138 DUTY OF MORAL PROGRESS, and REFORMATION. 316. All acts of duty, and all affections which lead to acts of duty, tend to promote our moral culture. On the other hand, all transgressions of duty arrest our moral progress, and are steps in a retrograde course. 317. It is the moral business of every person to resist temptation. The reason and the moral faculty must be employed in controlling the desires and affections when they impel us in an immoral direction. All the results of our moral culture must be called to our aid for this purpose. 318. The universal voice of mankind declares some offenses to be greater, some to be less; yet no transgression can be said to be so much better than another as not to be utterly bad, nor to be slight, since the slightest interrupts our moral progress. Those offenses are to be deemed most grievous, which are most pernicious in their effect upon our moral cul ture. 319. The mode in which the poison of immoral purposes, desires, and affections was taken into our being, was, by their being our purposes, our desires, our affections. In order to expel their effect, they must be repudiated, so that they shall no longer belong to us. They must be changed into their reverse: desire, into aversion; love, into hate; the purpose to do, into the purpose to undo; joy in what was done, to sorrow that it was done. This change must be carried, by an effort of thought, into the past. We must recall in our memory the past act of transgression, condemning, as we do so, the motives by which we were misled, and the purpose which we formed. This change, this sorrow, this renunciation and condemnation of our past act, is repentance. 320. Repentance is not a sufficient remedy for the mischief of transgression; but there can be no remedy of the evil without this. The transgressor must, at least, repent, in order to cast out of his being the poison of immoral act or purpose. 321. Beside the exercise of the repentance now described, we must reform our lives. Amendment, as well as repentance, is the necessary sequel of transgression, in virtue of that duty of moral progress which is constantly incumbent upon all men. IMMEDIATE REFORMATION. 139 322. In addition to what reason teaches upon this subject, we need the teachings of religion. The moralist very properly teaches, that, after transgression, repentance and amendment are necessary steps in our moral culture. But the moralist cannot pronounce how far these steps can avail as a remedy for the evil; how far they can avert the consequences of sin from man's condition and destination. These are points on which the moralist necessarily looks to religion for her teaching. 323. Amendment is required by morality to be immediate. If a man repents in the middle of an immoral act, he will not go on with the act. As soon as the authority of morality is acknowledged, the moral course of action must begin; and not at some later period, when pending acts have been completed. Duty is the perpetual rightful governor of every man; and the man who merely promises to obey this governor at some future time, is really disobedient. The man who completes an immoral act, knowing it to be immoral, commits a new offense. He yielded to temptation in the first part of the act; he sins against conviction in the second. This remark may be of use when we come to consider some cases of duty. For instance, if I have made an immoral promise, and see my fault, it is my duty not to complete the act by performing the promise. 324. Every means of improving our moral nature, it behooves us to employ. That is the business for which we are continued in the world, and on which our happiness, forever, will depend. 325. As means of such improvement, we ought constantly to be attentive to our conduct; not to our actions only, but also to our thoughts, passions, and purposes; to reflect upon them daily, with a fixed resolution to reform what has been amiss; and carefully to avoid temptation and bad company. 326. Of bad company, the fascinations, if we give way to them ever so little, are so powerful, and assault our frail nature from so many quarters at once, that it is hardly possible to escape their influence; our minds must be contaminated by them, even though there should be no apparent impurity in our outward behavior. For, from our 140 DUTY OF CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT. proneness to imitation, we come to act, and even to think like those with whom we live, especially if we have any affection for them: and bad men have often agreeable qualities, which may make us contract such a liking to them, as shall incline us to be partial even to the exceptionable parts of their character. Moreover, the fear of giving offense, or of being ridiculed for singularity; the sophistries by which wicked men endeavor to vindicate their conduct; and the habit of seeing or hearing vice encouraged, or virtue disregarded; all conspire, by lessening our abhorrence of the one, and our reverence for the other, to seduce into criminal practice and licentious principle. 327. It should ever be borne in mind that we have commenced a career of existence that shall never end. Every step we take in life is to have an influence on those that follow. We should therefore be careful, never by our present conduct to injure our future interests. During the whole of life we should be employed in the diligent prosecution of that system of education which is requisite to qualify us for the duties and enjoyments of a higher state of existence. The wisest and the best have cause for persevering exertion, and room for growing improve[Whewell; Fergus; Beattie.] ment. 315. What is the highest good to which we can direct our aim? 316. How is the moral life nourished or impaired ? 317. What moral business has each individual to perform? 318. According to what measure and standard do moral transgressions become greater and graver? 319. When transgression has been committed, how is rectitude to be restored? When the poison of an immoral act has been taken into our being, how is it to be ejected, and the powers of life restored to their healthful action? 320. Is the repentance thus described, a sufficient remedy for the mischief of transgression? 321. What, beside the repentance thus described, is necessary? 322. Do we need no further teachings on this subject than reason thus communicates? 323. How soon, after transgression, does amendment become a duty? 324. Why should every means of improving our moral nature be employed? 325. What should we employ as means of such improvement? 326. Why is it especially necessary to avoid bad company? 327. Is it proper to be contented with any attainments we may have already made in virtue, or to forget the claims of our future being? TEMPERANCE, OR SELF-GOVERNMENT. THIS duty is strongly recommended by the light of nature; and revelation enforces it by the weight of its high authority: "Let your moderation be known unto all men;"" Live soberly." 328. This moderation is to be used in reference to bodily enjoyments; to sorrow for the loss of our friends or of property; and to the indulgence of the desires and affections of the mind. (1.) We are to exercise temperance in our bodily gratifications. Much of what we owe to ourselves as rational and accountable beings is included in this view of moderation. There is no part of our duty which requires more continued self-denial in its practice. This subject has been treated with sufficient fullness in Book II. chap. IV. sect. III., on the government of the appetites and passions. That section it may be profitable to review in this connection. (2.) Temperance, or self-government, implies moderation in the indulgence of sorrow on account of the loss of friends or of property. Reason, indeed, suggests this. No extreme of sorrow can be of avail in restoring to us the blessings of which, by the providence of God we are deprived; and it becomes us, even on this ground, to restrain those painful emotions which bereavements naturally awaken. But Christianity enforces this duty on higher grounds, and by the most persuasive and powerful motives and examples. (3.) In self-government, is included moderation in indulging the desires of the mind. In the proper regulation of these desires consists a large part of true morality; also, in seeking their gratification only in subordination to the divine authority, and to the higher ends of our being. According to the affections and desires habitually entertained in the heart, will be the tenor of the conduct; and no reformation, therefore, can be effectual, 142 FORTITUDE.-GOOD HABITS. which aims not at the thorough melioration of the inward, 328. In regard to what objects is moderation to be exercised? CHAPTER IV. FORTITUDE. 329. FORTITUDE is that virtue, in the exercise of which we are enabled to conduct ourselves with propriety in regard to the difficulties and dangers of life; so as neither to betray ourselves by unreasonable fear, nor rashly to put ourselves in the way of evil. It is by fortitude that we can guard from injury those rights which the Creator has given us, and prepare to meet the evils which threaten us from a distance. It is the same virtue which keeps the mind from sinking under present and unavoidable calamities, and animates it to endure, with patience and resignation to the will of God, what it can neither control nor remove. It is clearly con nected with self-control, without a considerable share of which, none can be eminently good or great. [Dewar, vol. ii. pp. 497, 498.] 329. What virtue under the name of fortitude is it our duty to cultivate and exercise? CHAPTER V. ON THE FORMATION OF GOOD HABITS. 330. THE obligation to form good habits arises from the fact that man has been made capable of forming habits, and is very much the creature of habit, and hence it is of great importance that this law of his nature should be turned to a good account. 331. The end of education should be, not merely the communication of knowledge-this is but one of its advantages-but the training of the mind, the calling forth |