The Last Excuse

Lastly, (replies the Swearer) All this I confess to be very true; but what would you have me to do? Long time and custom have so habituated me to this Vice, that I find the Impossibility of my subduing it, as great as my willingness to leave it.

Answ. Well, I am very glad we have brought you to this pass: ‘Tis then confessedly a sin, and a great one: The question therefore is, Whether it be fitter for God to make it no sin, or you not to make it yours; and for him to be reconcil’d to the evil of its nature, or for you to desist from its practice? Your Apology is just as excusing as the Murderer’s would be, who should alledge before his Judge, that since he had been a Murderer from his Youth, he begs to be excused; but truly for his part he could not help it, and he must needs continue the Trade of cutting of Throats, that he had so long practic’d. Is not yours a holy consequence, I have been wicked long, therefore I will continue so still? Sure ‘tis the Devil’s Logick, from those sins that evidence the Justice of our suddener Repentance, to infer the legitimateness of our Relapses into Crimes. The Argument would have as much Reason, and more Honesty, that concludes out of, I have been wicked but too long already; that, Therefore I must be so no more; and from our former want of Piety, infers there needs a greater measure now to make amends for past Omissions. You would judge him uncharitable, that should tell you that you are scarce so much as desirous to be forgiven: But (to shew you how little you have for your opinion, besides your wishes) consider who would think that Delinquent very ambitious of Pardon, who refuses to accept it, unless he may have license to thieve again; and declines to purchase it by an engagement against former Misdemeanors. Certainly,

Weak is th’ Excuse that is on Custom built; For th’ Vse of sinning lessens not the Guilt.

And Custom in Evil rather increases than contracts the fault; for that Custom that now is the Parent, was first the Child of Sin, since the Evil of Custom proceeds from the Custom of Evil; (like Ice, which tho it easily thaw into Water, was first produced out of that Element’s Congelation.) And therefore our equitable and impartial Laws, that in Theft chastise the first faults only with a Brand upon the Hand or Shoulder, punish Relapses with deserved Death.

Nor are the Obstacles that oppose your cure, so stubborn as you are pleas’d to fancy them. We flatter our selves in augmenting the Difficulty of our Repentance, that we may lessen the Guilt of our Neglects. The truth on’t is, our baseness adds dimensions to these difficulties, because we are really loath to forsake our sins, and yet would fain cheat our Consciences into a belief, that our refractoriness and impenitency do proceed, not from our unwillingness to mend, but from our impotence. We do not, in this case, like many flourishing Orators, who out of ostentation use to create Monsters, afterwards to quell them; but like Children in the dark, who fancy first horrid mishapen Bug-bears, and then are frighted by them.

And yet when the slight Penalty of a Shilling is laid upon each Oath, and strictly exacted, we may easily discern a visible abatement in the tale of your sins, as long as you are true to your engagement; which were not most men too soon weary of, would (probably) soon make them weary of Offences of that nature.

‘Tis the opinion both of Pious and of Judicious Persons, that Swearing is therefore, tho not the most unpardonable, at least the most inexcusable of Vices; because that in it men have most power to refrain: And in effect, this sin is so destitute both of Temptations, Advantages, and Apologies, that in subduing the Custom of Swearing, we have scarce any thing but the Custom to subdue. Try; ‘tis less easy to surmount the belief of the difficulty, than the difficulty it self, which nothing makes so much invincible, as our thinking that it is so.

Here, a willingness to hoise Sail (to quit this ruinous Vice) serves for a prosperous Gale. If therefore Christ by giving you a desire to shake off the clogging Yoke of Sin, do call you to himself, give me leave to say to you, as the people did to the blind man of Jericho, Be of good comfort, rise, (Mark 10. 49) he calleth thee. And to compleat that comfort, I must tell you, that the Operation of Saving Grace upon the Sicknesses of the Soul, is like that of the Pool of Bethesda upon the Infirmities of (John 5. 2, 3, 4) the Body, since without all regard either to the age or greatness of the disease, so the remedy be but duly applied, the Cure is infallible.

I shall never despair of the recovery of any, that is but heartily desirous to be reclaim’d; since that which God was pleas’d to make me lately instrumental to work upon a Gentleman, whose Nation being French, his Vice little younger than himself, Humor extremely Cholerick, and his apprehensions of the Successlessness of his Endeavours very great, obliged him to vanquish Indispositions numerous and great enough to make that concurrence very frequent in one single person; and yet before one Fortnight was effluxt, he obtain’d so visible a Conquest over this stubborn Vice, that he had afterwards only as many relicks of it to suppress, as might keep him from growing proud of so sudden a Recovery.

So easy is it after having vanquish’d the Imagination of the Difficulty, to overcome the Difficulty it self; for in matter of uneasy Christian Duties, we must not only consider the disproportion of our Weaknesses to the Obstacles we must surmount, but allow the disproportion of those Obstacles, to the Supernatural Assistances we ought to hope for. For God requires nothing at our hands, which his own Favour (zealously implor’d by our addresses) will not enable us to execute. And in this, the Commands of God, differ from those of men, that the latter but lay on us an Obligation, the former invest us with a Power to obey them. As when our Saviour commanded the sick man (in the Gospel) to take up his bed, and walk, (Mark 2. 9, 12) at the same instant he strengthens his Sinews to perform what he enjoin’d: And in the first Creation, that powerful Command, Let there be light, gave that bright (Gen. 1. 3) Creature an Existence, to make it capable of paying him an Obedience. Let not then Tasks above the forces of our Nature, disanimate those that may expect assistances from his Almightiness, who in the same Leaves where he commands us to perform more than we are able, promises to do in us what he commands; since difficulties are not essential properties of obstacles, but only disproportions to the powers they are to resist. But admit that your habitude of swearing have rendred your Conversion as difficult as you pretend; sure then, that which Custom of sinning has confessedly made so uneasy, the continuance of that Custom is very unlikely to facilitate: As probably may he, whom a Surfeit of Melons has cast into a Fever, hope for a Cure by eating more again. No, no; remember that bad Customs, like Consumptions, admit of Remedies in the beginning, but grow still more incurable by delay; and Vices, like young Trees, the longer they are let grow, the greater difficulty there is in felling of them; each single sin being not bad only for the evil of the act, but the propensity it gives to repetition.

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Footnotes

1. The Lines included within this Parenthesis [] may perhaps pass for one, and appear somewhat foreign both to the Theme and Style of this Discourse: I have yet ventur’d to insert· them here, to please a Person that I much affect; leaving to the Reader a liberty to skip them if he please; but if he chance to vouchsafe them· a perusal, I must beg for them his attention, not that they deserve it, but because they need it. It ends p. 87. ↩

2. In an Essay of mistaken Modesty. ↩