I. Vice is the counterpart of virtue, and has a correspondence of opposition to it as to character, progress and result. Like virtue, vice is not an action, nor a series of actions, but is a permanent quality or habit of the soul predisposing it to certain classes of sins. The act of sin passes at once, the habit of the sin or the vice remains, as a facility for further sins, a source of them, and a delight in them. A virtue is a permanent resemblance to some particular perfection of God; a vice is a permanent state of departure from some divine perfection. As vices increase, there is a further obliteration of the image of God in many different respects, and a growing hideousness of the soul that turns it into a blasphemous caricature of the All-holy and All-beautiful. The vices, as being opposed to God, who is the ideal of perfection, are also opposed to human nature and human reason. They are diseases of the soul, which disorganize the faculties, curtail freedom, bind the soul in a degrading slavery, drain away its strength, destroy spiritual vision and the savour for spiritual things, render the soul incapable of understanding, enjoying, desiring God and the things that are of God, both in this world and in the next. Vice endures as the character of the soul after the act of sin has ceased, and after death has removed the opportunities of sin ; and the soul remains for ever a hideous object, spoilt for its purpose, loathed by God and loathing Him.
II. Consider the course of vice. It takes its rise in concupiscence, or the general disorder of our inclinations, whereby they are turned to temporal and sensual things. The vices are the specific manifestations of concupiscence in particular forms according to the different natural impulses which have run to excess and disorder. Some vices appear as it were spontaneously, in consequence of hereditary predisposition resulting from the sins of our ancestors. At other times the moral nature of a child is allowed to run to waste without check, and, like a garden neglected, it produces more weeds than fruits. Or, again, circumstances suggest some act of sin; this is repeated; the habit is formed by indulgence, it becomes inveterate, and the vice becomes almost a part of the nature; thenceforth it is an ever-present danger, a domestic foe that will never be entirely crushed. It may be resisted and kept within bounds, for freedom always remains, and the grace of God is all-powerful, but it continually endeavours to assert itself. It constitutes our predominant passion and ultimately is either the field of our victory and the cause of our reward, or is the ground of condemnation and eternal misery. Do not make the mistake of supposing that the vicious habit is the legitimate energy of nature, and entitled to respect. It has indeed its uses; but these are that it may train us to conflict, and establish us firmly in the contrary virtue.
III. In order to combat the vices of our character we need:
1. Great generosity and ardour in God's service, forgetfulness of self, and readiness to sacrifice present pleasures for the sake of God's will and the future reward.
2. Sternness and rigour towards ourselves, to make us persevere obstinately in a difficult course, and resist feelings of softness and tenderness towards ourselves, and abstain from following that which is most obvious and easy.
3. Cheerfulness and courage that we may not fall into depression at the severity of the struggle, the prospect of its long continuance, and our occasional infidelity to grace. Remember that the vices that are within you, like all things else, are intended to turn to the spiritual profit of the elect; that struggle is the lot of all, and is the condition of thc crown; that the time, though it seems long and the end is not in sight, will prove to be short; and that the reward is worth a thousand times our efforts.
Meditations on Christian Dogma,
Right Rev. James Bellord, D. D.,
The Newman Press, 1961
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