at the sight of misery, and stronger benevolence and aptitude in relieving it.
· So admonition, experience, and example, if acted upon, produce good; if not, harden.
5.) The formation of a habit may be imperceptible and even inexplicable, but the thing itself is matter of certain experience.
6.) A habit once formed, the action becomes easy and often pleasurable: opposite inclinations grow weaker: difficulties less: and occasions more frequent.
7.) Thus, a new character, in several respects, is formed.
3. We should not have these capacities for improvement and for the reconstruction of character, if it were not necessary.
1.) They are necessary, even as to this life.
– We are not qualified, at first, for mature life: understanding and strength come gradually.
– If we had them in full, at birth, we should at first be distracted and bewildered, and our faculties would be of no use previous to experience. Ignorant of any employment, we could not provide for ourselves.
– So that man is an unformed, unfinished creature, even as to this world, till he acquire knowledge, experience, and habits.
2.) Provision is made for our acquiring, in youth, the requisite qualities for manhood.
– Children learn, from their very birth,
· The nature and use of objects.
· The subordinations of domestic life.
· The rules of life.
– Some of this learning is acquired so insensibly, as to seem like instinct, but some requires great care and labor, and the doing of things we are averse to.
– According as we act during this formative period, is our character formed; and our capacity for various stations in society determined.
– Early opportunities lost, cannot be recovered.
3.) Our state of discipline throughout this life, for another, is exactly of the same kind: and comprehended under one general law.
– If we could not see how the present discipline fitted us for a higher life, it would be no objection.
· We do not know how food, sleep, &c. enlarges the child’s body; nor would we expect such a result, prior to experience.
· Nor do children understand the need of exercise, temperance, restraint, &c.
– We thus see a general analogy of Providence indicating that the present life is preparatory.
4. If virtue is a necessary qualification for future happiness, then we see our need of the moral culture of our present state.
1.) Analogy indicates that our future state will be social.
– Nature furnishes no shadow of unreasonableness in the Scripture doctrine that this future community will be under the more immediate government of God.
– Nor the least proof that its members will not require the exercise of veracity, justice, &c. towards each other; and that character which results from the practice of such virtues.
– Certainly the universe is under moral government; and a virtuous character must, in some way, be a condition of happiness in that state.
2.) We are deficient, and in danger of deviating from what is right.
– We have desires for outward objects.
– The times, degrees, &c. of gratifying these desires, are, of right, subject to the control of the moral principle.
– But that principle neither excites them, nor prevents their being excited.
– They may exist, when they cannot be lawfully gratified, or gratified at all.
– When the desire exists, and the gratification is unlawful, we are tempted.
3.) The only security is the principle within.
– The strengthening of this lessens the danger.
– It may be strengthened, by discipline and exercise.
· Noting examples.
· Attending to the right, and not to preference.
· Considering our true interests.
– When improved, it becomes, in proportion to its strength, our security from the dangers of natural propensions.
– Virtue, become habitual by discipline, is improved virtue; and improved virtue must produce increased happiness, if the government of the world is moral.
4.) Even creatures made upright may fall.
– The fall of an upright being, is not accounted for by the nature of liberty; for that would only be saying that an event happened because it might happen.
– But from the very nature of propensions.
– A finitely perfect being would have propensions corresponding to its surroundings; its understanding; and its moral sense; and all these in due proportions.
– Such a being would have propensions, though the object might not be present, or the indulgence might be contrary to its moral sense; and this would have some tendency, however small, to induce gratification.
– The tendency would be increased by the frequency of occasions; and yet more by the least indulgence, even in thought; till, under peculiar conjunctures, it would become effect.
– The first transgression might so utterly disorder the constitution, and change the proportions of forces, as to lead to a repetition of irregularities; and hence to the construction of bad habits, and a depraved character.
5.) On the contrary, a finitely perfect being may attain higher virtue, and more security, by obeying the moral principle.
– For the danger would lessen, by the increased submissiveness of propensions.
– The moral principle would gain force by exercise.
6.) Thus vice is not only criminal, but degrading; and virtue is not only right, but improving.
– The degree of improvement may be such that the danger of sinning may be almost infinitely lessened.
– Yet the security may always be the habits formed in a state of discipline; making such a state altogether fit and necessary.
7.) This course of reasoning is vastly stronger when applied to fallen and corrupt creatures.
– The upright need improvement; the fallen must be renewed.
– Discipline is expedient for the one; necessary for the other; and of a severer sort.
1. Surrounding evils tend to produce moderation, practical knowledge, &c. very different from a mere speculative knowledge of our liability to vice and misery.
2. Our experience in this world, with right views and practice, may leave eternal impressions for good.
3. Every act of self-government in the exercise of virtue, must, from the very make of our nature, form habits of virtue, and a more intense virtuous principle.
4. Resolute and persevering resistance to particular and violent temptations, is a continued act of virtue, and that in a higher degree than if the seduction were transient and weak.
5. Self-denial is not essential to virtue, but is almost essential to discipline and improvement.
1.) Because actions materially virtuous, which have no difficulty, but agree with our inclinations, may be done merely from inclination, and so not be really virtuous.
2.) But when they are done in face of danger and difficulty, virtuousness is increased, and confirmed into a habit.
Objec. 1. As