts; can never be brought Yet, while he is speaking, it never occurs to to separate those combinations which it once him, that there are such things in the world too fondly cherished :-how much future re-as grammar or logic. The rules are become gret, how much incurable sorrow might you habits, they have answered their end, and spare yourselves! If you would but reflect are dismissed. that though in respect of the past, you may If we consider the force of habit on amusebecome inwardly penitent, you cannot be-ments: stated diversions enslave us more by come as you now are, outwardly innocent, the custom of making us feel the want of and that no repentance can restore your pre- them, than by any positive pleasure they sent happy ignorance of practised evil,-you afford. By being incessantly pursued, they would then keep clear of a bondage from diminish in their power of delighting; yet which you perceive the older and the wiser such is the plastic power of habit and such do not, because they cannot, commonly the yielding substance of our minds, that emancipate themselves. they become arbitrary wants, absolute artiBut, supposing a young man is so happy as cles, not of luxury, but necessity. Strange! to escape the grosser corruptions, yet, if he that what is enjoyed without pleasure cannot have a turn to wit and ridicule, he should be be discontinued without pain! The very hour singularly on his guard against the false when, the place where, the sight of those credit which ludicrous associations will ob-with whom they have been partaken, pretain for him in certain societies. An indeli-sent associations which we feel a kind of difcate but pointed jest, a combination of some ficulty and uneasiness in separating. We light thought with some scriptural expres- are partly cheated into this imaginary necession, a parody which makes a serious thing sity, by seeing the eagerness with which ridiculous, or a sober one absurd,-these are others pursue them. Yet if it were not an instruments by no means harmless, not only artificial necessity, a want not arising from to him who handles them, but also in the the constitution of our nature, those would be hands of subalterns and copyists, who ha- unhappy who are deprived of them, or raving, perhaps, no faculty but memory and ther, who never enjoyed them. There is a seldom using memory but for mischief, re-respectable society of Christians among us tain with joy, and circulate from vanity, who carry the restriction of diversions to the what was at first uttered with mere random widest extent. Yet among the number of thoughtlessness. Profane dunces are the busy echoes of the loose wit of others. With little talent for original mischief, but devoting that little to the worst purposes, they pick up a kind of literary livelihood on the stray sarcasms and fugitive bon mots of others, and are maintained on what the witty throw away. If even in the first instance there were nothing wrong in the thing itself, there is mischief in the connexion. Whatever serves to append a light thought to a serious one, is unsafe: both have, by frequent citation, been so accustomed to appear together,

amiable, virtuous, and well instructed young Quakers, whom I have known, I have always found them as cheerful and as happy as other people. Their cheerfulness was perhaps more intellectual than mirthful; but their happiness never appeared to be impeded by complaints at the privation of pleasures to which habit had not enslaved them |—a habit which, when carried too far, destroys the very end of pleasure, that of invigorating the mind by relaxing it.

It is a proof that the Apostle considered conversion in general a gradual transforma

tion, when he spoke of the renewing of the the heart, yet the indulged thought, and esinward man day by day; this seems to inti- pecially the allowed sight of that object mate that good habits, under the influence of which once melted down our better resoluthe Spirit of God, are continually advancing tions, may melt them again. If we would the growth of the Christian, and conducting conquer an invading enemy, we must not him to that maturity which is his consum- only fight him in the field, but cut off his mation and reward. The grace of repent-provisions. It may be difficult, but nothing ance, like every other, must be established should repel the effort but what is impossiby habit. Repentance is not completed by ble. Now in this there is no impossibility, a single act, it must be incorporated into our mind, till it become a fixed state, arising from a continual sense of our need of it.Forgive us our trespasses would never have been enjoined as a daily petition, if daily repentance had not been necessary for daily sins. The grand work of repentance, indeed, accompanies the change of heart; but that which is purified will not, in this state of imperfection necessarily remain pure. While we are liable to sin, we must be habitually penitent.

because the thing not being placed out of our reach, there needs only the concurrence of the will. If we humour this wayward will, it is at our peril. What we persist in indulging, we shall every day find more difficult to restrain. Perhaps on our not resisting the very next temptation, will depend the future colour of our life-the very possibility of future resistance. That which is now in judicially placed beyond it. Infirmity of purour power, may, by repeated rejection, be pose produces perpetual relapses.-Temptation strengthens as resistance weakens. We create, by criminal indulgences, an imbecility in the will, and then plead the weakness, not which we found, but made.-Half measures produce more pain and no success. They are compounded of desire and regret, of appetite and fear, of indulgence and remorse. While we are balancing, conditioning, temporizing, negotiating with conscience, we might be singing Te Deum for the victory.

A man may give evidence of his possessing many amiable qualities, without our being able to say, therefore, he is a good man. His virtues may be constitutional, their motives may be worldly. But when he exhibits clear and convincing evidence, that he has subdued all his inveterate bad habits, weeded out rooted evil propensities; when the miser is grown largely liberal, the passionate become meek, the calumniator charitable, the malignant kind; when every bad habit is not only eradicated, but succeeded What force we take from the will by eveby its opposite quality, we would conclude ry repetition, we give to the habit. A faint that such a change could only be effected by endeavour ends in a suré defeat. Temptapower from on high, we would not scruple tion becoming more importunate, if its into call that man religious. But, above all, cursions are not resisted, if its attacks are there must be a change wrought in the se- not repelled, the habit will get final possescret course of our thoughts; without this in- sion of the mind; encouragement will interior improvement, the abandonment of any vite repetition; where it has been once enwrong practice is no proof of an effectual al-tertained, it will find a ready way; where it teration. This, indeed, we cannot make a has been received with familiarity, expulsion rule by which to judge others, but it is an will soon become difficult, and afterwards infallible one by which to judge ourselves. impossible. The Holy Spirit, whose aid Certain faults are the effects of certain temptations, rather than of that common depravity natural to all. But a general rectification of thought, a sensible revolution in the secret desires and imaginations of the heart, is perhaps the least equivocal of all the changes effected in us. This is not What we have insisted on is the more immerely the cure of a particular disease, but portant, because all progressive goodness the infusion of a sound principle of life and consists in habits; and virtuous habits, behealth, the general feeling of a renovated na- gun and carried on here with increasing imture, the evidence of a new state of consti-provement and multiplied energies, are sustution. ceptible of eternal proficiency. When we Candid Christians, however, who know are assured that the effect of habits will not experimentally the power of habit, who are cease with life, but be carried into eternity, aware of the remainders of evil in the best it gives such an enlargement to the ideas, men, will not rashly pronounce that he, who, such an expansion to the soul, that it seems while he is struggling with some long che- as if every hour were lost in which we are rished corruption falls into an occasional not beginning or improving some virtuous aberration from the path he is endeavouring habit. to follow, is therefore not religious.

If our bad habits have arisen from dangerous associations, we must dissolve the intercourse, if we would obviate the danger, Good impressions may have been made on

perhaps we have faintly invoked, and firmly rejected, is withdrawn. But if we are sincere in the invocation, we shall be firm in the resistance; if we are fervent in the resolution, we shall be triumphant in the conflict.

As we were originally made in the image of God, so shall we, by the renovation of our minds, of which our improved habits is the best test, be restored, in an enlargement of our moral powers, to a nearer resemblance

of Him. Were it not that there is a partici- | considered are commonly better than their pation, in all rational minds, of the same profession, the lives of those now under conqualities in kind, though infinitely different templation are worse. These scem to have in degree, the perfections of God would not more faults, the other more prejudices. The so repeatedly be held out in Scripture as ob- others are satisfied to be stationary; these jects of our imitation. It would have been are not aware that they are retrograde. The absurd to have said, 'as he that hath called former are in a far better state; but there you is holy, so be ye holy.' Be ye holy, for is hope that the latter may find out that they I am holy,' would hot have been a reasona- are in a bad one. The one rest in their perble command, unless holiness and purity had formances, with little doubt of their safety; been one common moral quality of the na- the other, with a blind security, rest in the ture, though unspeakably distant in the pro- promises, without putting themselves in the portion between that perfect Being from way to profit by them. whom whatever is good is derived, and the imperfect creature who derives it Surely it is not too much to say, that though we can only attain that low measure, of which our weak and sinful nature is capable, yet still to aim at imitating those perfections, is a desire natural to the renewed heart: and it may be considered as a symptom that no such renovation has taken place, when no such desire is felt.

If the whole indivisible scheme of Christianity could be split into two portions, and either half were left to the option of these classes; those formerly noticed would adopt the commandments from an assurance of being saved by their obeying them; these under present consideration, would choose the creed, from a notion that its mere adoption would go near to exonerate them from personal obedience. The others intend to earn How could we attempt to trace the per- heaven by their defective works: these, fections of the divine nature, if he had not overlooking the necessity of holiness, flatter stamped on our mind some idea of those per- themselves, when they think at all, with the fections? We may bring these notions prac-cheap salvation of a mental assent. We all tically home to our own bosoms, possessing, desire to be finally saved. There is but one as we do, not only natural ideas of the divine opinion about the end; we only differ about rectitude, but having these notions highly the means. Many fly to the merits of the rectified, and confirmed by the Scripture Redeemer to obtain happiness for themrepresentation of God; if, instead of adopt- selves hereafter, who do not desire his Spirit ing abstract reason for a rule of judging, to govern their lives now, though he has so which is often too unsubstantial for our grasp, repeatedly declared, that he will not save we set ourselves to consider what such a us without renovating us. To suppose that perfect Being is likely to approve, or con- we shall possess hereafter what we do not demn, in human conduct, and then, com-desire here, that we shall complete then, paring not only our deductions, but our practice, with the Gospel, adopt or reject what that approves or condemns.

CHAP. XX.

On the inconsistency of Christians with
Christianity.

WE have, in three former chapters, ventured to address a class of Christians whose lives are decorous, and whose manners are amiable; but who, from the want of having imbibed the vital spirit of Christianity, and having, therefore, formed their principles on imperfect models, seem to have fallen short of that excellence of which their characters are susceptible.

what we do not think of beginning now, is among the inconsistencies of many who pass muster under the generic title of Christians,

The contest between heaven and earth seems to be reduced to one point, which shall possess the heart of man. The bent of our affections decides on the object of our pursuit. When they are rightly turned by his powerful hand, God has the predominance. It is the grand design of his word, of his Spirit, of all his dispensations, whether providential or spiritual, to restore us to himself, to recover the heart which sin has estranged from him. Where these instruments fail, the original bias governs, and the world has the entire possession.

Prospective prudence is esteemed a mark of wisdom by the world, and he who professed We presume now to address a very differ- the wisdom which is from above, observes, ent class; persons acknowledging, indeed, that the prudent man foreseeth.' Here the great truths of Christianity, but living the Bible and the world appear at first sight either in the neglect of the principles they to be in strict accordance; but they differ profess, or in practical opposition to the the-materially, both as to the distance and the ory they maintain; yielding to the tyranny of object of their forecast. How prudent do passion or of pleasure, governed by the ap- we reckon that man who denies himself prepetite or the caprice of the moment, and sent expenses, and waives present enjoygoing on in a careless inattention to the du-ments, that he may more effectually secure ties inculcated by an authority they recog-to himself future fortune! We observe that nize. The lives of the persons previously his discreet self-denial will be amply reAn inquiry why some good sort of people are not warded by the increasing means of after-indulgence. But if this very man were to ex

better.