Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

If we have such thoughts as these ready, and are watchful enough to urge them home on our hearts, in the heat of our encounter with any temptation, they will soon turn the victory to our side. Then shall our spirits triumph with a joy infinitely more sweet, and more transporting, than all the delights of a sinful life, were they crowded into one moment. Then shall we lift our heads among the Christian heroes, and look down on the Alexanders and Cæsars, who shamefully submitted to those enemies we have subdued. Then shall conscience applaud, and God approve, and the angels above shall sing Hallelujah! Thanks be to God, who giveth his servants victory! Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty. In thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for, when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.' Then shall the gracious captain of our salvation, who fought so hard a battle for us, consider us as having fought and conquered for his honour. Now the consciousness of this, in a grateful heart, is rapture and heaven.

O thou Almighty Being, let it please thy infinite goodness to raise in our low and stupid hearts, by the quickening motions of the Holy Spirit, an invincible ardour to pursue such triumphs, to thy eternal glory, through Christ Jesus our Redeemer, to whom, in the unity of the ever-blessed Trinity, be all might, majesty, dignity, and dominion, now and for evermore. Amen.

DISCOURSE XXVIII.

HABIT THE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS OR MISERY.

JER. XIII. 23.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, who are accustomed to do evil.

By thus comparing a habit of sin with the black complexion of an Ethiopian, and the spots on the skin of a leopard, which are natural, and, without a miracle, unalterable; and by maintaining, that either may as easily change the property here mentioned, as he can betake himself to a good life, who hath been accustomed to a wicked one; the prophet seems to intimate the impossibility of breaking a sinful habit. Although it is true, that such figures, as this in my text, are never used, but when the speaker hath a mind to aggravate and stretch the force of what he says; and that they often express an extreme, when somewhat approaching near to that extreme, is all that is intended; yet that is not the case here; the comparison is strict and just. The Ethiopian himself cannot change his skin; the leopard cannot change his spots; neither is it possible for him to do good, who is accustomed to do evil.' But it does not follow, that the case of an habitual sinner is therefore desperate; for although by his own strength alone he cannot possibly reform himself, yet, with the assistance of his Maker, 'to whom all things are possible,' and who can purge the skin both of the Ethiopian and the leopard, habitually hardened as he is, he may be reclaimed.

As, however, a man may contribute to that work, which he cannot perfect; as we cannot hope for God's assistance, without using our own endeavours; and as habit, whether good or evil, is a subject of infinite importance to us; I hope we shall not mispend the time in inquiring, what it is; to what degree of power it carries its influence over our thoughts and actions; and how we may strengthen or subdue it, according as it tends to promote or hinder our happiness.

Habit then is that quality or disposition of the mind,

any

which, being acquired by repeated thoughts and acts of kind, renders the soul more apt and ready to return again to the same thoughts and acts. Here it is to be observed, first, That the quality or disposition mentioned is either always accompanied with, or rather indeed consists in, a kind of pleasure, which the mind perceives in repeating the thoughts or actions formerly repeated; and, secondly, That this pleasure, so far as it arises from repetition, always increases in proportion to the frequency of the repetition.

Again, It is to be observed, that if any particular train of thinking, or course of acting, is of itself agreeable to our natural inclinations, we are, on that account, the more readily habituated to it, both because nature itself introduces, and afterward nourishes, all habits thus grafted on itself.

And, lastly, it is worth remarking, that (such is the effect of repetition) a habit of liking that which is naturally disagreeable is often acquired, and sometimes carried to such a height, as to make that in some sort necessary, which was at first regarded as odious or pernicious. In this instance, although the object remains still the same, the very nature of the mind is changed, to all intents and purposes, as effectually, as if its original aversion had been totally destroyed, and an inclination, entirely new and opposite, introduced instead of it.

But still it is to be remembered, that the pleasure arising from repetition, whether added to the natural inclination, as in the former case, or forced on the mind against nature, as in the latter, becomes as real a motive to thinking, and through that to acting, in this or that particular manner, as any original sensation, affection, or passion, whatever. This appears by the glutton, who hath a real pleasure in eating, although he is not hungry; and by the chewer of tobacco, who is now extremely delighted with that weed, which was at first as nauseous to him, as to other men.

Now, at the same time that we may thus have new motives, both to thought and action, implanted in our minds, it is worth our while seriously to consider, that few, if any, of these are indifferent as to virtue or vice, and, consequently, as to the happiness or misery of the mind wherein they are found. Either they are moral or immoral in themselves, or produce effects that are. So great a change

wrought in our souls, in the very springs of thought and action, must be a matter of infinite moment to us. We shall be still more sensibly convinced of this, the more attentively we reflect on the force and activity of these habits, which, in certain instances, are frequently found too strong for every thing else within us.

Were there nothing else to prove the power of habit, but that it frequently makes that which is odious extremely pleasing, and sometimes almost necessary, this alone would be sufficient to do it. But, if it is able to do so much against nature, to what lengths may it not carry its influence over our minds, when it seconds, or works with, nature! Experience shews us, that any of our natural affections, or passions, strengthened by habitual indulgence, becomes insatiable and ungovernable. The natural end of eating is, to recruit the wastes of our bodies, and refit them for the offices of life; and, that we may be in no danger of neglecting the necessary recourse to food, the appetite of hunger is given us. But, as soon as this appetite is changed in any man, by a too luxurious indulgence, into a relish for the high tastes of certain delicacies, that man no longer eats to satisfy his natural appetite, nor to support the health and vigour of his body, but to gratify his habit, although perhaps he knows sickness and pain are sure to follow. The natural end of drinking is, to quench thirst, or at most to refresh the spirits, in order to the due performance of digestion, and the preservation of health. But he, who, pleased either with the delicious flavour of his liquor, or with the transports of mirth it gives him, hath, for a long time, accustomed himself to repeated excesses in drinking, now actually wants what at first he could by no means bear, and drinks on, though he knows it will destroy his health, his spirits, his senses, and his life. The rational use of money is, to procure us the necessaries and comforts of life. For this reason it is desired; but, by some men, so long, so often, and at length so ardently desired, that it becomes itself the object of desire, insomuch that the love of it is the very thing that starves the covetous, whose bags or chests are filled with it. I might exemplify the present observation by other instances, particularly by one which modesty forbids me to particularize, wherein nature prompts to the production of a new generation, and

habit, though grafted on nature, tends to the prevention of that, and the extinction of the present, through scenes of filth, of shame, of misery, and of pain, too shocking to be displayed.

On the other hand, there are habits of an opposite nature to these, which, being founded on the purer affections of the mind, teach a man to place his delight and happiness in denying himself, that he may give to others; in mortifying his sensual appetites, and living the life of a separate spirit; in thinking with contempt of that wealth, that grandeur, and those pleasures, which the rest of mankind pursue with such infinite eagerness, while he looks upwards, and habitually pants after things, which his eyes have not seen, which his ears have not heard, and which even his heart cannot conceive.' Nature makes us men; the principles of true religion make us wish and endeavour to be good men; but it is habit alone that can wed the heart to those principles; that can subdue its inordinate emotions to their dictates; that can perfect the good Christian, who is prepared to live in the midst of temptations, or die in flames for his God. The mind of man is neither capable of sinking to great depths of wickedness, till long and frequent repetitions have loaded it with habits of sin; nor of rising to the exalted heights of virtue, till use or practice have winged it with a contempt for temporal things, on the one side, and with the love of God on the other. Habit, in a word, finds us men, and makes us either angels or devils. Let our previous principles of thinking, or motives of acting, be what they will, our habits, once they are confirmed, by extinguishing one affection, by inflaming another, and by prescribing our leading pleasures, govern us almost without control. Can he who, for forty years, hath admired and practised, in all his dealings, the strictest honesty, afterward turn a cheat or sharper? Can he who, during a like space of time, hath transacted all his affairs, and pursued all his ends, by fraud and cunning, become afterward a Nathaniel without guile' in his thoughts, or artifice in his actions? Although it is true, that a man may by nature be inclined to this virtue or that vice, yet he can never become remarkable for an extraordinary act of either, till habit hath hardened him in the one, or consecrated him to the other.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »