purge and refine the drossy mass The divine Grace alone can restore health and vigour to the corrupt depraved degenerous heart of Man And that will never be wanting to our sincere endeavours It will operate with our Endeavours but not without them Something is in our power in order to it and let us do that and the rest the Grace of God will supply And one of the greatest incentives to make us use our utmost endeavours is the serious consideration of the sinfulness and corruption of our own heart 'T is necessary therefore that we do not take a slight and transient view only but be engaged in a deep and accurate investigation of our selves Search every corner of that cell every recess of that Labyrinth with as much earnestness as the Jews did for leven And upon an impartial view we shall find our Lord's words verified Out of the heart proceed all evil thoughts No good properly so called proceeds from thence but what is the Effect of the Operations of the Blessed Spirit of God 'T is not the Natural issue of the Soul but the Product of His Heavenly Inspirations who is continually striving with Man and endeavouring to Consecrate and Hallow all his Thoughts and Affections that so he may be acceptable to God Every good Thought every Religious Flight or Sacred Desire is stirred up by Him is His immediate Suggestion who is Wrestling with the stubborn and rebellious Powers of our souls and with our impure imaginations to reduce them into their proper order and condition Or else 't is the whisper of some good Angel commissioned by him who is willing to perform a Godlike act of charity to us that we may raise up our minds to their proper object and lends us wings to mount up to the highest Heaven withall For the heart of Man naturally is full of evil and out of it proceed all kind of wicked thoughts and vain imaginations It disembogues such impure steams and contagious exhalations as blast and infect the whole World 'T is an Asphalites a dead sea which sends up most noxious vapours 'T is from the heart that all the evil in the world originally proceeds and therefore 't is a most natural piece of Advice that whenever we behold any evil in any part or instance of the whole Creation we presently lay our hand upon our breast look into our selves and examine our own heart 'T is folly to lay the blame upon this and that and t'other thing when we should trace the evil to its Fountain-head 'T is most true that all the vile and sinful thoughts the basest and most abominable lusts proceed from the heart But when they are bred out of the corruption and putrefaction of the heart it self and when cast into it by the Devil 't is not so easy to determine The accursed Enemy of our souls doth no doubt lay hold on all opportunities to cast into our minds wicked thoughts and is very watchful of the times and seasons when to corrupt and debauch our souls and make them yet more vile than naturally they are And therefore these wicked thoughts which many timerous souls imagine to be their own may be rationally presumed to be his There are indeed some marks which probably may serve to distinguish the Devil's injections from our own cogitations As when they are monstrously prophane and blasphemous when they assault us all of a sudden with a tempestuous vehemence filling us with terrour and amazement Or else when they are such thoughts as contradict all the interests of Humane Nature as when a Man thinks of murdering and destroying himself Such a thought cannot well be supposed to be the issue of the heart it self tho very corrupt but rather thrown in by the Devil Who was a murderer from the beginning But I say as to the greater part of evil thoughts it is no easy matter to know which are our own or which are the Devil 's As for those that are the immediate result of the heart the Devil is very quick and ready to improve them And for these which are the Devil's injections our corrupt hearts are too willing to comply with them so that we must think our selves equally obliged to guard our selves against the one and the other And there is something unquestionably in our power in order to it We can do something towards it unless we will look upon our selves as Machines and so destroy both Reason and Religion at once I will agree that by an hypochondriack or some other disease or by a long series and habit of sinning which is a disease more inveterate and harder to be cured that the Oeconomy of the Soul and Spirits may be so broken and shattered that the power of thinking is become very weak and impaired and that the lassitudes of the Soul are as great almost as those of the Body But yet I think there are few cases but a man can do something in order to a regular thinking Few men are arrived to so great a degree of either as to be able to do nothing towards it tho it must be granted some can do much more than others Our blessed Lord when he was upon Earth did not give useless Descriptions of things and deal with Men otherwise than rational Creatures And therefore I cannot but suppose that when he shews them that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts 't was to this end that they should endeavour to govern and subdue them Now we may lay down this as a certain Truth viz. that evil Thoughts whatsoever they be do not endanger our Eternal Salvation further than we comply with them They are not our Sins further than we indulge them But totally to hinder them I think is a thing Impracticable It is impossible but that such offences will come And I believe the Holiest Men find it so so long as they are in a World where there are so many Objects and in a State where there are so many Imperfections But yet when wicked Thoughts arise in our Minds we may certainly choose whether we will harbour and embrace them or not This we may do as long as we have any Liberty of Will left so much is unquestionably in our power Though 't is confessed they will make frequent returns upon us and every now and then with great importunity present themselves to us tho but the last Moment we thrust them out Like an importunate Creditor or an Impertinent Guest they will obtrude themselves upon us do what we can and if we tell them we have never so great and weighty business they will still be troublesome and haunt us while we are actually ingaged in it Nay will pursue us even to the Sanctuary and assault us at the Altar of God Yet if we as often trust them out as they return they will never be charged upon us For 't is a giving them encouragement and a compliance with them that makes us Criminal Then alone Thoughts
taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man is worse than the first 'T is not so easy to root up filthy weeds that have once taken root in any ground as it is to prevent their being sown Neither is it so easy to eradicate wicked thoughts as it is to prevent them Upon which account it is very necessary that we avoid this sin of Idleness which is a soil barren in every thing but the noisom weeds of evil thoughts and unclean imaginations 'T was for want of better imploymenr that David's heart was polluted with impure thoughts and wanton desires of Bathsheba which cost him so much woe such sorrowful cries and bitter lamentations and caused that remarkable tragedy of Vriah which we find 2 Sam. 12. 9 10 c. A sluggard is not only infamous among Men but God and Angels look on him as an useless and unprofitable wretch He seems as if he were heterogenous to the whole Creation every part of which that ought is active and in motion The Sun Moon and Stars in their rapid course and all the moving Heavens declare the glory of God and even the firmament sheweth his handy work They are all useful and answer the end of their Beings even things that are immoveable But the idle and slothful Person doth not answer the end of his Being but is continually upbraided by them And while almost every Being is busy and in action he alone lyes stretch'd along the ground and sleeping away his golden days or else tugging under the weight of studying and contriving how to spend them When I see the Picture of Atlas with every muscle extended and labouring under the ponderous Globe of Heaven upon his shoulders I cannot forbear to think upon an idle Person whose greatest burden is Time and succeeding Hours Days and Years are a continuation of his Slavery Or else I represent him to my self as a Man encompassed with a croud of Devils who make him the sport and pastime of all their accursed assaults and temptations and do with him as they please 'T is certain that there is no Man safe that is idle he is not only expos'd to every evil thought but to the worst actions and he had better be in the midst of a Battel surrounded with his Enemies than to be so extravagantly at leisure and unimploy'd Thirdly That which administers to evil thoughts as much as any thing is bad company As 't is the great advantage of good Conversation to prompt Men to Vertue to enoble their Minds and to excite in them a pious and laudable emulation So 't is the great mischief of bad Company and wicked Society to infect and debauch the Mind and pollute the Thoughts Experience infallibly teacheth us that when we hear any lewd or profane Discourse or see any base or indecent Actions we are too apt to repeat the evil in our Thoughts and it is well if it proceed no further The holy Apostle tells us That evil communications corrupt good manners Vice is strangely recommended and insensibly insinuates it self in wicked Conversation And the same Apostle exhorts Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister Grace unto the hearers Religious Conversation good Discourse greatly enlivens the Soul raises the Thoughts and animates a Man against the force and influence of bad Examples But ill Company is a dangerous and bewitching thing and strangely lessens our Idea's of God and Notions of Vertue and tends to pollute and harden the Heart Who can use to be in such company where the holy Name of God is blasphemed his Being questioned and disputed against His Ministers his Word his Law reproached and abused Who can accustom himself to the society of these Men whose ungovern'd Tongues talk of nothing but lewdness and obscenity whose words actions and whole behaviour is scandalous and immoral or vain frothy and foolish without being tainted therewith and retaining the ungrateful savour of their ungodly conversation Humane Nature is too corrupt and prone to ill to come off unhurt Nothing indeed so much conduceth to make the thoughts loose and wicked as bad Company which must therefore be diligently avoided if we would preserve our Minds pure and govern our Thoughts aright Always therefore endeavour to keep such Company as you may rise by and not fall with Such as may advance you in Holiness enrich your Soul with Vertue and not such as will debauch your Thoughts and instill naughty cogitations into your Minds Fourthly As we must abhor vicious Conversation so we must avoid the reading any lewd or wicked Books which treat of any vile and base subjects or are any way apt to instill evil Thoughts or Notions into us There is hardly any thing more tends to debauch the Mind than the Reading wicked Books which is a sort of conversing and as bad or worse as the former If our Inclination or business lie principally that way there are abundant gratifications of that kind besides Plays and Romances which are less dangerous and more improving And these that understand the Rules of Education will tell you that few Persons are competent readers of them or ought to be allowed the liberty of meddling with them The Advocates of the Theatre plead that abundance of good Morality and Vertuous Instruction may be got by seeing or reading a Play or a Romance But our own Experience doth evidently confute that Plea and demonstrate That the Minds of many have been debauched by them and no doubt many Souls ruined but few or none the better for them in any particular They are most contrary to the Christian Profession and the main scope and design of them is visibly such as most tends to please the Fancies of lewd or Atheistical Men and instead of discouraging recommending Vice to the utmost advantage and improving all kinds of evil Thoughts as much as any thing that can be mentioned No Man can be at a loss in this Learned Age for select Entertainments of his mind in reading The nauseous strains of a lewd or Atheistical Poet are not forc'd upon us by necessity or a scarcity of Wit But upon inquiry I believe it will at least generally be found that the most lovely and charming stile the most lofty and affecting Language goes along with the most useful and beneficial subjects The Book of God the holy Scriptures affords greater variety of Elegance Delight and Advantage than all the Writings in the World And there is no man that rightly understands the Scriptures but must esteem it a most blessed and perfective thing To delight in the law of the Lord and in that law to exercise himself day and night What sublime and lofty Theorems what useful things and absolutely necessary to the eternal Happiness and Salvation of our Souls do we meet with
in the Sacred Volume There we are entertain'd with the History of the Creation of Man and the beginning of this visible World There we are inform'd of the Methods and Dispensations of the Almighty towards Mankind and by what Steps and Advances his Church through all Ages grew to be what it is now There God hath been pleased more clearly to reveal Himself than any where besides There we have the great Mystery of Divine Love in the Redemption of the World by Christ Jesus our Lord made known to us The excellencies of Piety and Vertue describ'd in the most affecting Language The truest Perfection and the extremest Misery of Man explain'd Rules for obtaining eternal Life and Blessedness laid down and most gracious Promises and unspeakable Rewards to encourage us in our Endeavours after it All which things Even the Angels desire to look into and admire the Divine Goodness which impregnates all And if we would but make this Word of God our Study and be diligently conversant in reading the Scriptures we should more and more be sensible that there is no Book like this and that an excellent Expedient to keep wicked Thoughts out of our Hearts would be to read the Scriptures much and often with meekness Prayer and attention instead of these vain foolish and unprofitable or else profane wicked or obscene Writings of such as call themselves the Wits of the Age. The Mind of Man is combustible the Thoughts of his Heart are meer tinder to the sparks of an obscene Saying a lewd fancy or but so much as an impure hint And therefore I am apt to think that few Men in the World how strong soever their prejudices may be or how much soever they may presume upon their own strength are able to govern their Thoughts well without they have a special regard to this Rule and Admonition also Another Rule which is proper for the well-governing of our Thoughts in general is Frequent Self-examination Without often looking into our selves and examining our own propensions and inclinations and what is that Sin which doth so easily beset us it is hardly to be imagined how we should be able to govern our Thoughts aright There is nothing which a man is more a stranger to than himself tho' there is nothing in which he ought to be more skill'd and that is one great reason of the irregularity of his Thoughts For without we well consult our own temper and constitution and what the laedentia and juvantia are and narrowly observe the tendency of our Passions and the frame and disposition of our Souls we cannot conquer our Thoughts 'T is impossible unless we know our selves that we should govern our selves Sometimes a man's evil Thoughts may run chiefly upon lust and uncleanness and sometimes covetousness may be his darling sin Sometimes ambition may be his dotage and at other other times revenge his favourite Now how can it be imagined that a person can govern and subdue his Thoughts as to any of these without a frequent inquiring into his own Soul and accurate knowledge of himself Nay which way can a man be convinc'd and perswaded of the great evil and sinfulness of wicked Thoughts without Self-examination How can he be made truly sensible of their pernicious and polluting nature and that they are so highly displeasing to God as they are without a diligent search into himself or how can he be possessed that it is his duty to restrain and exercise a government over his Thoughts and that much is in his own power in order to it I say how can a person be rightly sensible of any of these necessary things without he frequenly and skilfully practise this duty of Self-examination which as it is of absolute use in order to Religion in general so it is to this part of it especially viz. the well-governing our Thoughts Besides How many men are too apt to imagine that as for Thoughts they shall never be laid to our charge so long as they don't break out into actions That the Theory of sin shall pass without the least notice of the Almighty Judge and that only the Practise of it shall be observ'd and censur'd That as for Thoughts they are either in the Nature of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Impossibilities which cannot be brought under any good Order or Government in regard of their infiniteness and variety and so they claim a privilege of invincible Liberty because they can't be subdu'd or else that they are such slight and small escapes as that they carry their pasport and pardon with them that they shall never be punish'd and that therefore they are no sins And that also because the Law of man takes no hold of them and because likewise it is impossible altogether to avoid these thoughts as was said before Certainly say they we shall never be call'd to account for our thoughts because they come oftentimes so suddenly and unexpectedly that no reason can be given of them And they do no body any hurt what evil therefore should there be in them why should we be accountable for them This is indeed the common strain of the civil honest moral Man as he calls himself and the formal Hypocrite to draw near unto God with his lips when his heart is far from him to be under no concern for his Thoughts but only to take care with the Harlot to wipe his mouth clean And with Pontius Pilate to wash his hands and with the Scribes and Pharisees to cleanse only the outside of the cup or the platter This is all the Religion of too many who make it to consist in Sence and not in the Heart as if the design of it were to be not the Reformation of the inward but an Accomplishment of the outward Man As if indeed Christianity were no more than a meer Complement And now what is the true cause of this what is the reason of such dangerous errours and mistakes about our Thoughts as that they are free sinless and unpunishable I say what is the cause of all this but ignorance of our own selves ignorance of the sad and prevailing Corruptions of our Nature and their greedy propensities and inclinations to evil and ignorance of the Law of God too which if we would look into it would plainly shew us the detestable sinfulness of Thoughts and that the main end of Religion is an internal change and purification of the Heart and Soul of all the Thoughts and Imaginations And now an excellent means to dispel this Ignorance is this Rule which I am pressing you to the observance of viz. Self-examination Without which it will be an impossible thing to attain a right government of our Thoughts in general This Rules must also be followed with another if we would govern our Thoughts aright And that is that you make a covenant with your Eyes and other Sences keeping them from carnal or unlawful objects or not letting them dwell upon them This
will be a very proper means in order to that great end which is the scope of this Treatise There is no preserving a Castle or Fortress from being taken by the enemy but by having a special care of the Avenues and Breaches Now the Sences are as it were the Avenues of the Soul the Inlets of all evil into the Mind and therefore there is a necessity that we keep a strict watch over our Sences if we would have our Thoughts pure and unpolluted For there is not a Sence that we have but may betray and ruin us An Eye an Hand c. may prove our utter destruction As that Advice of our Blessed Lord implies Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee cut them off and cast them from thee It is better for thee to enter into Life halt and maimed rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire And if thine eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee it is better for thee to enter into Life with one Eye rather than having two Eyes to be cast into hell fire Our own Eyes may ruin us as sure as these of a Basilisk and 't is Our own Eye which puts witchcraft into that of others and conveys back certain hurt and mischief into our Thoughts and Souls There are a great variety of ensnaring objects in the World that present themselves to us The World the Flesh and the Devil conspire how to entrap us Which way soever we turn we find some object or other to entice us As the Hermite saw in his Vision the whole World is hung all over with Nets The Devil well knows that the best way to subdue the Spirit is by the Flesh and that there is no such effectual way of conquering the Soul as by first making his attacks upon the outworks the Sences And therefore he first endeavours to take them 'T is of absolute necessity therefore that we keep a close guard upon every one of our sences if we would not be invaded by wicked thoughts For any one of them left unguarded may prove our ruine And we must acknowledge that 't is giving too great a liberty to our sences which is the occasion of so many vile and wicked Thoughts filling our Minds Again In the next place we are to take care that if any evil Thoughts of what kind soever they be arise up in our Hearts not to let them remain in us but presently to make resistance against them turning the Heart immediately to a contrary subject humbling our Souls by speedy repentance for the same Let not vain thoughts lodge in us tho' they may glance upon us 'T is dwelling upon a wicked Thought that makes it prevailing and domineering over us If we habitually indulge it it will get ground of us and at length grow obstinate and unruly and much more difficult to be conquered Whereas an immediate resistance of it would by degrees so weaken it as 't is probable we should at length be quite rid of it Tho' this may be thought a very troublesom yet it is as likely a way as any of avoiding evil thoughts When any wicked imagination therefore presents it self the best way to repel it would not be to argue and dispute long with it but to catch away our Minds from it presently and like a Man that accidentally treads upon an Adder starts back immediately and strives to make no more approaches to it again It is possible nay likely that it will return upon you often in a little time but do you labour as often as it doth so to thrust it out and be not weary of so doing And because this is not so easy a matter neither tho this or nothing must be granted to be in our power it would be expedient in order to the diverting our Minds effectually that we propose to our Minds some one or other of the most awful subjects and such as is apt more than ordinarily to take up and fix our Thoughts As for Instance The Crucifixion of our Saviour Christ imagining that we saw his tortured Body bleeding upon the Cross and heard the doleful cries which he uttered when he made the great Attonement and Satisfaction for the sins of the World and beheld the portentous Eclipse the Praeternatural Darkness the Renting of the Rocks the opening of the Graves and the rest of the Tremendous Circumstances which attended the death of the Son of God Or else let it be the last Judgement and the Miscellaneous horrour and exultation of that dreadful day Wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat The sun be turned into darkness and the moon into blood the powers of heaven be shaken and the stars fall from their orbs all this visible World be consum'd and ingulph'd in an inconceivable eternity of happiness to the righteous but of torment to the wicked Any one of such subjects as these would be very proper to fix our Minds upon in order to keep them from returning to ill things There is nothing can more awe the Soul collect the Thoughts and compose the Spirits than thinking on such subjects They are things so very considerable that while we are imploying our Minds about them it is an hard matter to think of any thing else or soon to be drawn aside to any other object And therefore it is very advisable that we make use of this expedient in order to the well-governing our Thoughts To which end also Let us be careful to watch over our Thoughts on the Lords-day then more especially than at other times The Lords-day is I know not by what means extremely slighted and disregarded And under a pretence of Christian Liberty profaneness hath very greatly advanced it self So that God's own Day is become almost as one of ours and but a very small difference observ'd betwixt them Men are generally so far from being most careful of their thoughts on that Holy-day that they suffer them to be most profuse and extravagant then and not only their Thoughts but their Actions too are for a great part worse than at other times Which as it is a very great sin in it self and such as shall be severely accounted for so it is a great means of making our Thoughts loose ungovernable and wicked at other times For that as it is a day peculiarly to be dedicated to God so it is a day wherein God designs in a more eminent manner to communicate himself and his Grace to our Souls And therefore if we do sanctifie it as we ought by having a strict watch over our thoughts and by the delightful exercises of Prayer Praises and Mediditations and a devout Reading and Hearing the Word of God c. It will by God's Blessing leave such an happy tincture on us and so piously and lastingly incline the Mind to good that it will be an excellent means to order