at all surprising, that a man should at once become luxurious, covetous, and implacable, because he carries in his own breast the principles of all these vices. But the habits of holiness are directly opposed to our constitution. They obstruct all its propensities, and offer, if I may so speak, violence to nature. When we wish to become converts, we assume a double task; we must demolish, we must build; we must demolish corruption, before we can erect the edifice of grace. We must, like those Jews who raised the walls of Jerusalem, work with the sword in one hand and the instrument in the other; Neh. iv. 17. equally assiduous to produce that which is not, as to destroy that which already exists. Such is the way, and the only way, by which we can expect the establishment of grace in the heart; it is by unremitting labour, by perseverence in duty, and by perpetual vigilance. Now, who is there among you that does not perceive the folly of those who procrastinate their conversion? who imagine that a word from a minister, a prospect of death, a sudden resolution, can instantaneously produce perfection of virtue ? O wretched philosophy! extravagant presumption! idle reverie, that overturns the whole system of original corruption, and the mechanism of the human frame. I should as soon expect to find a man, who could play skilfully on an instrument without having acquired the art by practice and application; I should as soon expect to find a man, who could speak a language without having studied the words, and surmounted the fatigue and difficulty of pronunciation. The speech of the one would be a barbarous subject of derision, and unintelligible; and the notes of the other would be discords destitute of softness and harmony. Such is the absurdity of the man who would become pious, patient, humble, and charitable in one moment, by a simple wish of the soul, without acquiring those virtues by assiduity and care. All the acts of piety which you see him perform, are but emotions proceeding from a heart touched indeed, but not converted. His devotion is a rash zeal, which would usurp the kingdom of heaven, rather than take it by violence. His confession is an avowal extorted by anguish suddenly inflicted by the Almighty, and by remorse of conscience, rather than sacred contrition of heart. His charity is extorted by the fear of death, and the horror of hell. Dissipate these fears, calm that anguish, appease these terrors, and you will see no more zeal, no more charity, no more tears; his heart habituated to vice, will resume its course. This is the consequence of our first principle; we shall next examine the result of the second. We said, that when a habit is once rooted, it becomes difficult to surmount it, and altogether unsurmountable, when suffered to assume too great an ascendancy. This principle suggests a new reflection on the sinner's conduct who delays his conversion; a very important reflection, which we would wish to impress on the minds of our audience. In the early course of vice, we sin with a power by which we could abstain, were we to use violence; hence we flatter ourselves, that we shall preserve that power and be able to eradicate vice from the heart when soever we shall form the resolution. Wretched philosophy still; another illusion of self-attachment, a new charm of which the devil avails himself for our destruction. Because, when we have long continued in sin, when we are advanced in age, when reformation has been delayed for a long course of years, vice assumes the sovereignty, and we are no longer our own masters. You intimate a wish to be converted; and when do you mean to enter on the work? To-morrow, without further delay. And are you not very absurd in deferring till to-morrow, when you may begin to-day? But you shrink on seeing what labour it will cost, what difficulties must be surmounted, what victories must be obtained over yourselves. From this change you divert your eyes: to-day you still wish to follow your course, to abandon your heart to sensible objects, to follow your passions, and gratify your concupiscence. But to-morrow you intimate a wish of recalling your thoughts, of citing your wicked propensities before the bar of God, and pronouncing their sentence. O sophism of self-esteem! carrying with it its own refutation. For if this wicked propensity, strengthened to a certain point, appears invincible to-day, how shall it be otherwise to-morrow, when to the actions of this day you shall have added those of another? If this sole idea, if this single thought of labour, induce you to defer to-day, what is to support you to-morrow under the same labour? Further, there follows a consequence from these reflections, which may appear unheard of to those, who are accustomed to examine the result of a principle; but which may perhaps convince those who know how to use their reason, and have some knowledge of human nature. It seems to me, that, since habits are formed by actions, when those habits are continued to an age in which the brain acquires a certain consistency, correction serves merely to interrupt the actions already established. It would be sufficient in early life, while the brain is yet flexible, and induced by its own texture to lose impressions as readily as it acquired them; at this age, I say, to quit the action would be sufficient to reform the habit. But when the brain has acquired the degree of consistency already mentioned, the simple suspension of the act is not sufficient to reform the habit; because by its texture it is disposed to continue the same, and to retain the impressions it has received. Hence, when a man has lived some time in vice, to quit it is not a sufficient reform; for him there is but one remedy, that is, to perform actions opposite to those which had formed the habit. Suppose, for instance, that a man shall have lived in avarice for twenty years, and been guilty of ten acts of extortion every day. Suppose he shall afterwards have a desire to reform; that he shall devote ten years to the work; that he shall every day do ten acts of charity opposite to those of his avarice; these ten years (considering the case here according to the course of nature only, for we allow interior and supernatural aids in the conversion of a sinner, as we shall prove in the subsequent discourses,) would they be sufficient per fectly to eradicate covetousness from this man? It seems contrary to the most received maxims. You have heard that habits confirmed to a certain degree, and continued to a certain age, are never reformed but by the same number of opposite actions. The character before us, has lived twenty years in the practice of avarice, and but ten in the exercise of charity, and doing only ten acts of benevolence daily during that period; he is then arrived at an age in which he has lost the facility of receiving new impressions. We cannot therefore, I think, affirm that those ten years are adequate perfectly to eradicate the vice from his heart, After all, sinners, you still continue in those habits, aged in crimes, heaping one bad deed upon another, and flattering yourselves to reform, by a wish, by a glance, by a tear, without difficulty or conflict, habits the most inveterate. Such are the reflections suggested by a knowledge of the human frame with regard to the delay of conversion. To this you will oppose various objections which it is of importance to resolve. You will say, that our principles are contradicted by experience; that we daily see persons, who have long indulged a vicious habit, and who have renounced it at once with repeating the opposite acts of virtue. The fact is possible, it is indeed undeniable. It occurs in five cases, which when fully examined, will be found not at all to invalidate what has already been established, 1. A man possessing the free use of his faculties, may by an effort of reflection extricate himself from a vicious habit, I allow; but we have superseded the |