obtain, by fervent and humble prayer, such assistances from God as may enable us to perform those engagements, which we have entered into by his command, and in the manner appointed by him; always remembering, that we must use our own endeavours, and exert our utmost natural powers, for God only cooperates with the diligent and the watchful. We must avoid sin, by avoiding those occasions which betray us to it; and as we pray that we may not be led, we must be cautious of leading ourselves, into temptation.
All sin that is committed by Christians, is committed either through an absolute forgetfulness of God, for the time in which the inordinate passion, of whatever kind it be, predominates and prevails; or because, if the ideas of God and religion were present to our minds, they were not strong enough to overcome and suppress the desires excited by some pleasing, or the apprehensions raised by some terrible object. So that either the love or fear of temporal good or evil, were more powerful than the love or fear of God.
All ideas influence our conduct with more or less force, as they are more or less strongly impressed upon the mind; and they are impressed more strongly, as they are more frequently recollected or renewed. For every idea, whether of love, fear, grief, or any other passion, loses its force by time; and unless revived by accident or voluntary meditation, will at last vanish. But by dwelling upon, and indulging any idea, we may increase its efficacy and force, make it by degrees predominant in the soul, and raise it to an ascendant over our passions, so that it shall easily overrule those affections or appetites which formerly tyrannized within us.
Thus, by a neglect of God's worship and sacraments, a man may lose almost all distinction whatsoever of good and evil, and having no awe of the Divine power to oppose his inclinations to wickedness, may go forward from crime to crime without remorse. And he that struggles against vice, and is often overcome by
