overcoming temptation, there can be but these two things by which we can signify our love to God. 1. To stand in a temptation when we could not avoid it. 2. And to run from it, when we can. This hath in it more of prudence, and the other of force and spiritual strength: and we can best signify the sense of our weakness, and our carefulness by avoiding the occasions; but then we declare the excellency of our purposes, and pertinacious love to God, when we serve him in hard battles, when we are tempted as before, but fall not now as we did then. Indeed this is the greatest trial; and when God suffers us so to be tried, we are accepted if we stand in that day, and in such circumstances. But he that will choose that state, and dwell near his danger, loves not to be safe; and either he is a vain person in the confidences of his own strength, or else he loves that which is like a sin, and comes as near it as he dare; and very often, the event of it is, that at last he dies like a fly about a candle. But he that hath fallen by such a neighbourhood, and still continues the cause, may as well hope to cure his fever by full draughts of the new vintage, as return to life upon that account. A vicious habit is maintained at an easy rate, but not cured without a mighty labour and expense: any thing can feed it, but nothing can destroy it, if there be any thing near it, whereby it can be kept alive.-If therefore you will cure a vicious habit, dwell far from danger, and tempt not death, with which you have been so long in love. 5. V. A vicious habit never could have come to that state and period but by impunity. If God had smitten the sinner graciously in the beginning of his evil journey, it is likely that as Balaam did, he also would have offered to go back. Now when God does not punish a sinner early, though it hath in it more of danger and less of safety, yet we may in some measure supply the want of divine mercy smiting and hindering a sinner, by considering that impunity is no mark of innocence, but very often it is an indication of God's extremest and final anger. Therefore be sure, ever to suspect a prosperous sin. For of itself prosperity is a temptation, and it is granted but to few persons to be prosperous and pious. The poor and the despised, the humble and necessitous; he that daily needs God with a sharpness of apprehension, that feeds upon necessity, and lives in hardships, that is never flattered, and is never cheated out of virtue for bread, those persons are likely to be wise and wary; and if they be not, nothing can make them so; for he that is impatient in want, is impotent in plenty; for impatience is -pride, and he that is proud when he is poor, if he were rich he would be intolerable; and therefore it is easier to bear poverty temperately than riches. 66 Securo nihil est te, Nævole, pejus; eodem Sollicito nihil est, Nævole, te melius. And Passienus said of Caligula, "Nemo fuit servus melior, nemo dominus deterior:"" He was the best servant, and the worst master, that ever was c." Poverty is like a girdle about our loins, it binds hard, but it is modest and useful. But a heap of riches is a heap of temptations, and few men will escape, if it be always in their hand what can be offered to their heart. And therefore to be prosperous hath in itself enough of danger. But when a sin is prosperous and unpunished, there are left but few possibilities and arguments of resistance, and therefore it will become or remain habitual respectively. St. Paul taught us this secret, that sins are properly made habitual upon the stock of impunity. "Sin taking occasion by the law wrought in me all concupiscenced," ἀφορμὴν λαβοῦσα, " apprehending impunity,” διὰ τῆς ἐντολῆς, by occasion of the commandment," viz. so expressed and established as it was. Because in the commandment forbidding to lust or covet, there was no penalty annexed, or threatened in the sanction or in the explication. Murder was death, and so was adultery, and rebellion, Theft was punished severely too; and so other things in their proportion; but the desires God left under a bare restraint, and affixed no penalty in the law. had a mind to sin, taking occasion hence, that is, taking this impunity for a sufficient warrant, prevailed by frequent actions up to an evil custom and a habit, and so ruled them who were not renewed and overruled by the Holy Spirit of grace. 'Apopun signifies a caution in law,' or a security; so Suidas and Phavorinus. It is used also for impunity' in Demosthenes, though the grammarians note it not. But as to the thing. Whenever you see a sin thrive, start back Epigr. 1. 4. ep. 84. Now sin, that is, men that suddenly and with a trembling fear for it does nurse the sin from a single action to a filthy habit, and that always dwells in the suburbs of the horrible regions. No man is so much to be pitied, as he that thrives and is let alone in his sin: there is evil towards that man. But then God is kind to a sinner, when he makes his sin to be uneasy and trouble some. 6. VI. But in prosecution of the former observation, it is of very great use that the vigorous and healthful penitent do use corporal mortifications and austerities, by way of penance and affliction for every single act of that sin he commits, whose habit he intends to mortify. If he makes himself smart, and never spare his sin but still punish it, besides that it is a good act of indignation and revenge which St. Paul commends in all holy penitents, it is also a way to take off the pleasure of the sin, by which it would fain make abode and seizure upon the will. A man will not so soon delight, or love to abide with that which brings him affliction in present, and makes his life miserable. This advice I learn from Maimonides: "Ab inolitâ peccandi consuetudine non posse hominem avelli nisi gravibus poenis:" "Nothing so good to cure an evil custom of sinning, as the inflicting great smart upon the offender."-He that is going to cure his habitual drunkenness; if ever he be overtaken again, let him for the first offence fast two days with bread and water; and the next time double his smart; and let the man load himself till he groans under it, and he will be glad to take heed. 7. VII. He that hath sinned often, and is now returning, let him watch if ever his sin be offered to him by a temptation, and that temptation dressed as formerly; that he be sure not to neglect that opportunity of beginning to break his evil habit; he that hath committed fornication, and repents, if ever he be tempted again not to seek for it, but to act it, and may enter upon the sin with ease and readiness, then let him refuse his sin so dressed, so ready, so fitted for action, and the event will be this, that besides it is a great indication and sign of an excellent repentance, it discountenances the habit, and breaks the combination of its parts, and-disturbs its dwelling; but besides it is so signal an action of repentance, and so pleasing to the Spirit of God, and of a good man, that it is apt to make him do so again, and pro ceed to crucify that habit, upon which he hath had so lucky a day, and so great a victory and success. It is like giving to a person, and obliging him by some very great favour. He that does so, is for ever after ready and apt to do that obliged person still more kindness, lest the first should perish. When a man hath gotten an estate together, he is apt, saith Plutarch, to save little things, and be provident even of the smallest sum, because that now if it be saved, will come to something, it will be seen and preserved in his heap. But he that is poor, cannot become rich with those little arts of providence; and therefore he lets them go to his pleasure, since he cannot keep them with hopes to improve his bank: so is such an earnest and entry into piety; it is such a stock of holiness, that it is worth preserving; and to have resisted once so bravely, does add confidence to the spirit that it can overcome, and makes it probable that he may get a crown. However it falls out, it is an excellent act and signification of a hearty repentance and conversion. ̓Ανὴς δίκαιός ἔστιν, οὐχ ὁ μὴ 'δικῶν, ̓Αλλ ̓ ὅστις ἀδικεῖν δυνάμενος μὴ βούλεται . He is a just man, not whosoever does no wrong, but he that can and will not.' Maimonides saith excellently to the same purpose. For to the question, "Quænam tandem est pœnitentia perfecta?" he answers, This is the true and perfect repentance," cum quis ad manum habet, quo prius peccavit, et jam penes ipsum est, idem perpetrare, recedens tamen illud non committit pœnitentiæ causâ, neque timore cohibitus neque defectu virium," "when the power and opportunity are present, and the temptation, it may be, ready and urging, when it is in a man's hand to do the same thing, yet retiring he commits it not, only for piety or repentance' sake, not being restrained by fear or want of powers." 8. VIII. If such opportunities of his sin be not presented, it is never the worse: the penitent need not be fond of them, for they are dangers, which prove death, if they be not triumphed over; and if they be, yet the man hath escaped a danger, and may both prove and act his repentance without e Philemon. Walpole, Com. Græc. frag. quæd. p. 49. it. But therefore he that is not so tried and put to it, must do all that which he is put to, and execute his fierce anger against the sin, and by proper instances of mortification endeavour the destruction of it; and although every man hath not so glorious a trial and indication of his repentance as in the former instance, yet he that denies himself in any instance of his sin, and so in all that he can or is tempted in, does the same thing; all the same duty, and with less danger, and with less gloriousness. But if it happen that his sin urge him not at all as formerly, or the occasion is gone, and the matter is subtracted, he is to follow the measures of old men described in the next section. 9. IX. Let the penitent be infinitely careful that he does not mortify one vicious habit by a contrary vice, but by a contrary virtue. For to what purpose is it that you are cured of prodigality, and then die by covetousness? Quid te exempta juvat spinis de millibus una? It is not this or that alone that is contrary to God. Every vicious habit is equally his enemy; and he that exterminates onè vice and entertains another, hath destroyed the vice, but not the viciousness; he hath quitted the instance, but not the irregularity; he hath served the interest of his fortune or his pleasure, his fame or his quiet, his passion or his humour, but not his virtue and relations to God. By changing his vice for another, he is convinced of his first danger, but enters not into safety; he is only weary of his fever, and changes it into the ease of a dead palsy; and it is in them as in all sharp sicknesses, that is always the worst that is actually upon him; and the man dies by his imaginary cure, but real sickness. 10. X. When the mortification of a vicious habit is attempted, and is found difficult and pertinacious, not flexible or malleable by the strokes of contrition and its proper remedies, it is a safe way if the penitent will take some course to disable the sin, and make it impossible to return in the former instance, provided it be done by a lawful instrument. Origen took an ill course to do it, but resolved he would mortify his lust, and make himself a eunuch. But a solemn Vow were an excellent instrument to restrain the violences of a frequent temptation, if the person were to be trusted |