Amos 5:14 Seek good, and not evil, that you may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as you have spoken.… g: — The force of habit, when enlisted on the side of righteousness, not only strengthens and makes sure our resistance to vice, but facilitates the most arduous performances of virtue. The man whose thoughts, with the purposes and doings to which they lead, are at the bidding of conscience, will, by frequent repetition, at length describe the same track almost spontaneously, — even as in physical education, things, laboriously learned at the first, come to be done at last without the feeling of an effort. And so, in moral education, every new achievement of principle smooths the way to future achievements of the same kind; and the precious fruit or purchase of each moral virtue is to set us on higher and firmer vantage-ground for the conquests of principle in all time coming. He who resolutely bids away the suggestions of avarice, when they come into conflict with the incumbent generosity; or the suggestions of voluptuousness, when they come into conflict with the incumbent self-denial; or the suggestions of anger, when they come into conflict with the incumbent act of magnanimity and forbearance — will at length obtain not a respite only, but a final deliverance from their intrusion. (T. Chalmers.) Parallel Verses KJV: Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. |
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