“When these truths were felt at heart, there was now no vice unreformed—no external duty neglected. Drunkenness, the darling vice, was broken off, and scarce an instance of it known among my hearers for months together. The abusive practice of _husbands and wives_ in putting away each other, and taking others in their stead, was quickly reformed; so that there are three or four couples who have voluntarily dismissed those whom they had wrongfully taken, and now live together again in love and peace. The same might be said of all other vicious practices. The reformation was general; and all springing from the _internal_ influence of divine truth upon their hearts, and not from any _external_ restraints, or because they had heard these vices particularly exposed, and repeatedly spoken against. Some of them I never so much as mentioned; particularly that of the parting of men and their wives, till some, having their conscience awakened by God’s word, came, and _of their own accord_ confessed themselves guilty in that respect. When I at any time mentioned their wicked practices, and the sins they were guilty of contrary to the _light of nature_, it was not with a design, nor indeed with any hope, of working an effectual reformation in their external manners by this means, for I knew, that while the tree remained corrupt, the fruit would naturally be so. My design was to lead them, by observing the wickedness of their lives, to a view of the corruption of their hearts, and so to convince them of the necessity of a renovation of nature, and to excite them, with the utmost diligence to seek after that great change, which, if once obtained, I was sensible, would of course produce a reformation of external manners in every respect.