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feel, in the strongest manner, the utter imbecility of your own efforts to oppose it. We do so, in order that you may fly at once to the only remedy. With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. The greatest sinner may obtain in this way all needful help. No man ever perished for want of the offer of divine grace. All things are ready. If you delay, you will infallibly become more hardened. God may give you up to a reprobate mind. Age and death are approaching. Your chains may be rivetted for ever. Now is the time of mercy. Now a beam of light breaks across your path. Now you see for the instant something of your guilt and danger. Act immediately and conviction; burst asunder the bands of sin; despair of nothing in the strength of God; confess the crimes of your nature and heart and conduct and habits; begin those acts which may go to form habits of obedience and holiness. Your neglect of this renders nugatory all your excuses on the ground of your inability; you frame not your doings to turn unto the Lord. It is not possible that all can be done at once. It is not possible that you can have perfect ease and readiness in religious duties in a moment. Only begin. Stop in the career of sin, and worldliness, and selfishness, and sensuality. Implore converting grace; avoid temptation; pray; read the Bible; hear

thoroughly on the

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the preaching of God's word; beg the advice of pious friends. Conscience will guide you on your way. Light will increase, if you follow what you have. The Holy Spirit will work effectually in your heart. New thoughts, new desires, new principles will arise. Things that seemed impossible, when you were excusing yourself and only talking about religion, will become comparatively easy when you are actually engaged in it. You will acquire an aptness as you proceed. It is the first step, the turning from our evil ways, the breaking up of confirmed habits, the commencement of the service of God, which is the great difficulty. Only overcome this by the aid of divine grace ; and you will quickly find that your way is becoming plain before your face, and that the yoke of Christ is truly easy and his burden light.

Henceforth the influence of habit, instead of impeding, will begin to assist you in your course. The inclinations which rendered you averse to religion will grow weaker. The difficulties in the ways of piety will diminish. The practical inward principles of religion will become stronger, both in themselves, and in reference to the habits which oppose them. Thus a new character will be formed; a character utterly unattainable by the unassisted efforts of fallen nature. The mind will be turned to a

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constant pursuit of all holy conversation and godliness. This will become at length a fixed habit, and will be accompanied by a sacred ambition of improvement, which, enlarging its prospects in proportion to its progress, will correspond with the unlimited increase of the capacities of the soul through every period of an endless existence.

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SERMON XVIII.

THE FORCE OF HABIT.

PSALM CXXXIX. 23, 24.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

SELF-SUSPICION is necessary to our growth in grace. The influence of habit, acting on the corruption of our nature, and aided by the temptations around us, is perpetually tending, either to seduce us back into sinful or doubtful practices once abandoned, or to form us by imperceptible degrees, to some new course of spirit or conduct unfavourable to our progress in Christian knowledge and virtue. Even in the best persons, the force of this tendency is so great, and its operation so insidious, as to expose them, without a continual watchfulness on their part, to the greatest dangers. It was evidently under a deep sense of this truth, that the Psalmist uttered the prayer in the text. Filled with apprehension lest some improper habit should insensibly have been formed in his

life and character, and feeling the utter inability ⚫ of his own unassisted efforts either to detect or to expel the latent evil, he fervently implored the aid of that divine grace which alone could sufficiently enlighten his understanding and fortify his holy resolutions: Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. The subject is of the greatest practical importance, and calls for the most serious attention. In contemplating it, let us consider,

I. The operation of unfavourable habits on true Christians.

II. The means of preventing the formation of such habits, or of discovering and overcoming them when formed.

We begin by noticing,

I. THE OPERATION OF UNFAVOURABLE HABITS ON TRUE CHRISTIANS.

If we examine our hearts and lives with a due diligence, even the best of us will be satisfied that, in too many instances, the force of habit proves prejudicial to our most valuable interests. In some cases, former habits imperfectly subdued, regain a partial ascendancy over us. In others, one or two casual deviations from the strictness of Christian practice, are imperceptibly matured into a system. In order to form

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