thy Spirit, sealed up to the day of redemption, in a hopeful way towards thee; and now I have listened to the whispers of a tempting spirit; and for that which hath in it no good, no reason, no satisfaction, for that which is not, I have forfeited those excellences, for the recovery of which my life is too cheap a price. I am ashamed, O God, I am ashamed. I put my mouth in the dust, and my face in darkness; and hate myself for my sin, which I am sure thou hatest. But give thy servant leave to hope, that I shall feel the gracious effluxes of thy love: I know thou art angry with me, I have deserved it. But if thou hadst not loved me, and pitied me, thou mightest have stricken me in the act of my shame: I know the design of thy mercy and loving-kindness is to bring me to repentance and pardon, to life and grace. I obey thee, O God, I humbly obey thy gracious purposes. Receive, O Lord, a returning sinner, a poor wounded person, smitten by my enemies, broken by my sin, weary and heavy aden; ease me of my burden, and strengthen me by a mighty grace, that hereafter I may watch more carefully, resist more pertinaciously, walk more circumspectly, and serve thee without the interruptions of duty by the intervening of a sin. O let me rather die, than choose to sin against thee any more. Only try me this once, and bear me in thy arms, and fortify my holy purposes, and conduct me with thy grace, that thou mayest delight to pardon me, and to save me through Jesus Christ, my Lord and dearest Saviour. Amen. I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost: O seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments. CHAP. V. OF HABITUAL SINS, AND THEIR MANNER OF ERADICATION OR CURE, AND THEIR PROPER INSTRUMENTS OF PARDON. SECTION I. The State of the Question. BOETHIUS the epicurean being asked, upon occasion of the fame of Strato's comedy, why, it being troublesome to us to see a man furious, angry, timorous, or sad, we do yet with so great pleasure behold all these passions acted with the highest, nearest, and most natural significations,-in answer to the question discoursed wittily concerning the powers of art and reason, and how much ourselves can add to our own natures by art and study. Children choose bread efformed in the image of a bird or man, rather than a loaf plucked rudely from the baker's lump; and a golden fish rather than an artless ingot: because reason and art being mingled with it, it entertains more faculties and pleasures on more sides. Thus we are delighted, when upon a table we see Cleopatra dying with her aspicks, or Lucretia piercing her chaste breast. We give great prices for a picture of St. Sebastian shot through with a shower of arrows, or St. Lawrence roasting upon his gridiron, when the things themselves would have pierced our eyes with horror, and rent our very hearts with pity and compassion: and the country-fellows were so taken with Parmeno imitating the noise of swine, that they preferred it before that of the Arcadian boar, being so deceived with fancy and prejudice, that they thought it more natural than that which indeed was so. 3. For, first, we are naturally pleased with imitation, and have secret desires to transcribe the copy of the creation, and then having weakly imitated the work of God in making some kind of production from our own perfections, such as it is, and such as they are, we are delighted in the imagery, as God is in the contemplation of the world. For we see a nature brought in upon us by art and imitation. But what in natural things we can but weakly imitate, in moral things we can really effect. We can efform our nature over anew, and create ourselves again, and make ourselves bad when God hath made us good: and what was innocent in nature, we make to be vicious by custom and evil habit; or on the contrary, what was crooked in nature, we can make straight by philosophy, and wise notices, and severe customs; and there is nothing in nature so imperfect or vicious, but it can be made useful and regular by reason and custom, and the grace of God; and even our brute parts are obedient to these. Homer observes it of the wise Ulysses, that though he was troubled to see his wife weep for him, yet Οφθαλμοὶ δ ̓ ὡσεὶ κέρα ἔστασαν, ἠὲ σίδηρος, ̓Ατρέμας ἐν βλεφάροισι· δόλῳ δ ̓ ὅγε δάκρυα κεῦθεν. "He held the corners of his eyes as firmly as the horn of his bow, or the iron of his spear, and by his wit he kept his eyes from running over." Reason can make every member of the body obey; but use can make it obey willingly: that can command nature, but this can change it: that can make it do what it pleases, but this can make it be so. 4. For there being in man so much brutishness and inclination to forbidden actions and things, to sensual and weak fruitions, nature in many instances calls upon us to die. Ἔα μ ̓ ἀπολέσθαι· τοῦτο γάρ μοι συμφέρει “ Let me perish, for it is for my advantage:" I desire to die because it is pleasant. Γνώμην ἔχοντά μ' ἡ φύσις βιάζεται. 'Nature does seem to do violence to us, and constrain us by violent inclinations to things against reason:' but then when passion supervenes, and, like strong winds, blow vehemently and raise a storm, we should certainly perish, if God did not give us other principles which might be as effective of his purposes, as nature and passion are of death and folly. Passion can be commanded by reason, but nothing hath sufficient and final effort and strength against nature, but custom. Ναῦς ὥς τις ἐκ μὲν γῆς ἀνήρτηται βρόχοις, "For our ship is kept fast and firm in its station by cables, and when the winds blow, we have anchors and fastenings to secure it." Which verses Plutarch expounding, Iɛíoμara yàp λέγει τὰς ἀντεχούσας κρίσεις πρὸς τὸ αἰσχρὸν, εἶτα ὥσπερ ὑπὸ πνεύματος πολλοῦ ῥηγνυμένας του πάθους, saith that “the cables which are to secure our ship in tempests, are the firm and permanent judgments against that which is filthy P." They secure when the winds of passion are violent and dangerous. But then because the storm is renewed every day, and μévovoi ai φύσεις, ὡς προῆλθον τὸ πρότερον, nature will revert, and for ever be longing after its own proportions, we must introduce P Xylandri, t. ii. p. 445. ο Οδυσσ. τ. 211. a nature against a nature: and as passion sets nature on work, and is itself overcome by reason, so if this reason become constant, firm, and habitual, it makes nature an artless, jointless enemy. 5. But then on the other side, if we let our evil appetites prevail, and use them to satisfaction and empire, bringing in evil customs upon our vicious and ill-disposed nature, we are fallen into an evil state of things: for custom and vicious habits are like the locks and bars to hell-gates, a man cannot but do evil, and then his case is intolerable. 6. Now because this is a great state of danger, and consequently a great caution against continuing in sin, I shall put some strength to it, and rescue the whole doctrine concerning this article from the false glosses and imperfect notices of men, which hang upon the duty of repentance like shackles and fetters hindering it to begin betimes, and so to proceed to its measures by the many and just limits and steps of its progression. For the case is this: If you ask, when every man is bound to repent,-I answer, as soon as ever he hath sinned. But how if he does not? then he adds more sin both against God and against his own soul, by delaying this duty, to that he did before in the single action of which he is tied to repent. For every man is bound to repent instantly of every known sin; he sins anew if he does not, though he add no more of the same actions to his heap. But it is much worse if he sins on; not only because he sins oftener, but because if he contracts a custom or habit of sin, he superadds a state of evil to himself, distinct from the guilt of all those single actions which made the habit. This I shall endeavour to prove against the doctrine of the Roman schools, who teach; 7. I. That no man is ordinarily bound to repent instantly of his sin; for the precept of repentance being affirmative, it does not oblige to its present or speedy performance". For it is as in the case of baptism, or prayers; to the time of the performance of which duties, the commandment of God does not specifically bind us, now, or an hour hence, or when it is convenient, or when it becomes accidentally necessary, and determined by something else that intervenes : so it is in repentance; so it be done at all, it matters not P Navarre Compend. Manual. c. 1. n. 31. when, as to the duty of it; when you come to die, or when you justly fear it; as in the days of the plague, or before a battle, or when the holy man comes to take his leave of his dying parishioner, then let him look to it. But else he is not obliged. For the sin that was committed ten years since, grows no worse for abiding; and of that we committed yesterday we are as deeply guilty, as of the early sins of our youth; but no single sin can increase its guilt by the putting off our repentance and amendment. 8. II. The guilt of sin which we have committed, they call habitual sin; that is, a remaining obligation to punishment for an action that is past, a guiltiness: or as Johannes dè Lugo expresses it, "peccatum actuale moraliter perseverans;" "the actual sin morally remaining," by which a man is justly hated by God. But "this habitual sin is not any real quality, or habit, but a kind of moral denomination or ground thereof, which remains till it be retracted by repentance."-The person is still esteemed injurious, and obliged to satisfaction.' That is all. 9. III. The frequent repetition of sinful acts will, in time, naturally produce a habit, a proper, physical, inherent, permanent quality; but this is so natural, that it is no way voluntary but in its cause, that is, in the actions which produced it, and therefore it can have in it no blame, no sinfulness, no obliquity, distinct from those actions that caused it, and requires no particular or distinct repentance"; for when the single acts of sin are repented of, the remaining habit is innocent, and the facility to sin which remains, is no sin at all. 10. IV. These habits of sin may be pardoned without the contrary habit of virtue, even by a single act of contrition, or attrition with the sacrament. And the event of all is this, it is not necessary that your repentance should be so early, or so holy, as to obtain by the grace of God the habits of virtue, or to root out the habit of sin; and, 2. It is not necessary that it should be at all before the hour of death, unless by accident it be inferred and commanded. Vide Infidelity Unmasked, pag. 604. "It is true, the best divines teach that a sinner is not bound to repent himself instantly of his sin," &c. De Pœnit. disp. 7. sect. 5. n. 48. Sic etiam Suarez, tom. 4. in S. part. disp. 9. sect. 4. n. 23. ⚫ Granatens. in materiâ de peccatis, tract. 8. disp. sect. 1. " Ibid. pag. 607. |