instance, is disturbed by any lust. For the Lord Himself saith, “Whosoever looketh on a
woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”3206 He has
not yet in body approached her, but in heart he has consented; he has one dead within, he
has not yet carried him out. And as it often happens, as we know, as men daily experience
in themselves, when they hear the word of God, as it were the Lord saying, “Arise;” the
consent unto sin is condemned, they breathe again unto saving health and righteousness.
The dead man in the house arises, the heart revives in the secret of the thoughts. This resur-
rection of a dead soul takes place within, in the retirement of the conscience, as it were
within the walls of the house. Others after consent proceed to overt act, carrying out the
dead as it were, that that which was concealed in secret, may appear in public. Are these
now, who have advanced to the outward act, past hope? Was it not said to the young man
in the Gospel also, “I say unto thee, Arise”? Was he not also restored to his mother? So then
he too who has committed the open act, if haply admonished and aroused by the word of
truth, he rise again at the Voice of Christ, is restored alive. Go so far he could, perish for
ever he could not. But they who by doing what is evil, involve themselves even in evil habit,
so that this very habit of evil suffers them not to see that it is evil, become defenders of their
evil deeds; are angry when they are found fault with; to such a degree, that the men of Sodom
of old said to the righteous man who reproved their abominable design, “Thou art come to
sojourn, not to give laws.”3207 So powerful in that place was the habit of abominable filthiness,
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that profligacy now passed for righteousness, and the hinderer of it was found fault with
rather than the doer. Such as these pressed down by a malignant habit, are as it were buried.
Yea, what shall I say, Brethren? In such sort buried, as was said of Lazarus, “By this time he
stinketh.”3208 That heap placed upon the grave, is this stubborn force of habit, whereby the
soul is pressed down, and is not suffered either to rise, or breathe again.
6. Now it was said, “He hath been dead four days.”3209 So in truth the soul arrives at
that habit, of which I am speaking by a kind of four-fold progress. For there is first the
provocation as it were of pleasure in the heart, secondly consent, thirdly the overt act,
fourthly the habit. For there are those who so entirely throw off things unlawful from their
thoughts, as not even to feel any pleasure in them. There are those who do feel the pleasure,
and do not consent to them; death is not yet perfected, but in a certain sort begun. To the
feeling of pleasure is added consent; now at once is that condemnation incurred. After the
consent, progress is made unto the open act; the act changes into a habit; and a sort of des-
perate condition is produced, so as that it may be said, “He hath been dead four days, by
3206 Matt. v. 28.
3207 Gen. xix. 9.
3208 John xi. 39.
3209 John xi. 39.
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On the words of the Gospel, Luke vii. 2, etc.; on the three dead persons…