fling mortification cannot crucify and kill what hath so long been growing with us: besides this (for this will not directly go into the account; for this difficulty the sinner must thank himself) he must do more actions of piety to obtain his pardon and to secure it. But because they need much pardon, and an infinite care, and an assiduous watchfulness, or they perish infallibly, therefore all holy penitents are to arise to greater excellences than if they had never sinned. 66 Major deceptæ fama est et gloria dextræ; Si non errasset, fecerat illa minus". 'Scævola's hand grew famous for being deceived, and it had been less reputation to have struck his enemy to the heart, than to do such honourable infliction upon it for missing.'And thus there is in heaven more joy over one repenting sinner, than over ninety-nine just persons that need it not ;" there is a greater deliverance, and a mightier miracle, a bigger grace, and a prodigy of chance; it being, as St. Austin affirms, a greater thing that a sinner should be converted, than that being converted he should afterward be saved ';' and this he learned from those words of St. Paul; "But God commended his love to us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." But now the sinner is more busy in his recovery, more fearful of relapse than before his fall; "sicut feræ decipulam erumpentes cautiores factæ," saith Lactantius; "like wild beasts breaking from their toils, they walk more cautiously for ever after." Thus it is impossible that sin should be exalted above grace, or that the devil's malice can be superior to the rare arts of the divine mercy; for by his conduct, poison itself shall become medicinal, and sin like the Persian apple, Pomis quæ barbara Persis Miserat, ut fama est, patriis armata venenis; transplanted from its native soil to the Athenian gardens, loses its natural venom, and becomes pleasant as the rinds of citrons, and aromatic as the eastern spices. 6. II. Although sins in the state of penitence can by God's grace procure an accidental advantage, yet that diffi • Mart. i. 22. 7. P Vide St. Chrysost. epist. ad. Theodor. 4 Rom. v. 8, 9. culty of overcoming and fierceness of contention, which is necessary to them who had contracted evil habits, is not by that difficulty an augmentation of the reward. As he that willingly breaks his legs, is not more commended for creeping with pain, than if he went with pleasure and ease; and the taking away our own possibility, being a destroying the grace of God, a contradiction to the arts of the divine mercy; whatsoever proper effect that infers, as it is impious in its cause and miserable in the event, so it does nothing of advantage to the virtue, but causes great diminution of it. For it is a high mistake crudely to affirm, that every répugnancy to an act of virtue, and every temptation to a sin, if it be overcome, increase the reward. Indeed, if the temptation be wholly from without, unsought for, prayed against, inferred infallibly, superinduced by God, then the reward is greater, by how much it was the more difficult to obey. Thus for Jephthah to pay his daughter which he had vowed, and for Abraham to slay his son, were greater acts of obedience, because they were in despite of great temptations to the contrary, and there was nothing evil from within that did lessen the choice, or retard the virtue. But when our nature is spoiled, and our strengths diminished, when the grace of God, by which we stood, is despised and cancelled, when we have made it natural for us to sin, then this remaining inclination to sin and unwillingness to obey, is so far from increasing the reward, that it is not only a state of danger, but it is an unwillingness to do good, an abatement of the choice, a state which is still to be mortified, and the strengths to be restored, and the affections made obedient, and the will determined by other objects. 7. But if the unwillingness to obey, even after the begin ning of repentance, were, as it is pretended by the Roman doctors, an increase of the merit or reward, then, 1. It were not fit that we should go about to lessen these inclinations to sin, or to exterminate the remains of the old man, because if they go off, the difficulty being removed, the reward must be no more than ordinary. III. It would also follow from hence, that the less men did delight in God's service, the more pleasing they should be to him: for if the reluctancy increases, then the perfect choice would lessen the reward. And then, IV. A habit of virtue were not so good as single actions. with the remains of a habit of vice, upon the same account: and a state of imperfection were better than a state of perfection, and to grow in grace were great imprudence. V. It were not good to pray against entering into temptation; nay, it were good we did tempt ourselves, so we did not yield; to provoke our enemy, so he did not conquer us; to enter into danger, so we did not sink under it; because these increase the difficulty, and this increases the reward. All which being such strange and horrid consequences, it follows undeniably, that the remanent portion of a vicious habit after the man's conversion is not the occasion of a greater reward, is not good formally, is not good materially, but is a fomes,' a nest of concupiscence, a bed of vipers, and the spawn of toads. 8. Now although this is not a sin, if it be considered in its natural capacity, as it is the physical, unavoidable consequent of actions (for an inherent quality may be considered without its appendant evil), that is, though a philosopher may think and discourse of it as of a natural production, and so without sin, yet it does not follow from hence, that such a habit, or inherent quality, is without its proper sin, or that its nature is innocent. But this is nothing else but to say, that a natural philosopher does not consider things in their moral capacity. But just thus every sin is innocent, and an act of adultery, or the begetting a child in fornication is good: a natural philosopher looks on it as a natural action, applying proper actives to their proportioned passives, and operating regularly, and by the way of nature. Thus we say God concurs to every sin, that is, to the action in its natural capacity, but that is therefore innocent so far; that is, if you consider it without any relation to manners and laws, it is not unlawful. But then if you consider the whole action. in its entire constitution, it is a sin. And so is a sinful habit, it is vicious and criminal in its whole nature; and when the question is, whether any thing be, in its own capacity distinctly, good or bad; the answer must not be made by separating the thing from all considerations of good and bad. However, it will suffice, that a habit of vice, in its natural capacity, is no otherwise innocent than an act of adultery or drunkenness. 2. Of the moral Capacity of sinful Habits. But then if we consider sinful habits in their moral capacity, we shall find them to be a 'lerna malorum,' and we shall open a Pandora's box, a swarm of evils will issue thence. In the enumerating of which, I shall make a great progress to the demonstration of the main question. 9. I. A vicious habit adds many degrees of aversation from God, by inclining us to that which God hates. It makes us to love and to delight in sin, and easily to choose it; now by how much the more we approach to sin, by so much we are the further removed from God. And therefore this habitual iniquity the Prophet' describing, calls it, ‘magnitudinem iniquitatis,'-and the punishment designed for it is called, thy lot, the portion of thy measures;' that is, 'plenitudo pœnæ ad plenitudinem peccatorum,' a great judgment to an habitual sin, a final judgment, an exterminating angel, when the sin is confirmed, and of a perfect habit. 10. For till habits supervene, we are of a middle constitution, like the city that Sophocles speaks of; Πόλις δ ̓ ὁμοῦ μὲν θυμιαμάτων γέμει, Ὁμοῦ δὲ παιάνων τε καὶ στεναγμάτων, It is full of joy and sorrow; it sings and weeps together; it triumphs in mourning, and with tears wets the festivalchariot. We are divided between good and evil; and all our good or bad is but a disposition towards either: but then the sin is arrived to its state and manhood, when the joints are grown stiff and firm by the consolidation of a habit. So Plutarch defines a habit: Ἡ δὲ ἕξις ἰσχὺς καὶ κατασκευὴ τῆς περὶ τὸ ἄλογον δυνάμεως ἐξ ἔθους γιγνομένη. “ A habit is a strength and confirmation to the brute and unreasonable part of man gotten by custom :” Οὐκ εὐθὺς γὰρ τὰ ἄλογα πάθη μετ τρεῖται, καὶ ῥυθμίζεται, καὶ ὑποτάττεται τῷ λόγῳ. The brutish passions in a man are not quickly mastered and reduced to reason:” Τὰ δὲ ἔθη καὶ ἐπιτηδεύματα πλάσσει καὶ κηροχυτεῖ τὴν ψυχὴν, φυσίωσιν ἐμποιοῦντα διὰ τῆς συνέχους ἐνεργείας : “Custom and studies efform the soul like wax, and by assuefaction introduce a nature :"-to this purpose Aristotle quotes the verses of Evenus. r Jer. xiii. 22. 25. Φημὶ πολυχρόνιον μελέτην ἔμεναι, φίλε, καὶ δὴ Ed. Tyr. 3. Kuinoel. Stobæus de Rep. serm. 41. For as experience is to novices, and tutors to children, so is custom to the manners of men; a fixing good or evil upon the spirit that as it was said of Alexander, when he was a man he could not easily want the vices of his tutor Leonidas, which he sucked into his manners and was accustomed to in his youth; so we cannot without trouble do against our habit and common usages; 'Usus magister,' Use, is the greatest teacher:'-and the words in Jeremy", "Ye which are accustomed to do evil," are commonly read, "Ye which are taught to do evil ;" and what we are so taught to do, we believe infinitely, and find it very hard to entertain principles of persuasion against those of our breeding and education. For what the mind of man is accustomed to, and thoroughly acquainted with, it is highly reconciled to it; the strangeness is removed, the objections are considered or neglected, and the compliance and entertainment are set very forward towards pleasures and union. This habit therefore, when it is instanced in a vice, is the perfecting and improving of our enmity against God, for it strengthens the lust, as a good habit confirms reason and the grace of God. 11. II. This mischief ought to be further expressed, for it is bigger than is yet signified. Not only an aptness, but a necessity, is introduced by custom; because by a habit sin seizes upon the will and all the affections: and the very principles of motion towards virtue are almost broken in pieces. It is therefore called by the Apostle, "the law of sin."Lex enim peccati est violentia consuetudinis, quâ trahitur et tenetur animus etiam invitus :" "The violence of custom is the law of sin, by which such a man is overruled against his will." 66 Nam si discedas, laqueo tenet ambitiosi Consuetudo maliet in ægro corde senescity. You cannot leave it if you would. St. Austin' represents himself as a sad instance of this particular. "I was afraid lest God should hear me, when I prayed against my lust : u. Jer. xiii. 23. * Δεινὴ πέφυκεν ἡ συνήθεια κόρον ἀπογεννῆσαι, καὶ φύσιν ἐκ παραλλήλου μεταποιῆσαι, Theoctist. apud Stobæum.-Quantum consuetudo poterit intelliges, si videris feras quoque convictu nostro mansuescere: nullique immani bestiæ vim suam permanere, si hominis contubernium diu passa est. Senec. de Irà, lib. 3. c. 8. y Juv. vii. 50. Rupert. z Lib. 8. Confess. c. 7. et 5. |