January 30 — On the dismal Havoc Sin makes in the Sotd of a Christian

Consider, first, how strangely the soul is changed, that falls from the state of grace into mortal sin. The metamorphose is not unlike to that of an angel into a devil. A soul in grace is a child of God, a spouse of Jesus Christ, a temple o’ the Holy Spirit; but in the moment she consents to mortal sin, she forfeits all her honour and dignity; she becomes a slave of hell, a prostitute to Satan, a den of unclean spirits. A soul in grace is beautiful, like an angel, and agreeable to the eyes of God and his saints; but a soul in mortal sin is ugly, like the devil, and most odious, filthy and loathsome to her Maker, and all his heavenly court. A soul in grace is very rich; she is worth an eternal kingdom; she always carries her God about with her, and is entitled to the eternal possession of him; but when she falls into mortal sin, she loses at once all her store of virtue and merit, she becomes wretchedly poor and miserable, and, instead of possess ing GUkI, she is possessed by the devil. Vonmdfii lecondly, that sin gives a mortal wound to the soul; it tk the deaiA of the soul. For as it is the soul of man that gives Jitrf u> the body, and when the soul is departed, the body is devl, and beoon.es a lump of clay, without either sense or motio.#, no it is the j»Tace of God that gives life to the soul; and that noiil is dead, which by mortal sin has lost her God, and drove away his grate from her. O dismal separation! O drea<lful death indeed, xLi-th wanteth nothing but eternity to make it hell! Sinners, hovi can you endure yourselves under this wretched condition! If a dead carcass, from which the soul IS gone, be so very lo\»hsome and frightful, that few would endure to pass one night iU the same b wdth such a bedfellow, how can you bear to rry continually about with you, night and day, a filthy carcase' of a soul dead in mortal sin, and quite putrefied and corrupted uy her sinful habits? Ah! open your eyes now, at least, to see your deplorable case, and to detest the monster sin, the cause of all your misery. O run to him, without any further delay, by humble prayer and repentance, who alone can raise the dead tc life.

Consider, thirdly, how twie that is of the scripture, that they that commit sin and iniquity are enemies to their own souL Tob. xii. 10; and that he that loveth iniquity hateth his own soul. Ps. X. 6. Since of all the ovils that we can possibly incur, either here or hereafter, there is none comparable to the evil we bring upon ourselves by mortal sin; so that if all men upon earth, and all the devils in hell, shmild all conspire together, with a general license from God, to du us all the mischief, and to inflict upon us all the torments they could invent, they could never do us half so much hurt as we do ourselves by one mortal sin. Because all that they can do, as long as we do not consent to sin, cannot hurt the soul; whereas we ourselves, by consenting to any one mortal sin, bring upon our own souls a dreadful death, both for time and eternity. Good God! never suffer us to be so wretchedly blind, as to become thus the wilful murderers of our own souls.

Conclude never more to join thyself with thy mortal enemies, the world, the flesh, or the devil, in waging war against thy own soul by wilful sin. But make it thy continual prayer to God, that he would never suffer thee at any rate to consent to so great an evil, though thou wert even to endure a thousand deaths for the refusal.