That is borne in upon mind and conscience by looking at the disastrous
effects of letting resolutions remain sterile. Consider how apt we are
to deceive ourselves with unfulfilled purposes. The quick response which
an easily-moved nature may make to some appeal of noble thought or lofty
principle is mistaken for action, and we are tempted to think that
willing is almost as good as if we had done what we half resolved on.
And there is a kind of glow of satisfaction that comes when such a man
thinks, 'I have done well in that I have determined.' The Devil will let
you resolve as much as you like--the more the better; only the more
easily you resolve, the more certainly he will block the realisation.
Let us take care of that seducing temptation which is apt to lead us all
to plume ourselves on good resolutions, and to fancy that they are
almost equivalent to their own fulfilment. Cheques are all very well if
there be bullion in the bank cellars to pay them with when they fall
due, but if that be not so, then the issuing of them is crime and fraud.
Our resolutions, made and forgotten as so many of our good resolutions
are, are very little better.
Note, too, how rapidly the habit of substituting lightly-made
resolutions for seriously-endeavoured acts grows.
And mark, further, how miserable and debilitating it is to carry the
dead weight of such unaccomplished intentions.
Nothing so certainly weakens a man as a multitude of resolves that he
knows he has never fulfilled. They weaken his will, burden his
conscience, stand in the way of his hopes, make him feel as if the
entail of evil was too firm and strong to be ever broken. 'O wretched
man that I am!' said one who had made experience of what it was to will
what was good, and not to find how to perform, 'who shall deliver me
from the body of this death?' It is an awful thing to have to carry a
corpse about on your back. And that was what Paul thought the man did
who loaded his own shoulders with abortive resolutions, that perished
in the birth, and never grew up to maturity. Weak and miserable is
always the man who is swift to resolve and slow to carry out his
resolutions.
III. And now let me say a word before I close about how this universal
and grave disease is to be coped with.
Well, I should say to begin with, let us take very soberly and
continually into our consciousness the recognition of the fact that the
disease is there. And then may I say, let us be rather slower to resolve
than we often are. 'Better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that
thou shouldest vow and not pay.' The man who has never had the
determination to give up some criminal indulgence--say, drink--is
possibly less criminal, and certainly less weak, than the man who, when
his head aches, and the consequences of his self-indulgence are vividly
realised by him, makes up his mind to be a teetotaller, and soon
stumbles into the first dram-shop that is open, and then reels out a
drunkard. Do not vow until you have made up your minds to pay. Remember
that it is a solemn act to determine anything, especially anything
bearing on moral and religious life; and that you had far better keep
your will in suspense than spring to the resolution with thoughtless
levity and leave it with the same.
Further, the habit of promptly carrying out our resolves is one that,
like all other habits, can be cultivated. And we can cultivate it in
little things, in the smallest trifles of daily life, which by their
myriads make up life itself, in order that it may be a fixed custom of
our minds when great resolves have to be made. The man who has trained
himself day in and day out, in regard to the insignificances of daily
life, to let act follow resolve as the thunder peal succeeds the
lightning flash, is the man who, if he is moved to make a great resolve
about his religion, or about his conduct, will be most likely to carry
it out. Get the magical influence of habit on your side, and you will
have done much to conquer the evil of abortive resolutions.
But then there is something a great deal more than that to be said. The
Apostle did not content himself, in the passage already referred to,
with bewailing the wretchedness of the condition in which to will was
present, but how to perform he found not. He asked, and he triumphantly
answered, the question, 'Who shall deliver me?' with the great words, 'I
thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' There is the secret; keep near
Him, trust Him, open your hearts to the influences of that Divine Spirit
who makes us free from the law of sin and death. And if thus, knowing
our weakness, recognising our danger, humbly trying to cultivate the
habit of prompt discharge of all discerned duty, we leave ourselves in
Jesus Christ's hands, and wait, and ask, and believe that we possess,
His cleansing Spirit, then we shall not ask and wait in vain. 'Work out
your own salvation, . . . for it is God that worketh in you, both the
willing and the doing.'