Man's Utter Inability to Recover Himself (Thomas Boston, 1676-1732)

 

Romans 5:6

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”

John 5:44

“How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?”

WE have now witnessed the complete corruption of human nature and the weight of wrath that rests upon it, the abyss of misery into which it is plunged in its natural state. But there is one aspect of its misery that requires special consideration: its utter inability to recover itself. Knowledge of this is necessary for the proper humbling of a sinner. My intention here is to present a few points that will convince the unregenerate person of this inability, so that they may see an absolute need for Christ and the power of His grace.

Just as a person who has fallen into a pit cannot be expected to help themselves out of it except through one of two ways—either by relying solely on their own efforts or by seizing and utilizing the help offered by others—likewise, an unconverted person cannot be expected to help themselves out of their natural state except through either the path of the law or the covenant of works, by relying solely on their own efforts without Christ, or through the path of the Gospel or the covenant of grace, by exerting their own strength to lay hold of and make use of the help offered by a Saviour. But alas! the unconverted person is dead in the pit and cannot help themselves in either of these ways. Not the first way, for the first passage tells us that when our Lord came to help us, "we were without strength," unable to recover ourselves. We were ungodly, burdened with guilt and wrath, yet "without strength," unable to endure it or remove it. Thus, all of mankind would undoubtedly have perished had not "Christ died for the ungodly" and brought help to those who could never have recovered themselves. But when Christ comes and offers help to sinners, can they accept it? Can they make use of the help when it is within their reach? No, the second passage tells us they cannot. "No one can come to me," that is, believe in me, John 6:44, "unless the Father draws him." This drawing is what enables them to come when previously they could not; it enables them to come and make use of the offered help. It is a drawing that is always effective, for it can be nothing less than "hearing and learning from the Father," which leads everyone who partakes in it to come to Christ, verse 45. Therefore, it is not merely a moral persuasion but a drawing by mighty power, Ephesians 1:12, which is absolutely necessary for those who have no power in themselves to come and take hold of the offered help.

Listen, then, O unregenerate person, and be convinced that just as you are in a most miserable state by nature, so you are utterly unable to recover yourself in any way. You are ruined, so how will you attempt to recover yourself? Which of the two paths will you choose? Will you try it alone or will you seek help? Will you follow the path of works or the path of the Gospel? I know very well that you will not even consider the path of the Gospel until you find the path of the law impracticable. Therefore, we shall begin where corrupt nature teaches people to begin, namely, with the path of the law of works.

I. Sinner, I want you to believe that your efforts will never achieve it. Work and do your best; you will never be able to work your way out of this state of corruption and wrath. You must have Christ, or you will perish eternally. Only "Christ in you" can be the hope of glory. But if you insist on trying, then I must present to you, based on the unchanging word of the living God, two things that you must do for yourself. If you can do them, it must be acknowledged that you are able to recover yourself. But if not, then you can do nothing in this way for your recovery.

"If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments," Matthew 19:17. In other words, if you want to enter life through your own efforts, then perfectly keep the Ten Commandments. These words are meant to humble the pride of the person's heart and show them the absolute need for a Saviour, as it is impossible to keep the law. The response is fitting for the occasion. Our Lord rebukes the person for calling Him "Good Master," verse 16, by telling him, "There is only One who is good, and that is God," verse 17. In other words, when goodness is mentioned, both men and angels should bow before the good God. As for the person's question, which revealed their legal disposition, Christ does not answer by saying, "Believe and you will be saved," as that would not be appropriate for someone who thinks they can do well enough on their own if they only knew "what good they should do." Instead, in line with the person's mindset, He tells them to "keep the commandments," to keep them meticulously and accurately, like guards watching over prisoners to prevent any escape, lest their lives be taken for the lives of those who escape. So, see now, O unregenerate person, what you can do in this matter. For if you want to recover yourself in this way, you must perfectly keep God's commandments.

(1.) Your obedience must be perfect in terms of its principle. Your soul, the principle of action, must be completely pure and entirely without sin. For the law demands moral perfection, not only in actions but also in nature, and therefore condemns original sin and impurity of both nature and actions. Now, if you can accomplish this, you will be able to answer Solomon's question in a way that none of Adam's descendants has ever been able to answer, "Who can say, 'I have made my heart clean'?" Proverbs 20:9. But if you cannot, the mere absence of this perfection is itself a sin, exposing you to the curse and cutting you off from life. It also renders all your actions, even your best actions, sinful. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" Job 14:4. And do you think that by sinning you can help yourself out of sin and misery?

(2.) Your obedience must also be perfect in its parts. It must encompass the entire law of God. If you lack even one thing, you are undone, for the law pronounces a curse on anyone who does not continue in everything written in it, Galatians 3:10. You must give internal and external obedience to the entire law, keeping all the commands in heart and life. If you break any one of them, it will seal your ruin. Even a vain thought or idle word will still subject you to the curse.

(3.) It must be perfect in terms of degrees, just as Adam's obedience was while he stood in his innocence. This is what the law requires and will accept—nothing less. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind," Matthew 22:37. If you lack even one degree of that love required by the law, if any part of your obedience falls short of the highest command, it is considered a breach of the law and leaves you under the curse. Can a person bring as many buckets of water to a house on fire as they are able to carry, and yet the house may still be consumed unless they bring enough to extinguish the fire completely? Similarly, even if you were to do your best in keeping the commandments throughout your life, a single idle word or vain thought at the hour of death would nullify all your previous righteousness and ruin you, especially in the way you seek to recover yourself.

Such is the obedience you must perform if you want to recover yourself through the path of the law. But even if you were to obey, the law still holds you under the state of wrath until another requirement is fulfilled.

You must pay what you owe. It is undeniable that you are a sinner, and justice must be satisfied for your sins already committed. The honor of the law must be upheld through your enduring the wrath that has been declared. Perhaps you have changed your way of life or are now resolved to do so, to keep the commands of God. But what have you done or what will you do about the old debt? Your obedience to God, even if it were perfect, is a debt owed to Him for the time in which it is performed, and it can no more satisfy for past sins than a tenant paying the current year's rent can settle all past arrears. Can the payment of new debts absolve a person from old accounts? No, do not deceive yourself. You will find that those accounts are stored up and sealed among God's treasures, Deuteronomy 32:34. Therefore, it remains that either you must bear the wrath to which you are liable for your sins according to the law, or you must acknowledge that you cannot bear it and therefore turn to the surety, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me ask you now, are you able to satisfy the justice of God? Can you pay your own debt? Surely not, for He is the infinite God whom you have offended, and the punishment, matching the quality of the offense, must be infinite. But your punishment or suffering for sin cannot have infinite value, as you are a finite creature. Therefore, it must be infinite in duration—it must be eternal. So, all your sufferings in this world are only a foretaste of what awaits you in the world to come.

Now, sinner, if you can answer these demands, you may recover yourself through the path of the law. But are you not aware of your inability to do any of these things, let alone all of them? Even if you don't do all, you do nothing. No matter which path of life you choose, you are still in a state of wrath. Even if you push your obedience to the utmost limit, endure whatever God lays upon you, and bear burdens without impatience, it will not satisfy the demands of the law. Therefore, you remain a ruined creature. Oh, sinner! What are you doing while you strive to help yourself but fail to receive and unite with Jesus Christ? You are toiling in vain, wearying yourself for mere vanity. You are laboring to enter heaven through a door that Adam's sin has bolted shut, a door through which neither he nor any of his lost descendants can ever enter. Can you not see the flaming sword of justice keeping you away from the tree of life? Can you not hear the law pronouncing a curse on you for all your efforts, even for your obedience, prayers, tears, and reformation of life? Because you are under the dominion of the law, your best works are not good enough to escape the curse. Believe it, sirs, if you live and die outside of Christ, without being actually united to Him as the second Adam, the life-giving Spirit, and without taking refuge under His atoning blood, even if you do everything that any person can do to keep God's commands, you can never see the face of God in peace. Even if you bid farewell to worldly joys and dedicate yourself solely to the salvation of your soul, even if you live on the grass of the field, isolating yourself in a wilderness, being companions to dragons and owls, even if you retreat to a dark cave and weep there for your sins until you cry yourself blind, even if you confess with your tongue until it cleaves to the roof of your mouth, pray until your knees become hard as horns, fast until your body becomes like a skeleton, and even if you offer your body to be burnt—all these efforts will not change the fact that, according to the righteous word of the Lord, you will perish forever if you are not in Christ. As John 14:6 says, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." And Acts 4:12 declares, "Neither is there salvation in any other." Mark 16:16 warns, "He that believeth not shall be damned."

Objection: But God is merciful, and He knows that we are not able to meet these demands. Therefore, we hope to be saved if we do the best we can and keep the commands as well as we are able. Answer 1: Though you may be able to do many things, you are not able to do anything right. You cannot do anything acceptable to God, being outside of Christ. As John 15:5 says, "Without me ye can do nothing." An unregenerate person, like yourself, can do nothing but sin, as we have already proven. Your best actions are sinful and increase your debt to justice. How then can they be expected to lessen it? Answer 2: Even if God were to offer salvation to those who do all they can in obedience to His commands, it is reasonable to think that those who attempt it would never be saved. For where is the person who does as well as they can? Who does not see the many false steps they have taken, which they could have avoided? There are so many things to be done, so many temptations to lead us astray from the path of duty, and our nature is so prone to be set on fire by hell, that we are sure to fail even in some aspect within our natural abilities. Answer 3: Even if you were to do all that you are able to do, you cannot hope to be saved in that way. What word of God is your hope founded on? It is neither founded on the law nor the gospel; therefore, it is merely a delusion. It is not founded on the Gospel, for the Gospel directs the soul to Jesus Christ for everything and upholds the law, as Romans 3:31 states. Your hope cannot be established on a foundation that undermines the law, which God intends to magnify and honor. Thus, it is clear that your hope is not founded on the law either. When God set Adam to work for his happiness and that of his descendants, perfect obedience was required of him as the condition. The curse was pronounced in the event of disobedience. The law was broken by Adam, and he and his descendants were subject to the penalty for sin, yet they were still bound to perfect obedience. It is absurd to think that man's sinning and suffering for his sin should exempt him from the duty of obedience to his Creator. When Christ came as the substitute for the elect to purchase their salvation, the terms remained the same. Justice held the elect under arrest. If He desired to deliver them, the terms were known. He had to satisfy for their sin by suffering the punishment due to it, and He had to do what they could not do—obey the law perfectly and fulfill all righteousness. He accomplished all this and became "the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth" (Romans 10:4). And do you think that God will change these terms for you when His own Son received no alteration? Do not expect it, even if you were to beg with tears of blood. If such pleas prevailed, they would prevail against the truth, justice, and honor of God, as Galatians 3:10 states, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." And verse 12 adds, "And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them." It is true that God is merciful, but can't He be merciful without saving you in a way that is inconsistent with His law and His Gospel? Hasn't His goodness and mercy been sufficiently revealed in sending His beloved Son to do "what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh"? He has provided help for those who cannot help themselves. Yet, in your unawareness of your own weakness, you think you can recover yourself by your own works when you are no more capable of doing so than moving mountains of brass.

Therefore, I conclude that you are completely unable to recover yourself through works or by the law. Oh, that you would come to the same conclusion about yourself!

Now, let us examine what the sinner can do to recover himself through the path of the gospel. It may be that you believe you cannot do everything on your own, but with Jesus Christ offering you help, you can embrace it and use it for your recovery. But, oh sinner, be convinced of your absolute need for the grace of Christ. Truly, help is offered, but you cannot accept it. A rope is thrown out to draw shipwrecked sinners to safety, but alas, you have no hands to grasp it. You are like infants abandoned in an open field who will starve even though their food is within reach unless someone puts it in their mouths. To convince natural men of this, let us consider:

Although Christ is offered in the gospel, you cannot believe in Him. Saving faith is the faith of God's elect, a special gift given to them by God through His Spirit. Salvation is offered to those who will believe in Christ, but how can you believe? As John 5:44 states, "How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?" It is offered to those who will come to Christ, but "no man can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him" (John 6:44). It is offered to those who will look to Him as lifted up on the pole of the gospel, as Isaiah 45:22 says, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." But the natural man is spiritually blind, as Revelation 3:17 declares, "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." And as for the things of the Spirit of God, you cannot know them, for they are spiritually discerned, as 1 Corinthians 2:14 states. Furthermore, whoever wills to come is welcome, as Revelation 22:17 affirms, "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." But there must be a day of power upon the sinner before he can be willing, as Psalm 110:3 says, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power."

In your natural state, you have nothing with which to make use of the help brought by the gospel for your recovery. You are cast away in a state of wrath and are bound hand and foot, unable to grasp the cords of love extended to you in the gospel. The most skilled craftsman cannot work without tools, just as the most talented musician cannot play well on an out-of-tune instrument. How can you believe or repent when your understanding is darkness, as Ephesians 5:8 states? How can you repent when your heart is like stone, unyielding and unfeeling, as Ezekiel 36:26 says? Your affections are disordered and disturbed, inclined toward evil and averse to good. Your natural abilities fall short of reaching the supernatural help available to you. Consequently, those who excel in natural abilities often have the least inclination toward spiritual matters, as Matthew 11:25 testifies, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."

You cannot bring about a saving change in yourself, yet such a change is necessary for you to believe, repent, and ultimately see heaven. No action can occur without a corresponding principle. Believing, repenting, and similar acts are products of the new nature and can never be produced by the old corrupt nature. What can the natural man do in this matter? He must be born again, begotten anew unto a living hope. However, just as a child cannot actively participate in their own conception, a person cannot actively but only passively participate in their own regeneration. The heart is closed off to Christ, and only God can open it by His grace, as Acts 16:14 shows. You are dead in sin and need to be made alive, raised out of your grave, and who can do this but God Himself, as Ephesians 2:1–5 testifies? Moreover, you must be "created in Christ Jesus unto good works" (Ephesians 2:10). These are works of omnipotence and can only be accomplished by a power greater than any other.

In your depraved state, you are utterly unable to do anything truly good, as we have extensively proven before. How then can you obey the gospel? Your nature is the complete opposite of the gospel. How can you, of yourself, align with the plan of salvation and accept the offered remedy? The corruption of your nature inevitably includes complete inability to recover yourself in any way. Those convinced of their inability must acknowledge this truth, for they stand or fall together. Even if all of Christ's redemption were offered to the unregenerate person in exchange for one good thought, they cannot produce it, as 2 Corinthians 3:5 says, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves." If it were offered on the condition of a good word, Jesus Himself asks, "How can ye, being evil, speak good things?" (Matthew 12:35). And if left to choose what is easiest, Christ Himself tells you, "Without me, ye can do nothing" (John 15:5).

The natural man cannot help but resist the Lord's offer of help, yet that resistance is ultimately overcome by converting grace in the elect. Can a stony heart choose anything other than to resist? There is not only inability but also enmity and obstinacy in the will of man by nature. God knows, whether you acknowledge it or not, that "thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass" (Isaiah 48:4). Such resistance cannot be overcome except by Him who has "broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder." Consequently, the conversion of a sinner is often a laborious process. Sometimes they seem to be caught in the net of the gospel, only to quickly slip away again. The hook catches hold of them, but they struggle and manage to break free, leaving with a bleeding wound. Even when good hopes are formed for them by those who labor in childbirth for the formation of Christ in them, oftentimes nothing is brought forth but wind. The deceitful heart devises many strategies to avoid a Savior and rob a person of eternal happiness. Thus, the natural man remains sunk in a state of sin and wrath, utterly unable to recover themselves.

Objection 1: If we are completely unable to do any good, how can God require it of us? Answer: God created man upright and gave him the power to do everything that He required of him. However, man lost this power through his own fault. We were obligated to serve God and do whatever He commanded us as His creatures. Additionally, we were bound by the covenant to fulfill this purpose. Now, since we have disabled ourselves through our own fault, should God lose His right to require our task because we have squandered the strength He gave us to perform it? Does the creditor have no right to demand payment from the debtor because the debtor wasted the money and is now unable to repay? If God can require no more of us than what we are able to do, we would need nothing more to save us from wrath than to render ourselves unable to perform any duty and incapacitate ourselves from serving God in any way, as many profane individuals frequently do. Thus, the more deeply a person is submerged in sin, the more secure they would be from wrath, for where God can require no duty of us, we would not sin by neglecting it, and where there is no sin, there can be no wrath. As for the objection raised by the unbroken soul against the imputation of Adam's sin to us, the righteousness of that arrangement was explained previously. Moreover, unregenerate individuals continually squander the remnants of their natural abilities, the rational light and strength found amidst the ruins of humanity. Furthermore, they do not believe their own complete inability to help themselves, thus condemning themselves even by their own words. Even those who use their natural impotence as a cover for their sloth still delay turning to God, make grand promises of reformation under conviction, which they ultimately disregard, and postpone their repentance until their deathbed, as if they could suddenly save themselves, indicating their far-from-adequate understanding of their natural inability, regardless of their claims.

If God can require of us the duty we are unable to perform, He can also justly punish us for not fulfilling it, despite our inability. If He has the power to demand the debt of obedience, He also has the power to cast the insolvent debtor into prison for failing to pay. Furthermore, even though unregenerate individuals lack gracious abilities, they still possess natural abilities that they choose not to utilize for their recovery. There are many things they can do, but they do not do them because they do not want to. Therefore, their damnation is just. Moreover, their inability to do good is voluntary; they do not come to Christ (John 5:40), they do not repent, they choose death over life (Ezekiel 18:31). Thus, they will be justly condemned because they refuse to turn to God or come to Christ, preferring their chains over their liberty and darkness over light (John 3:19).

Objection 2: Why do you preach Christ to us and call us to come to Him, believe, repent, and use the means of salvation? Answer: It is our duty to do so. It is your duty to accept Christ as He is offered in the Gospel, to repent of your sins, and to live a holy life in all aspects. These things are commanded by God, and His command, not your ability, is the measure of your duty. Furthermore, these calls and exhortations are the means by which God graciously converts His elect and works His grace in their hearts. Faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17) for those who, like the rest of mankind, are unable to help themselves. Therefore, in obedience to God's command, we go to their graves, so to speak, and cry out in His name, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Ephesians 5:14). Since the elect cannot be distinguished from others before conversion, just as the sun shines on the face of a blind person and the rain falls on both rocks and fertile plains, we preach Christ to all and shoot the arrow which God Himself directs as He sees fit. Furthermore, these calls and exhortations are not entirely in vain, even for those who are not converted by them. Such individuals may be convinced, though not converted. Although they may not be sanctified by these means, they may be restrained from indulging in excessive wickedness they would otherwise engage in. The means of grace serve as a preserving balm for many dead souls that are not quickened by them. Though these means do not restore them to life, they prevent them from putrefying as they would otherwise do. Finally, even though you cannot recover yourself, nor can you grasp the saving help offered to you in the Gospel, you can, by the power of nature, engage in the outward and ordinary means through which Christ communicates the benefits of redemption to ruined sinners who are utterly unable to save themselves from the state of sin and wrath. You can, if you so choose, take steps that will set you on the path toward receiving help from the Lord Jesus Christ. You can strive to come close to the kingdom of God, just as the wise scribe had done (Mark 12:34), even if it appears that he lacked supernatural abilities. Although you cannot heal yourself, you can approach the pool where many such diseased individuals like yourself have been cured. Although there is no one to put you in, you can lie by its side. Who knows whether the Lord may return and leave a blessing behind? Just as in the case of the impotent man recorded in John 5:5–8. I hope that Satan does not confine you to your homes or restrict you to your fields on the Lord's day. You are at liberty to wait at the doorposts of wisdom if you so desire. When you come, God does not beat drums at your ears, preventing you from hearing what is said. There is no external force compelling you to apply everything you hear to others. You can apply what pertains to your own state and condition. When you return home, you are not imprisoned in your houses, where religious conversations are absent. You can retreat to a separate place where you can meditate and examine your conscience, asking appropriate questions based on what you have heard. You are not afflicted with a mute demon that prevents you from opening your mouth in prayer to God. You are not so overwhelmed by your worldly pursuits that you cannot find time for prayer. You are not so driven by your worldly business that you cannot pause to pray for the salvation of your soul. You can examine your own soul in a solemn manner in the presence of God, discerning that you lack grace and that you are lost and condemned without it. You can cry out to God for His mercy. These actions fall within the realm of natural abilities and can be practiced even in the absence of grace. It is a grave indictment of your guilt that you are not willing to exert such efforts concerning the state and condition of your precious soul. If you fail to do what you can, you will be condemned not only for lacking grace but also for despising it.

Objection 3: All of this is unnecessary since we are completely unable to help ourselves out of the state of sin and wrath. Answer: Do not succumb to the delusion that separates what God has joined together—the use of means and a recognition of our own impotence. If the Spirit of God graciously influences your soul, you will become keenly aware of your absolute inability and yet embark on a vigorous use of means. You will act as if you are responsible for your own salvation while simultaneously disregarding all your efforts as if they amounted to nothing. Do not refrain from doing anything for yourself simply because you cannot do everything. Do not arrive at such impious conclusions against your own soul. Do what you can, for perhaps while you are doing what you can for yourself, God will do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

Consider the example of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. When Philip asked the eunuch, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" the eunuch replied, "How can I, except some man should guide me?" (Acts 8:30-31). He could not understand the scripture he was reading, but he could still read it. He did what he could by reading, and while he was reading, God sent him an interpreter. Similarly, when the Israelites faced a dire situation at the Red Sea, with mountains on one side and the pursuing enemy on the other, and Pharaoh's army closing in from behind, what could they do? The Lord said to Moses, "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward" (Exodus 14:15). Why should they go forward? Could they part the sea and create a passage for themselves? No, but the Lord commanded them to go forward. Although they could not turn the sea into dry land, they could still move forward toward the shore. And so they did. While they did what they could, God did for them what they could not do.

Question: Has God promised to convert and save those who, in the use of means, do what they can towards their own relief? Answer: We must not speak falsely for God. Natural individuals, who are unaware of the covenant of promise (Ephesians 2:12), do not have such a promise made to them. However, it is irrational for them not to utilize their abilities and do what they can. For, 1. There is a possibility that this course of action may succeed for them. If you do what you can, it is possible that God will do for you what you cannot do for yourselves. This is enough to convince a person in a matter of great importance, such as this one (Acts 8:22). "Pray God, if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee." (Joel 2:14) If there is a chance of success, then the attempt should be made. For instance, in a shipwreck, if all the sailors and passengers cling to broken boards in order to save themselves, and if one of them witnesses the others perishing despite their utmost efforts, the mere possibility of escape through that means would compel that individual to continue doing their best with their board. So, why don't you reason with yourselves as the four lepers did, who sat at the gate of Samaria? (2 Kings 7:3-4) Why don't you say, "If we sit still," not doing what we can, "we die"? Let's put it to the test. If we are saved, "we shall live"; if not, "we shall only die."

It is probable that this course of action may succeed. God is good and merciful. He delights in surprising people with His grace and is often "found by those who did not seek Him" (Isaiah 65:1). If you do this, you are already on the path of duty, using the means that the Lord typically blesses for the spiritual recovery of individuals. You place yourselves in the way of the great Physician, and it is probable that you may be healed. Just as Lydia went with others to the place "where prayer was customarily made" and "the Lord opened her heart" (Acts 16:13-14). You sow seeds and plough, even though you cannot be certain of reaping a harvest. You use means to regain your health, even though you are uncertain of their success. In such cases, probability guides your actions. So why not in this case as well? We see that persistence has a significant impact on people. Therefore, pray, meditate, desire God's help, spend ample time at the throne of grace, supplicating for grace, and do not grow weary. Even though God may not regard you in your present state, as you are a mass of sin, universally corrupt, and vitiated in all the faculties of your soul, He may still regard prayer, meditation, and other means appointed by Him and bless them to you. Therefore, if you refuse to do what you can, you are not only spiritually dead but also declare yourselves unworthy of eternal life.

In conclusion, let the saints marvel at the freedom and power of grace, which came to them in their helpless condition, caused their chains to fall off, opened the iron gate for them, raised fallen creatures, and rescued them from the state of sin and wrath in which they would have remained and perished had they not received merciful visitation. Let the natural man recognize his complete inability to recover himself. Know that you are without strength and cannot come to Christ unless drawn. You are lost and cannot help yourself. If you have never truly grasped your absolute need for Christ and His grace, but instead believe that you can contrive your own salvation through civility, morality, idle wishes, and self-imposed duties, as well as through a faith and repentance that have arisen from your natural abilities without the power and efficacy of the grace of Christ, then this may shake the foundation of your hopes. Be convinced of your absolute need for Christ and His overcoming grace. Believe in your utter inability to recover yourself so that you may be humbled, shaken out of your self-assurance, and lie down in dust and ashes, groaning over your wretched state before the Lord. A proper understanding of your natural impotence, the impotence of depraved human nature, would be a step towards deliverance. This concludes the discussion of man's natural state, the state of complete depravity.

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Adam and Federal Headship (A. W. Pink, 1886-1952)

 “It is of vital importance for a right understanding of much in God’s Word to observe the relation which Adam sustained to his posterity. Adam was not only the common parent of mankind, but he was also their federal head and representative. The whole human race was placed on probation or trial in Eden. Adam acted not for himself alone, but he transacted for all who were to spring from him. Unless this basic fact be definitely apprehended, much that ought to be relatively clear to us will be shrouded in impenetrable mystery. Yea, we go further, and affirm that, until the federal headship of Adam and God’s covenant with him in that office be actually perceived, we are without the key to God’s dealings with the human race, we are unable to discern man’s relation to the divine law, and we appreciate not the fundamental principles upon which the atonement of Christ proceeded.

“Federal headship” is a term which has almost entirely disappeared from current religious literature—so much the worse for our moderns. It is true that the expression itself does not verbally occur in Scripture; yet like the words Trinity and the divine incarnation, it is a necessity in theological parlance and doctrinal exposition. The princi­ple or fact which is embodied in the term “federal headship” is that of representation. There been but two federal heads: Adam and Christ, with each of whom God entered into a covenant. Each of them acted on behalf of others, each legally represented as definite people, so much so that all whom they represented were regarded by God as being in them. Adam represented the whole human race; Christ represented all those whom the Father had, in His eternal counsels, given to Him.

“When Adam stood in Eden as a responsible being before God, he stood there as a federal head, as the legal representative of all his posterity. Hence, when Adam sinned, all for whom he was standing are accounted as having sinned; when he fell, all whom he represented fell; when he died, they died. So too was it with Christ. When He came to this earth, He, too, stood in a federal relationship to His own people; and when He became obedient unto death, all for whom He was acting were accounted righteous; when He rose again from the dead, all whom He represented rose with Him; when He ascended on high, they were regarded as ascending with Him. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).

“The relationship of our race to Adam or Christ divides men into two classes, each receiving nature and destiny from its respective head. All the individuals who comprise these two classes are so identified with their heads that it has justly been said, “There have been but two men in the world, and two facts in history.” These two men are Adam and Christ; the two facts are the disobedience of the former, by which many were made sinners, and the obedience of the latter, by which many were made righteous. By the former came ruin, by the latter came redemption; and neither ruin nor redemption can be Scripturally apprehended except as they are seen to be accomplished by those representatives, and except we understand the relationships expressed by being “in Adam” and “in Christ.”

“Let is be expressly and emphatically affirmed that what we are here treating of is purely a matter of divine revelation. Nowhere but in Holy Scripture do we know anything about Adam, or of our relation to him. If it be asked how the federal constitution of the race can be reconciled with the dictates of human reason, the first answer must be, it is not for us to reconcile them. The initial inquiry is not whether federal headship be reasonable or just, but, is it a fact revealed in the Word of God? If it is, then reason must bow to it and faith humbly receive it. To the child of God the question of its justice is easily settled: we know it to be just, because it is a part of the ways of the infinitely holy and righteous God.

“Now the fact that Adam was the federal head of the human race, that he did act and transact in a representative capacity, and that the judicial consequences of his actings were imputed to all those for whom he stood, is clearly revealed in God’s Word. In Romans 5 we read: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all sinned” (v. 12); “through the offence of one many be dead” (v. 15); “the judgment was by one to condemnation” (v. 16); “by one man’s offence death reigned” (v. 17); “by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation” (v. 18); “by one man’s offence many were made [legally constituted] sinners” (v. 19). The meaning of these declara­tions is far too plain for any unprejudiced mind to misunderstand. It Pleased God to deal with the human race as represented in and by Adam.

“Let us borrow a simple illustration. God did not deal with mankind as with a field of corn, where each stalk stands upon its own individual root; but He dealt with it as with a tree, all the branches of which have one common root and trunk. If you strike with an axe at the root of a tree, the whole tree falls—not only the trunk, but also the branches: all wither and die. So it was when Adam fell. God permitted Satan to lay the axe at the root of the tree, and when Adam fell, all his posterity fell with him. At one fatal stroke Adam was severed from communion with his maker, and as the result “death passed upon all men.”

“Here, then, we learn what is the formal ground of man’s judicial condemnation before God. The popular idea of what renders man a sinner in the sight of heaven is altogether inadequate and false. The prevailing conception is that a sinner is one who commits and prac­tices sin. It is true that this is the character of a sinner, but it certainly is not that which primarily constitutes him a sinner. The truth is that every member of our race enters this world a guilty sinner before he ever commits a single transgression. It is not only that he possesses a sinful nature, but he is directly “under condemnation.” We are legally constituted sinners neither by what we are nor by what we are doing, but by the disobedience of our federal head, Adam. Adam acted not for himself alone, but for all who were to spring from him.

“On this point the teaching of the apostle Paul is plain and unambiguous. The terms of Romans 5:12-19, as we have shown above, are too varied and distinct to admit of any misconception: that it is on account of their sin in Adam, men, in the first instance, are accounted guilty and treated as such, as well as partake of a depraved nature. The language of 1 Corinthians 15:22 is equally unintelligible except on the supposition that both Adam and Christ sustained a representative character, in virtue of which the one involved the race in guilt and ruin, and the other, by His obedience unto death, secured the justification and salvation of ell who believe in Him. The actual condition of the human race, throughout its history, confirms the same: the apostle’s doctrine supplies the only adequate explanation of the universal prevalence of sin.

“The human race is suffering now for the sin of Adam, or it is suffering for nothing at all. This earth is the scene of a grim and awful tragedy. In it we see misery and wretchedness, pain and poverty, decay and death, on every side. None escape. That “man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward” is an indisputable fact. But what is the explanation of it? Every effect must have a previous cause. If we are not being punished for Adam’s sin, then, coming into this world, we are “children of wrath,” alienated from God, corrupt and depraved, and on the broad road which leadeth to destruction, for nothing at all! Who would contend that this was better, more satisfactory, then the Scriptural explanation of our ruin?

“But it will be said, It was unjust to make Adam our federal head. How so? Is not the principle of representation a fundamental one in human society? The father is the legal head of his children during their minority: what he does, binds the family. A business house is held responsible for the transactions of its agents. The heads of a state are vested with such authority that the treaties they make are binding upon the whole nation. This principle is so basic it cannot be set aside. Every popular election illustrates the fact that a constituency will act through a representative and be bound by his acts. Human affairs could not continue, nor society exist without it. Why, then, be staggered at finding it inaugurated in Eden?

“Consider the alternative. “The race must have either stood in a full grown man, with a full‑orbed intellect, or stood as babies, each entering his probation in the twilight of self-consciousness, each de­ciding his destiny before his eyes were half‑opened to what it all meant. How much better would that have been? How much more just? But could it not have been some other way? There was no other way. It was either the baby or it was the perfect, well‑equipped, all—calculating man—the man who saw and comprehended everything. That man was Adam” (G. S. Bishop). Yes, Adam, fresh from the hands of his creator, with no sinful ancestry behind him, with no depraved nature within. A man made in the image and likeness of God, pronounced by Him “very good,” in fellowship with heaven. Who could have been a more suitable representative for us?

“This has been the principle on which and the method by which God has acted all through. The posterity of Canaan were cursed for the single transgression of their parent (Gen. 9). The Egyptians perished at the Red Sea as the result of Pharaoh’s wickedness. When Israel became God’s witness in the earth it was the same. The sins of the fathers were to be visited upon the children: in consequence of Achan’s one sin the whole of his family were stoned to death. The high priest acted on behalf of the whole nation. Later, the king was held accountable for the conduct of his subjects. One acting on behalf of others, the one responsible for the many, is a basic principle both of human and divine government. We cannot get away from it; wherever we look, it stares us in the face.

“Finally, let it be pointed out that the sinner’s salvation is made to depend upon the same principle. Beware, my reader, of quarreling with the justice of this law of representation. This principle wrecked us, and this principle alone can rescue us. The disobedience of the first Adam was the judicial ground of our condemnation; the obedience of the last Adam is the legal ground on which God alone can justify the sinner. The substitution of Christ in the place of His people, the imputation of their sins to Him and of His righteousness to them, is the cardinal fact of the gospel. But the principle of being saved by what another has done is only possible on the ground that we are lost through what another did. The two stand or fall together. If there had been no covenant of works there could have been no death in Adam, there could have been no life in Christ.

“By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (Rom. 5:19). Here is cause for humiliation which few think about. We are members of a cursed race, the fallen children of a fallen parent, and as such we enter this world “alienated from the life of God” (Eph. 4:18), with nothing in us to prompt unto holy living. Oh, that God may reveal to you, dear reader, your connection with the first Adam, that you may realize your deep need of clinging to the last Adam. The world may deride this doctrine of representation and imputation, but that only evidences it to be of God. If the gospel (the genuine gospel) were welcomed by all, that would prove it was of human manufacture; for only that is acceptable to fallen roan which is invented by fallen man. That the wise of this world scoff at the truth of federal headship, when it is faithfully presented, only goes to manifest its divine origin.

“By the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemna­tion” (Rom. 5:18). In the day that Adam fell, the frown of God came upon all His children. The holy nature of God abhorred the apostate race. The curse of the broken law descended upon all Adam’s posterity. It is only thus we can account for the universality of depravity and suffering. The corruption which we inherit from our parents is a great evil, for it is the source of all our personal sins. For God to allow this transmission of depravity is to inflict a punishment. But how could God punish all, unless all were guilty? The fact that all do share in this common punishment proves that all sinned and fell in Adam. Our depravity and misery are not, as such, the appointment of the Creator, but are instead the retribution of the judge.

“By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (Rom. 5:19). The word “made” in that verse calls for a definition and explanation. It does not refer directly and primarily to the fact that we inherit from Adam a corrupt and sinful nature—that we learn from other Scriptures. The term “were made sinners” is a forensic one, and refers to our being constituted guilty in the sight of God. A parallel case is found in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” Clearly those words “made him [Christ] to be sin” cannot refer to any change which our Lord underwent in His nature or character. No, rather the blessed Savior so took His people’s place before God that He was treated and dealt with as guilty: their sins were not imparted, but imputed to Him.

“Again, in Galatians 3:13—we read that Christ was “made a curse for us”: as the substitute of God’s elect, He was judicially regarded as beneath the condemnation of the law. Our guilt was legally transferred to Christ: the sins we committed, He was regarded as responsible for; what we deserved, He endured. In like manner, Adam’s offspring were “made sinners” by their head’s disobedience: the legal consequences of their representative’s transgression were charged to their account. They were judicially constituted guilty, because the guilt of Adam’s sin was charged to them. Hence we enter this world not only with the heritage of a corrupt nature, but “under condemnation.” We are by nature “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3), for “the wicked are estranged from the womb” (Ps. 58:3)—separated from God and exposed to His judicial displeasure

From - The Adamic Covenant by A. W. Pink

https://www.monergism.com/

Spiritual Fluctuations (Arthur W. Pink, 1886-1952)

 

Psalms 55:19

“God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.”

As there are some people who uniformly enjoy good health, so there is a class of religious professors who appear to maintain one steady level of experience. There is no rise and fall of their emotional thermometer, no ebbs and flows in the tide of their energy, no ups and downs in their history. Their faith (such as it is) does not flag, their “assurance” is never eclipsed by the dark clouds of unbelief, their zeal continues lively to the end. Are such people to be envied or pitied? Perhaps such a question seems senseless. Does not the timid and trembling believer, whose case varies as often and as radically as the weather, frequently wish that his experience approximated far more closely to that which we have just described?

Surely such a uniform level of experience is greatly to be coveted. What more desirable than unruffled peace, unbroken confidence, uninterrupted joy. Ah, but all is not gold that glitters, and much that passes in the churches for the coin of Canaan lacks a genuine ring to it. We must needs inquire, Is such a peace that of the graveyard or the peace of Heaven? Is such confidence a carnal one, or the fruit of the Spirit? Is it a delusive or a substantial joy? In order to ascertain this, the question has to be raised, Is the fear of God upon such characters? Do they furnish any clear evidence that it is so? The solemn declaration of our text demands an impartial answer to these queries.

What “changes” the real Christian experiences in his conflicts with sin! At conversion it often seems as though the believer is completely delivered from all his spiritual enemies. His heart has been so melted and drawn out Godwards, his sense of Christ dying on the Cross in his room and stead has imparted such a hatred and horror of evil, that he is filled with a desire and determination to live henceforth unto the pleasing of his Lord. He feels that the Song of Israel on the farther shores of the Red Sea (Exo. 15) is exactly suited to express his case. But how soon he discovers that the Wilderness of Sin lies between him and the Promised Land, and that though the Egyptians be dead there are Amalekites to assail him (Exo. 17:8). True, God grants him many a token of His favour along the way, and at each gracious reviving indwelling sin appears to slumber; but soon after it awakens and rages worse than ever, and, “I am carnal, sold under sin” (Rom. 7:14) becomes his cry.

What “changes” the real Christian experiences in his enjoyment of the Scriptures! Often he is able to feelingly exclaim, “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” (Psa. 19:10). But alas, it is by no means always so. When fellowship with God is broken our relish is lost for His Word, and it becomes more or less neglected. Sad to relate it was thus with Israel of old: “But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all besides this manna before our eyes” (Num. 11:6). And, when the Lord chastens His child because of his waywardness, so far from His Word affording comfort, it pricks, condemns, and terrifies. How many a backslider has turned to the Word only to feel that the solemn curses pronounced upon the hypocrite and the apostate apply to his case.

What “changes” the real Christian experiences in his faith! On some occasions his heart goes out instinctively to God so that he can exclaim, “I will trust and not be afraid” (Isa. 12:2); but at other times he is filled with doubts and fears, and is quite unable to lay hold of the Divine promises. Nor is this always explainable from the human side: when a Christian is walking closely with God and is conscious of no transgression, yet he is not lord of his faith, and is painfully reminded of the fact. What “changes” the faith of Abraham experienced: not fearing to leave Chaldea at the call of Jehovah, yet in the time of famine going down to Egypt—daring to arm his servants and rescue Lot from Chedorlaomer —yet on two occasions afraid to own Sarah as his wife; believing God that he should have a numerous seed, and then resorting to the unbelieving device of cohabiting with Hagar.

What “changes” the real Christian experiences in his prayer life! One day he is favoured with real freedom and his devotions are delightful, but another day he is bound in the spirit and his attempts at supplication are wearisome. O how different it is when the believer is favoured with conscious access to God and an answer of peace is granted him, from feeling that the Lord is far off and the heavens above are as brass. How different it is from having liberty in pleading the promises than deeming ourselves to have no right to appropriate them; from having importunity to plead our suit than a sense that it is useless to continue asking. And what a sore trial it is for the Christian when such an experience is protracted: then it is that he cries, “Oh that I were as in months past” (Job 29:2).

What “changes” the true Christian often experiences in his outward lot! For a time— perhaps for years—the smile of Providence is upon him, and then all is drastically altered. One trouble follows swiftly upon the heels of another, until the sorely tried soul is ready to say with Jacob, “all these things are against me” (Gen. 42:36). The strain of financial reverses and family bereavements undermines his health, and Satan takes full advantage of his low spirits and shattered nerves. Thoroughly dejected, he asks, “where are Thy former loving kindnesses?” (Psa. 89:49).

But such “changes” or afflictions are helpful, for they deeply exercise an honest heart, humble him before the Lord, cause him to tread more softly, and deepen his fear of God. Long continued ease and comfort produce the worst effects upon the godless, but the spiritual fluctuations to which we have alluded are a part of God’s discipline for the believer’s growth in piety.

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Originally edited by Emmett O'Donnell for Mt. Zion Publications, a ministry of Mt. Zion Bible Church, 2603 West Wright St., Pensacola, FL 32505. www.mountzion.org

https://www.eternallifeministries.org/

The Vanity of Thoughts (Thomas Goodwin, 1600-1680)

 

Jeremiah 4:14

“O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?”

IN these words he compares the heart to some house of common resort, one having many large rooms to entertain and lodge multitudes of guests in. And in this heart, before conversion, all the vain, light, wanton, profane, dissolute thoughts that fly up and down the world (as your thoughts do, running riot all the day) have free and open access; it gives them open house, willing, cheerful welcome. Yea, it goes with them, traveling all over the world for the daintiest pleasures to feed them with. This carnal heart lodges and harbors these thoughts, allows them to lodge and revel day and night, defiling all its rooms with their loathsome filth and vomits. "How long," says the Lord, "shall they lodge within you," while I and My Spirit, My Son and My train of graces, "stand at the door and knock" and cannot find admittance?

This house, this heart must be washed of all this filthiness: "Wash your heart from wickedness" (Jer 4:14). It is to be washed, not swept of only the gross evils (as in Matt 12:44), it must be washed and cleansed of those defilements, which stick closer, which are incorporated and worked into the spirit. These vain and unruly guests, these thoughts, must be turned out of doors without any warning. They have stayed long enough, too long, for the Lord says, "How long" and, "the time passed is enough." In conversion, the house, the soul is not pulled down, but only these guests are turned out. And though we cannot keep them out (for they will ever be able to enter as long as we are in this house of day,) yet we must not let them lodge within us any more.

If thoughts of anger, or of revenge, come in, in the morning or in the daytime, they must be turned out before night, "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath" (Eph 4:26), for if you do so you may lodge an even worse guest in your heart with your wrathful thoughts. "Give not place to the devil," for it follows that he will "bring seven worse with him." If unclean thoughts offer to come to bed with you, do not allow them to stay with you.

The conclusion is: it is not what thoughts are in your hearts, or what passes through them, but it is what lodging you give to them that makes the difference, that proves your repentance. Many good thoughts and motions may pass as strangers through a bad man's heart. And, likewise, multitudes of vain thoughts may make a thoroughfare of a believer's heart, disturbing him in good duties, knocking on his heart to interrupt him. These may break in upon the heart of a good man, but they will not be allowed to stay there, they will not be fostered or harbored there.

THE WICKEDNESS AND VANITY OF THE HEART

My scope will be to discover the wickedness and vanity of the heart by nature. This is for now, for we are yet in the upper parts of it, the understanding and the defilements of it, which are to be washed out of it. The next defilement which in my broken order I intend to handle is that which is our specified subject: The Vanity of Your Thoughts.

I chose this text as my ground, only for discovery's sake, for my subject is, I confess, of an almost infinite vastness. To make an exact and particular discovery of the vanities in our thoughts, to travel over the whole creation and to take a survey and to give an account of all the vanity that abounds in all the creatures, was, as you know, the task of the wisest of men, Solomon. But the vanity of our thoughts cannot be compassed, there are so many varieties of vanities. Our thoughts made the creatures "subject to vanity," therefore they must be even more subject to vanity.

I will show, (1) what is meant by thoughts; (2) what by vanity; (3) that our thoughts are vain; and (4) in what that vanity consists, both in general and with some particulars.

1. WHAT IS MEANT BY THOUGHTS?

First, by thoughts the Scriptures comprehend all the internal acts of the mind of man, of whatever faculty: all of those reasonings, consultations, purposes, resolutions, intentions, ends, desires, cares, etc. of the mind of man—as opposed to our external words and actions. In Isaiah 66:18, all acts are divided into those two, "for their works and their thoughts, it shall come."

That which is transacted within the mind is called the thoughts. Whatever manifests themselves, breaking out into actions, are called works. So we see in Genesis 6:5, "Every imagination of the thoughts,"— that is, all that which the mind frames within itself, the purposes, desires, etc.—are "only evil continuously." This is said of the things "that come into your mind," (Eze 11:5), and so we use it and understand it. So, to remember a man is to "think" of him; to have purposed a thing, we say, I thought to do it; to take care about a business is to "take thought," (1 Sam 9:5). The reason these are all called thoughts is because indeed all our affections, desires, purposes, are stirred up by our thoughts—they are bred, fomented and nourished by them. Never does a thought pass but it stirs up some affection of fear, or joy, or care, or grief, etc.

Although in this place (Jer 4:14) they are so largely taken, yet the vanity of thoughts in so large a sense cannot be handled at present But our subject shall be that which is more properly called the thinking, meditating, considering power of man. In this sense, thoughts are not opposed only to your works, but opposed to your purposes and intentions. So, in Hebrews 4:12, as the soul and spirit, so thoughts and intentions seem to be opposed. And in Job 20:2,3, "thoughts" are appropriated to the "spirit of understanding." And again, yet more strictly, for not all the thoughts in the understanding are to be handled here, either—not the reasonings or deliberations in our action—but only those musings in the speculative part: those more simple conceits, apprehensions that arise; those fancies and meditations which the understanding (with help of imagination) frames within itself of things; those on which your minds ponder and pore and muse—this is what I mean here by 'thoughts.'

I mean those "talkings of the mind" with the things that we know (Prov 6:22), those same interviews, chattings, which the mind has with the things that are let into it—with the things that we fear, with the things that we love. For our minds make all these things their companions, and our thoughts discourse with them, having a thousand concepts about them—this I mean by thoughts. We have a reasoning power, a deliberating power, by which we ask ourselves continually, What shall we do? By this we reason and discuss things, which is a more inward closet, the cabinet and secret council of the heart. But there is a more outward place, that presence—room which entertains all comers, which is the thinking, meditating, musing power in man. This suggests matter for deliberation, for consultation, for reasoning—this holds the objects until we view them and entertains all that come to speak with any of our affections.

Secondly, "that which the mind frames within itself," for so the Scripture expresses their origin to us and their manner of rising, Proverbs 6:14, "Perverseness is in his heart," and "he is always forging mischief,"—like a smith, he is always hammering it out. It is the thoughts that are the materials of this perverseness in us. Upon all the things which are presented to us, the mind conceives some thoughts and imaginations. As lusts are conceived, so are thoughts, "They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity," (Isa 59:4) and in verse 7 he instances in "thoughts of iniquity" because our thoughts are spun out of our own hearts, they are eggs of our own laying, though the things presented to us may be from outside us. This is added to separate them from such thoughts as are injected and cast in from the outside, which are children of another's. Such are blasphemous thoughts which are cast in by Satan, in which the soul may be merely passive (as the word "buffeting" implies in 2 Cor 12:7,) they are not of your thoughts, but they are his. It is as when one in another room hears another swear and curse, but cannot get away from him, such thoughts, if they are only from without, do not defile a man. For nothing defiles a man but what comes from within (Matt 15), that is, that which the heart has conceived within it—as thoughts of uncleanness—in which, although Satan himself be the father of them, the heart is the mother and womb. These therefore the heart loves, as a mother loves her natural children. It is by that we may distinguish them from the others from outside, when the heart is soft toward them, when there is an inward love for them, so that the heart kisses the child—then they are truly our thoughts. When the heart broods on those eggs, then they are surely our thoughts, even if they come from the outside.

This much must be added, that even those thoughts in which the soul is passive, when Satan casts in evil thoughts which we in no way own, in which he rapes the heart (for if there is no consent to them within us, then it is no more than rape, as it is in the Law)—even those thoughts are often punishments meted out to us because of our neglect toward our thoughts, because we have allowed them to wander (as Dinah did, for when she went out to view the daughters of the land she was taken and raped against her will, but it was a punishment for her curiosity). Or they may be punishments for the neglect of good motions of the Spirit (for if we resist and grieve the Spirit, He may deal with us as we deal with our children, He may allow us to be scared by bugbears, or be grieved by Satan, so that we may learn what it is to neglect Him and to harbor vanity).

Lastly, I add "which the mind (by the help of imagination) conceives and entertains," because there are no thoughts or likenesses of things at any time in our imaginations but at the same time they are also being reflected into it by the understanding. It is as if two looking-glasses were placed opposite and near to one another, whatever appears in one will also appear in the other.

2. WHAT IS VANITY?

Taken in all the acceptable forms of vanity, it is true that our thoughts are vain. (1) It is taken for unprofitableness. So in Ecclesiastes 1:2,3, "All is vain," because there is "no profit" in them under the sun. Such are our thoughts, by nature. The wisest of them will not stand us in good stead in time of need, in time of temptation, in distress of conscience, in the day of death or of judgement: All the wisdom of the wise comes to "nothing." The heart of the wicked is "worth little" (Prov 10:20). But the thoughts of a godly man are his treasure: "Out of the treasure of his heart, he brings them forth." He mints them and they are laid up as his riches (Psa 139:17), "How precious" are your thoughts, he is saying.

(2) Vanity is taken for lightness. "Lighter than vanity" is the phrase used in Psalm 62.9. It is spoken of men, and if there is anything in them which is lighter than other, it is their thoughts that swim in the uppermost parts, floating on top; they are the scum of the heart. When all the best, the wisest, deepest and most solid thoughts in King Belshazzar were weighed, they were found to be too light (Dan 5:27).

(3) Vanity is put for foolishness. In Proverbs 12:11, vain men are said to be "void of understanding." Such are our thoughts. Among other evils which are said to "come out of the heart," foolishness is one (Mark 7:22). These foolish thoughts are such as madmen have, thoughts to no purpose—of which no use can be made. These are those thoughts whose origin is a mystery to the man who has them, nor does he know where they are headed.

(4) Vanity is put for inconstancy and frailty. Vanity and a shadow are made synonymous (Psa 144:4). Such are our thoughts, flitting and perishing, like bubbles, "All their thoughts perish," (Psa 146:4).

(5) Lastly, vain thoughts are wicked and sinful. Vanity in the text is yoked with wickedness. Vain men and sons of Belial are all one in 2 Chronicles 13:7. Such are our thoughts by nature, "The thought of foolishness is sin," (Prov 24:9). Therefore a man is to be humbled for a proud thought, Proverbs 30:32. So the laying "of the Hand on the mouth" is taken, as in job 40:4,or being vile in a man's own eyes.

3. THOUGHTS ARE SINFUL

This is the sense I will chiefly insist upon in handling the vanity of thoughts. Men usually think that thoughts are free, but the only doctrine to be treated here is this, Thoughts are sins!

(1) The law judges them (Heb 4:12), rebukes a man for them (1 Cor 14:2.5), and therefore they are transgressions of the law. Christ rebuked the Pharisees for their evil thoughts (Matt 9:4), which argues the excellency of the law, that it reaches even unto thoughts.

(2) Thoughts are capable of pardon, they must be pardoned if we are to be saved (Acts 8:22), which argues the multitudes of God's mercies, for thoughts are so infinite.

(3) Thoughts are to be repented of Yea, repentance is expressed as to begin at the thoughts, "Let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts" (Isa 55:7). And a man is never truly and thoroughly wrought on until his "every thought is brought into obedience" (2 Cor 10:5), which argues that they are naturally rebellious and contrary to grace. And this also argues the power of grace, which is able to rule and subdue so great an army as our thoughts are, to command them all, now, as well as in the day when we are perfectly holy.

(4) Thoughts defile a man. But nothing defiles except sin, "but of the heart proceed evil thoughts... these defile the man" (Matt 15:18,19).

(5) Thoughts are an abomination to the Lord. But He hates nothing but sin, His pure eyes cannot endure to "look upon iniquity" (Hab 1:13). As good meditations are acceptable to Him (Psa 19:14), so, by the rule of contrariety, bad thoughts are abominable.

(6) Vain thoughts hinder all the good that we should do, they spoil our best performances. Vain thoughts draw the heart away so that when a man should draw near to God, his heart, because of his thoughts, is "far off from Him" (Isa 29:13). A man's heart goes after his covetousness, as the prophet speaks because his thoughts run that way. Now nothing else but sin could separate from God, and whatever estranges us from God is sin, it is enmity to Him.

(7) Our thoughts are the first movers of all the evil that is in us. For they make the motion, bringing the heart and the object together; they are panders to our lusts, holding up the object until the heart has played the adulterer with it. So in speculative uncleanness, and in other lusts, the thoughts hold up the images of those gods which they create, which the heart falls down and worships. Our thoughts present praise, riches, beauty to the heart until it has worshipped them—and this even when the things themselves are absent!

4. IN WHAT DOES THIS VANITY CONSIST?

First, I will discover it in regard to thinking what is good—how unable and loath we are to good thoughts. Then secondly, it will be shown how ready we are to think of evil and vain things.

(1) We ordinarily and naturally lack the ability to raise and extract holy and useful considerations and thoughts from all ordinary occurrences and occasions. But a heart which is sanctified, in whose affections true grace is enkindled, will out of all God's dealings with him, out of the things he sees and hears, will distil holy and sweet, useful meditations from them. And it does this by the divine nature which is in it, it is its nature to do so, so far as it is sanctified. So it was in our Saviour, for all the speeches of others, all the things He saw and experienced, raised up in Him heavenly meditations (as we see throughout the Gospels). When He came to a well, He speaks of the "water of life." Many such instances might be given. He, in His daily thoughts translated the book of the creation into the book of grace. And so did Adam's heart in his state of innocency. He saw God in all, and all raised up his heart to thankfulness and praise. So now, in the same way, our hearts and minds ought to do, so far as they are sanctified. As the bee sucks honey out of every flower, as a good stomach gets out the sweet and wholesome nourishment from whatever is put into it, so a holy heart converts and digests all into spiritual and useful thoughts. This you may see in Psalm 107. That Psalm gives many instances of God's providence, the deliverances by sea, etc., but the foot of the song is, "O that men would therefore praise the Lord for the wonderful works He does for the sons of men." Now after so many instances, he concludes that the righteous shall see these things and rejoice, extract comfortable thoughts out of all of them. "Whosoever is wise will observe these things," that is, he will make holy observations out of all these, out of a principle of wisdom he will understand God's goodness in all and his heart will be raised to thoughts of praise and thankfulness and obedience. Compare this with the 92nd Psalm, where we are told to view His works and to raise up holy thoughts out of them, to say, "How great are Thy works!" etc. But a "beastly man does not know, neither does a fool understand this." That is, he being like a beast, having no sanctified principle of wisdom in him, looks no further than an animal into all the works of God and the occurrences of things. He may look on all blessings as things provided for man's delight by God, but he seldom extracts holy, spiritual, useful thoughts out of it—for he lacks the ability and art to do it.

For example, if others offer us injury, what thoughts do we have of these wrongs—thoughts of revenge? We meditate how to repay it. But see how naturally David's mind distils other thoughts of Shimei's cursing, "It may be that the Lord has said to him, Curse David." And then, "God may repay me with good." When we see judgments fall upon others, severe thoughts of censure are apt to rise up in our minds, as in the case of Job's friends. But a godly man, whose mind is much sanctified, raises other thoughts out of it, he "wisely considers," etc. (Prov 21:12).

When outward mercies befall us, the next thoughts we are apt to have is to project ease by our wealth, "You have goods for many years, etc." When judgments come, we are apt to be filled with thoughts of complaint, of fear, of care about how we may wind ourselves out of it, etc. What then were job's first thoughts when he heard news of the loss of all he owned?—"God has given, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this job did not sin." A good heart apprehends such thoughts as these, (whenever opportunities come). But if our thoughts are barren, then they are also vain.

(2)The vanity and sinfulness of the mind appears in our unwillingness to entertain holy thoughts. We hate to begin to set our minds to think of God, to think of the things that belong to our peace. We are like school boys who hate to study those things which are for their good, to busy their minds about their lessons—for their heads are full of play. So our minds hate to enter into serious considerations, into solemn thoughts of God, or of death, etc. Men hate to think of death as much as thieves hate to think of execution. As a contrast, witness his delight as he pores over his plots. But now let the mind be occupied and busied about good things, things belonging to our peace, then how unsteady it is! These things should draw out the attention of the mind, for the more excellent the object is, the stronger our attention should be. God is the most glorious object that our minds could ever fasten upon, the most alluring. Thoughts of Him should therefore swallow up all other thoughts, as they are not worthy to be seen the same day with Him.

But I appeal to your experience, are not your thoughts of Him the most unsteady? Do you not have as much trouble holding your thoughts on Him as you would holding a telescope on a star with a palsy—shaking hand? It takes a long time for our minds to focus on Him, to place the eyes of our minds upon Him—and when we have, O how our hands shake! how often we lose sight of Him! So while we are in the most serious talk with Him, when all other things should be kept out, yet how many chinks there are in the heart, at which a flood of other thoughts come in! Our minds leave God and follow them, they "go after our covetousness," as the prophet says (Eze 33:31). And when we are hearing the word of God, how easily our minds again and again run out of the church, come in again, go out again, hearing only half of what is said. So when we are at our businesses, which God commands us to do with all our might (Eccl 9:10), our minds, like idle truant children, like negligent servants, (however serious the business at hand may be) will go out of the way to see any sport, will run after every hare that crosses the way, will follow after every butterfly buzzing about us.

It is seen best when we come to pray, where Christ bids us to "watch and pray," when we ought to set a guard at every door so that none may come in and disturb us. How often the heart nods, falls asleep, runs out into another world, as men in dreams do! Yes, distractions are so natural to us when we are busied about holy duties, we are like sick men who find excrement coming from them before they know it—so do worldly thoughts come out of us before we know it, when we are carried out of that stream of good which our mind is running in, into some muddy creek.

(3) The vanity of the mind appears in regard to thoughts of good things. If it does think of them, it does so at the wrong time. It is with your thoughts as it is with your speeches, their goodness lies in their placing and order. As a man is to bring forth good actions, so good thoughts also in "due season." Now the vanity of the mind appears in thinking of some good things at the wrong time. When you are praying, you should not only have no worldly thoughts come in, but you ought not to have any thoughts but praying ones. But then perhaps some notions of a good sermon will come readily in. So in hearing, a man shall often have some good thoughts that are foreign to the things in hand. When he is at prayer, a good thing that a man has forgotten to do will be remembered, or, whatever may affect a man much comes in to divert him. This misplacing of our thoughts, even good thoughts, is a vanity of the mind. We find our minds ready to spend thoughts about anything rather than what God at present calls them to. If we go to a sermon, we find ourselves thinking more willingly about reading; or, we will find ourselves searching our hearts instead of listening—but when called to these things at another time, we are most unwilling to do them. We are content to run wild through the fields of meditations and miscellaneous good thoughts, rather than to be tied to the task at hand.

But in Adam and in Christ, no thought was misplaced. Though their thoughts were as many as the stars, yet they marched in their places, they kept their ranks. But our thoughts dance up and down in us like meteors. This disorder of our thoughts is a vanity and sin, however good they may be in matter. Not everyone, even he who has the best part, must step up on the stage to act, but he must take his right cue. In printing, even if the letters are beautiful, they must still be placed in their right order, else they mar the sense. Soldiers should not break their ranks, neither should our thoughts. As some read Proverbs 16:3, there is a promise to a righteous man if "his thoughts are ordered."

THE POSITIVE VANITY OF OUR THOUGHTS TO EVIL

(1) The vanity of them discovers itself in that which Christ calls "foolishness," (Mark 7:22), that is, the kind of thoughts that madmen have. This foolishness is seen in the unsettled wantonness, the wavering of the mind in thinking. Solomon says, "A fool's eyes are in the ends of the earth" (Prov 17:24), they run up and down from one end of the earth to the other, shooting and streaming. And though the mind of man is truly nimble and able to run from one end of the earth to the other, that being its strength and excellence, yet God would have this strength and nimbleness put to a steady directing of our thoughts toward His glory, our own salvation, the good of others, etc. He gave our minds nimbleness to turn away from evil even the first appearance of it. As we are to walk in God's ways, so every single thought, like every action, is a step and ought to be a steady one. "Make straight paths for your feet," (Heb 12:13), turn not to the right or to the left until we come to the journey's end of that business we are supposed to be thinking of.

But our thoughts, at best, are like wanton spaniels, they indeed go after their master and come to their journey's end with him, but they run after every bird, they wildly pursue every flock of sheep they see. This unsteadiness is from the curse on the mind of man, like Cain who was "driven from the presence of the Lord," our minds are vagabonds, our "eyes are in the end of the earth."

This foolishness is also seen in the independence of our thoughts—they often hang together like ropes of sand. We see this in dreams. But not only then, for when we are awake, even when we set ourselves to be most serious, how often our thoughts jingle and run backward! As wanton boys sometimes scribble broken words which make no sense, so our thoughts sometimes are. And if you could but read over what you have thought, as you can what you have written, you would find as much nonsense in your thoughts as you will find in madmen's speeches. This madness, this distemper is in the mind since the Fall (though it may not appear in our words,) so much so that if notes were taken of our multitude of thoughts, we would find our thoughts to be so vagrant that we would wonder how they came in, from where they came, and where they were attempting to go.

But God does all things in weight, in number and measure, and so His image in us will also do, so far as it is renewed. Because our thoughts are unsettled, and because they are so independent of one another, our thoughts often have no issue, gain no perfection. We wilder away our time in thinking of nothing. As Seneca said of men's lives, that they are like ships tossed up and down at sea, so it may be said that our thoughts have tossed much but sailed nowhere.

(2) But on the contrary, if any strong lust or violent passion is up, then our thoughts are all too fixed and intent—they run in so far on sinful objects that they cannot be pulled out again, or even diverted. This is another vanity. For our thoughts and our understanding part was ordered to moderate, allay and cool, to take off our passions when they are running over, they are to rule and govern them. But now our thoughts are themselves subjected to our affections, they are like fuel put under our lusts, they make them boil the more. And although our thoughts do at first stir up our fears, joys, desires, etc., yet these once stirred up come to chain and fix and hold our thoughts to those objects, so that we cannot loosen them again. That is why Christ said to His disciples, "Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts" (Luke 24:38)? For disturbances in the affections cause thoughts to ascend like fumes and vapors. If a passion of fear is upon us, how it does conjure up multitudes of ghostly thoughts which we cannot cause to go down again! They haunt us, they follow us up and down wherever we go, we are pursued by our own thoughts: "the heart meditates on terror," (Isa 33:18). So when sorrow is upon us, how it does make us study the cross that has been put upon us (which would be an ease to the mind to forget). But a man's passions make his thoughts study it, to say it by heart, over and over again.

So when love and desire are up, whatever the thing may be that has attracted us (it may be preferment, praise, beauty, riches,) it sets our hearts to work to search the thing from top to toe, to make it amiable to us. So when joy is up, we look and look at the thing we rejoice in, we read it over and over, we mark every little bit of it, we do not forget. Yes, we are so inordinate in it that we often cannot sleep for thinking of it. "Abundance of riches will not allow him to sleep, for the multitude of thoughts in his head" (Eccl 5:12), Solomon writes of the man who is covetous. How the thoughts of the Belshazzars and the Nebuchadnezzars of the world do trouble the world! As in Proverbs 4:16, "They do not sleep unless they have done mischief." If their desires remain unsatisfied, they disturb their thoughts, like naughty children crying and crying.

These thoughts, which most men think are free, often prove the greatest enslavers and tormenters in the earth to their owners. They hinder sleep, the nurse of nature—they eat out the heart that bred them; they weary the spirits. A man cannot lay them aside as he does his coat when men die, these follow them to hell and torment them even worse there. Your thoughts are the greatest executioners there, even "the worm that never dies."

(3) The vanity of the mind appears in curiosity There is a longing and itching to be fed with and to know the things that do not concern us at all; there is a delight in thinking of them. Take a trial of this in scholars, whose chief work lies in this shop: How many precious thoughts are spent in curiosity! There is a curiosity of knowledge, as appears by those the apostle often rebukes, that can be called "oppositions of falsely-named science"—curiosities of knowledge "of things they have not seen" (1 Tim 6:20). In Colossians 2 and 1 Timothy 4:7, he calls such issues of men's brains "old wives' fables"; because, as fables please old wives, so these please their mind—this itch which they have in them makes them like a woman with child, they long after things they do not have, they are not contented with what the place or the time affords; no, they must have some unheard-of rarity, something far-fetched, something which may not even be possible to have. So men, not contenting themselves with the wonders of God which He discovers in the depth of His word and works, will launch out into another sea, another world of there own making. There they sail with pleasure, as many of the schoolmen did in some of their speculations, spending their precious minds, framing curious webs out of their own bowels, like a spider.

Take the matter of reading, for many have leisure and ability to read much. They should ballast their heart with the word of God, they should take in those precious words, that precious wisdom, in order to profit themselves and others. They should be building up their own souls, but what do their curious fancies carry them to? What are they versed in? Why, they know playbooks, they know romances, all the curious needlework of idle brains; they load their heads with "apes and peacock's feathers," instead of pearls and precious stones. As Solomon said, "The heart of him that has understanding seeks knowledge; but the mouth of fools feeds on foolishness" (Prov 15:14). Foolish discourses please their eyes and ears, these are the purveyors of food for their thoughts—like chameleons are said to do, men live on air and wind.

Leaving this sort, we find others who out of mere curiosity listen for all the news that flies up and down the world; they skim off all the froth that floats in foolish men's mouths. They please themselves only with talking, thinking and hearing it. Not all are to be condemned in this. Some can make good use of it, as Nehemiah did when he inquired how things went at Jerusalem—he wanted to rejoice with God's people, to mourn and pray with them, to know how to fashion his prayers. But that curious itch which is in many, who merely want to please their fancies, who are delighted with new things (even if they do not concern them), is to be condemned. Such the Athenians were (Acts 17:21). Some men long all week until they have events and issues, they make it a part of the happiness of their lives to study the state more than they do their own hearts, or even their own proper businesses. Yet these do not lay to heart the miseries of the church of Christ, nor do they help them with their prayers.

There are those who are curious to know the secrets of other men, secrets which would do them no good. These study men's actions and ends, not to reform them or do them good, but to know them and to think and muse about them with pleasure. This is curiosity, properly a vanity of the thinking power. It is truly a great sin when much of men's most pleasing thoughts are spent on things that do not concern them. The things that we ought to know, those which concern us, are enough to take up all our thoughts—we would not have any to spare. Thoughts are precious things, they are the immediate fruits and buds of an immortal nature. God has given us power to coin thoughts, lay them out in things that concern our own good, our own neighbor's good, and His own glory. And if we do not spend them on these things, it is the greatest waste in the world.

Examine the corn you put in the grinder, for God should have His share of all. "He that plots to do evil shall be called a master of wicked thoughts" (Prov 24:8). It is not the one who does a wicked thing but also the one who plots it, who aggravates the sinful action by his thoughts, "for every thought is sin," and a combination and conspiracy of wicked thoughts is much more.

(4) There is still a worse vanity than this, one that is intimated in Romans 13:14, "Taking thought to fulfill the lusts of the flesh,"—making projects for it. For thoughts are the caterers for our lusts, they lay in all their provision. In our thoughts we look out for the best markets, the best opportunities for sinning of any kind, the best bargains for our praise, for our ambition, for our riches, etc.

For example, does a man want to get ahead? Then his thoughts study the art of it, framing the ladder for climbing up, inventing ways to do it (though often they, like Haman, are only building their own gallows). Or perhaps they want to be rich. Then what do they study? They study all the cheating tricks on the cards, as I may speak. They study all the cunning tricks of the world, all the ways to oppress, to defraud, to go beyond their fellows. They learn to pack things in all their dealing so that they themselves will be the winners, so that all who deal with them will be the losers. "He thinks of wicked ways to destroy the poor with lying words" (Isa 32:7).

Does a man want to undermine his opposite, one that stands in his light, who keeps him from getting all the credit? Then he will dig with his thoughts, with his engines in the night. He will dig a pit, as the Scripture says, he will dig deep to hide his counsel, to blow him up in the end. He will learn to hurt him.

This is worse than all the former vanities. The more devising there is in sin, the worse it is. That is why the fact about Uriah, not so much that of Bathsheba, is objected against David, because he "took thought for it," whereas in the matter of Bathsheba, his thoughts took him.

(5) A fifth kind of vanity in our thoughts appears when we are acting over sins in our thoughts and imaginations. In this we personate those sinful pleasures by our imagination, because we cannot at present enjoy the reality. So we feign and imagine ourselves to act those sinful practices which we have not opportunity outwardly to perform. Divines call it: Speculative wickedness. That this performing of wickedness in the imagination is possible is evident to you by your dreams, when, as the prophet says, the imagination makes us believe that "we eat when we are hungry and drink when we are thirsty" (Isa 29:8). But I do not mean to speak of the power and corruption of it, as in our dreams. It were well if this speculative wickedness were only "in the night." But corrupt and distempered affections cast men into such dreams in the daytime, when they are awake. To borrow the apostle's expression, there are "filthy dreamers" (Jude 8), that "defile the flesh,"—yes, even when they are awake. For when their lusts are idle, their imagination erects a stage for them and their thoughts are set to work to entertain their filthy and impure desires with shows and plays of their own making. And so reason and the intention of their minds sit as spectators all the while to view with pleasure, until their thoughts inwardly act over their own unclean desires, their ambitious projects, or whatever else they have a mind to do. (Can anyone cast a stone at those who do this?)

Yea, the heart of man has become as empty as this—so impatient are the desires and lusts of when interrupted in their pleasures, so sinful and corrupt are they!

(A) They are vain and empty in this, for take note of all the pleasures of sin when they are never so fully, solidly and really enjoyed—they are then only shadows, a mere outside and figure, as the apostle calls the world. It is the opinion of imagination that casts that varnish of goodness on sinful pleasures, for it is not truly in them. But now this speculative enjoying of them only in imagination (which many men's hearts take so much pleasure in), the pleasing of ourselves in the bare thoughts and imaginations or sinful acts, this is but a shadow of these shadows. That the soul should, Ixion-like, embrace and commit adultery with clouds only, this is a vanity beyond all other vanities. This makes us more vain than any other creature, who though "subject to vanity," yet are not subject to such vanity as this.

(B) It argues our desires to be impatient when they are detained from or interrupted from their pleasures. When the soul shall be found to be so greedy that when the heart is barred or held back from those things it desires, when it lacks means for opportunities to act out its lusts, then it will at least enjoy them in imagination and in the interim set fancy to entertain the mind with empty pictures of them drawn in its own thoughts.

(C) In this way they appear also to be exceeding sinful and corrupt an outward act of sin, as you may know, is but an act of whoredom with the creature when it is really enjoyed. But this committing of adultery in our imaginations is pure incest! When we defile our souls and spirits with these imaginations and likenesses which are conceived in our own fancies, being the children of our own hearts, this is incest!

MEN'S HEARTS ARE FULL OF SPECULATIVE EVIL

There is much speculative enjoying of sinful pleasures, much acting over of sinful acts, the mind of man is full of it, as will appear in many particulars.

(1) Whatever comforts men may have at present in their possession, whatever excellencies or endowments they may have, they love to be alone to study and think of them. When they are separated from the present use of them, they will still be recounting and casting them up in imagination, surveying their happiness in them, applauding their own hearts in their conditions. Just as rich men love money, love to be always looking at it, counting it over, so men love to be always summing up their comforts and privileges, those that are lacked by others especially: as how rich they are, how great, how they excel others in parts and gifts, etc. O how much of that precious sand of our thoughts runs out this way! So the man in the Gospel keeps an audit in his heart, "Soul," he said, "you have goods laid up for many years." So Haman took an inventory of his honors and goods, talking of "all the glory of his riches and all the things in which the king had promoted him." So Nebuchadnezzar, as it may seem, was alone walking and talking to himself like a fool, saying, "Is this not the great Babylon which I have built by the might of my power, for the glory of my majesty?" (Dan 4:30)

And it is not only upon their comforts, but they also do this in regard to their excellences, as their learning, their wisdom, etc. Men love to stand looking upon these in the mirror of their own speculation, as fair faces love to look often and long into glass mirrors. This all comes from the self-flattery in men, they desire to keep their happiness still fresh and continued in their eye. But these thoughts—when they do not raise up in ihe heart thankfulness to God, when they are not used for that end—are the bellows of pride. They are vain and abominable thoughts in the eyes of God, as would appear from God's dealing with those mentioned before. For to the man in the Gospel, He says, "Fool! This very night your soul shall be required of you," etc. (Luke 12:20). And to Nebuchadnezzar, while "the word was in his mouth," (giving him no further warning,) God struck him with madness and beastliness. As for Haman, you know that he was like a wall that swells before it breaks and falls into ruin and decay.

(2) This speculative enjoying of pleasures, this acting of sins in our imaginations, appears in regard to things to come also. For men view them afar off, their hopes going forth to meet them in their thoughts. They take much contentment from entertaining their desires with such vain promisings and expectations beforehand. Those in Isaiah wound up their hearts to a higher pin of jollity in the midst of their cups, for their hearts thought and promised them that "Tomorrow as today, and much more abundant," (Isa 56:12). So those in James 4:13 say to themselves, "We will go into such a city and continue there a year, and buy and sell and get gain." The promise of this, the thoughts of it beforehand, feeds them and keeps up comfort in their hearts. When men rise up in the morning, they begin to think ahead with much pleasure about the carnal pleasures which they have the promise of for that day or week (as that they shall go to such a company, that they shall be merry, that they shall enjoy the satisfaction of such and such lusts, that they shall hear good news, etc.).

As godly men live by faith in God's promises ("By these men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit," said Hezekiah, even "what God has spoken,"— Isa 38:15-18), so do carnal men live much upon the promises of their own hearts and thoughts beforehand. For it is to this head of vain thoughts that these promisings are to be reduced, "their inward thought is that their houses shall continue forever," and this thought pleases them. Is there any pleasure which a man makes much account of but he acts it over first in private, in his own thoughts? And in this way men foolishly take their own words and promises and so "fool themselves in the end," (Jer 17:11). They take up beforehand in their thoughts, upon trust, the pleasures that they are expecting to enjoy. Even as spendthrifts spend their rents, as heirs spend their inheritances before they actually get them, so when they indeed come to enjoy the pleasures they expected, either they prove to be but "dreamers," or they find their "souls empty," or they find the enjoyment so much under their expectation, so stale, that there still proves to be more in the imagination than in the thing. This comes from the vastness and greediness of men's desires, which is the cause of it. So it is written, "He multiplies his desires as hell and is like death and cannot be satisfied, but gathers all nations to himself and heaps to himself all people," (Hab 2:5)—he swallows them up in his thoughts. So it is with an ambitious scholar, who swallows up all the preferments that are in his view.

(3) This speculative wickedness is also exercised toward things that are past. It recalls and revives in our thoughts the pleasure of sinful actions that happened in the past. The mind runs over the passages and circumstances of those sins which were long ago committed, taking new and fresh delight in thinking of them. Men raise their dead actions, long since buried, in the same likeness they were transacted in, and they parley with them as the witch and Saul did with Satan in Samuel's likeness. And when they should draw cross lines over them, when they should blot out these things through faith in Christ's blood, they would rather copy and write them over again in their thoughts, and with the same contentment.

So an unclean person can study over every circumstance which passed in his unclean act, seeing in his thoughts the person with whom they were committed. And likewise the vainglorious scholar repeats in his thoughts an eminent performance of his, all those passages which he thinks were most elegant. And men chew the cud upon any words of commendation which others have uttered about them. just as a good heart recalls and repeats good things that have been heard and read, remembering what liveliness of the spirit resulted, with what affections they were warmed when they heard them, (or, as when Hezekiah recalled with comfort the actions of a well-passed life, "Lord, I have walked before Thee with a perfect heart,") so, on the contrary, do wicked men usually recall and revive the most pleasing sinful happenings in their lives, trying to suck new sweetness out of them. Nothing would argue more hardness or wickedness of heart, nothing provokes God more, than this recalling and reviving of sinful acts with as much or more pleasure than in the original happening. For,

(A) It argues much wickedness of heart to do this. And if this is ordinary with a heart to do this, it is not compatible with grace. For in Romans 6:21, the Apostle shows that a good heart does not usually repeat or desire the fruit of past sinful actions, "But what fruit did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed?" The saints can reap and distil out of those flowers nothing but shame and sorrow. When Ephraim remembers his sin, he was "ashamed and repented." Can you, then, in your thoughts, reap a new crop, a new harvest of pleasure from them again and again?

(B) It argues much hardness of heart. Nothing can be more opposite to the truth and practice of repentance, for the foundation of repentance is to call to mind the acts and thoughts of sin with shame and sorrow, and to recall it with more grief than ever there was pleasure in the committing of it. It is the property of repentance to hate "the very appearance' of sin, to inflame the heart with zeal and revenge against it. Therefore it provokes God exceedingly when our hearts become soaked with a new guilt from the remembrance with pleasure of old acts of sin, for it provokes God to remember it also, with a new detestation of it, and so He sends down new plagues. But if we recall the sins of the past with grief, this is to "remember it no more."

To delight in past sins is to rake in those wounds which we have already given Christ. To view the sins of others with pleasure is made more than to commit them (Romans 1:32). How much more to view and revive our own with a fresh delight! Know this, that whatever delight you may take here in repeating your old sins to yourself, yet in hell nothing will gall you more than the remembrance of them. Every circumstance in every sin will then be as a dagger at your heart. This was the task and study given to the rich man in hell, to "remember the good things he had received," and his sins committed in the abuse of them. And if godly men here are made to "possess the sins of their youth" with horror (as Job), and to "have them ever before" them (as David), then how will wicked men in hell escape from the frightening memory of them? In Psalm 50:21, the Lord sets this forth to us in part, "These things you have done, and I kept silence; you thought that I was one like yourself, but I will reprove you, and I will set them in order before your eyes."

(4) The fourth way in which the speculative vanity appears is in the acting of sins upon mere imaginary suppositions. Men pretend to themselves, contriving a supposition to themselves in their own thoughts both of what they want to be and of what they want to do. Men create fool's paradises to themselves, and then they walk up and down in them. They say to themselves, If I had money enough, what pleasures I would have! If I had such and such an appointment, then how well I would carry myself! To allude to Scripture, Absalom said, "O if I were a judge in the land, I would do this and that," etc. Men do this with a great deal of pleasure, almost as much as those that really enjoy them.

This may well be the meaning of Psalm 50:18, which pictures a hypocrite who outwardly abstains from gross sins, but God says, "When you saw a thief, then you were pleased to be with him, and you have taken part with adulterers." That is, in his heart and in his imagination, supposing himself to be with them, he desired to be doing what they were doing. Take the case of one who is naturally ambitious, his nature, parts and education have made him but no more than "a bramble, never to rule over the trees," he is one who is fixed in a lower sphere, incapable of rising higher or being greater, even as the earth can never become a star. Yet this ambitious man will take the part of a great man in his own heart, pretending and supposing himself to be so; he will build and sit upon a throne, and he will think within himself what he would do if he were a king or a great man. Or, take the case of a man who is unclean, one now grown old, a dry tree, one who cannot act his lust as he once did. Yet this unclean old man will supply what is lacking in his strength and opportunity—he will make his own heart his procurer, brothel, whore and all. In the case of the man who is a lover of pleasures, but lacks the means to buy them, yet his inclinations will please themselves with the thoughts of what mixture and combination of delights he would have. He will even set down his bill of fare, what he would have if he could have what he wanted. So it is also with the man who is vengeful, yet who lacks a sting, this man will please himself with thoughts and wishes of revenge—he will always be making invectives and railing dialogues against the one he hates. And the man in love will in his imagination court his absent partner in love, he will by his imagination make her present with him, and he will frame the words which he will speak to her.

In a word, whatever the inclinations and dispositions of a man (let the impossibilities and improbabilities be never so great against what he desires,) in his fancy and thoughts he will make all things to be what he wants them to be. Men will always be drawing maps of their desires, calculating their own indinations, cutting out a condition of life which suits their hearts, and they please themselves with such things. And there is no surer way to know a man's natural inclination than by this.

(A) This is foolishness, the imitating of children. For is it not childish to make clay pies and puppets (what else are such fancies as these?) and to be acting the parts of ladies and mistresses, as children often do? Yet such childishness is in the heart of man.

(B) This is a vanity also, because a man is setting his heart on something that does not exist. The things are worthless in themselves, ("Will you set your eyes on that which is not?"—Prov 23:5,) they are of no value even if a man has them. But to please himself with mere supposition is much worse indeed.

(C) The greatest condemnation of such vain thoughts, however, is that men desire in their thoughts and hearts to put themselves into another condition than God has ordained for them.

THE GOOD OF KNOWING THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS

Use Number 1: Having discovered the vanity of your thoughts and your place by them, be humbled for them. I ground this upon Proverbs 30:32, where Agur teaches us to humble ourselves for thoughts as well as for actions, "If you have done foolishly in lifting up yourself, or if you have thought evil, lay your hand upon your mouth." Now as "smiting on the thigh" is put for repentance and shame and sorrow in Jeremiah 31:19, so is laying the hand on the mouth put for greater and deeper humiliation, arguing full conviction of one's guilt, as in Romans 3:19, "Every mouth" must be stopped, so that all the world may become guilty before God." To lay your hand upon your mouth is to have nothing to say; it is to plead guilty, not excusing yourself because thoughts are supposed to be free from guilt on the grounds that it is impossible to get free from them. As it is in Ezekiel 16:63, we are to "remember and be confounded, never to open" our mouths any more, or, as it is in Job 40:4, to be vile, not to answer again—this is what it is to lay your hand on your mouth. It is to humble yourself.

And truly there is much cause to humble yourself for your thoughts. For your thoughts are the first-born, the eldest sons of original sin, they are the strength of it. Yea, they are the parents and begetters of all other sins; they are the plotters and contrivers, the Ahithophils, in all the treasons and rebellions of our hearts and lives. Our thoughts are the bellows and incendiaries of all inordinate affections; they are the panders to all our lusts, they take thought to provide for the satisfying of our lusts. They are the disturbers in all good duties, for our thoughts interrupt and spoil all our prayers, making them stink in the nostrils of God.

And if their heinousness will not move you, consider their number, for our thoughts continually being sinful, this makes our sins to be more in number than the sands of the sea. The thoughts of Solomon's heart were as the sand, and so are ours—there is not a minute when more thoughts do not pass from us than the sands that go through hour-glasses. Even supposing them to be the smallest and least of your sins, yet their multitude makes them more and heavier than all your other sins. Even if they are not to be compared to gross defilements, yet because the mint never lies still, whether you are sleeping or waking, therefore they make up the greatest part of that treasure of wrath which we are laying up for ourselves. And know that God will count every one, in your punishment He will not remit a stroke for even one vain thought.

And we know that God looks upon our thoughts in this way, for we see the indictment He brings in against the old world (Gen 6). When He pronounced that heavy judgment, the destruction of all the world and its inhabitants, does He allege their murders, adulteries, and gross defilements as the chief cause? No, but He accuses them that "every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually." It was their thoughts that were so many and so continually evil, and this provoked Him more than all their other sins!

Then go down into your own heart, consider well your thoughts, for this will humble you, it will make you vile in your own eyes. Let your spirit, the lamp of the Lord, search the innermost parts of your belly (Prov 20:27). Consider them in order to humble you, but for all their multitude do not let them discourage you. For God has more thoughts of mercy in Him than you have had thoughts of rebellion. You only began to think thoughts of rebellion against Him as yesterday, but His thoughts of mercy have been "from everlasting" and they reach "to everlasting." But rather remember what God has said in Isaiah 55:7, "Let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts," and God will have mercy upon him. And because this objection of the multitude of evil thoughts might come in to discourage men from hopes of mercy, He purposely adds that "He will abundantly pardon" or "multiply to pardon." This is to assure us that He has thoughts of mercy which will outvie ours of sin, and He is careful to state that "My thoughts are not as your thoughts... for as the heavens are higher than the earth...so are My thoughts than your thoughts."

Use Number 2. Forever make conscience of them. So job did, "I made a covenant with my eyes; why should I think upon a maid?" Solomon gives us a special charge, "Keep your heart with all diligence.' (Prov 4:23).

(1) We are to "keep the Lord's day holy," ourselves "unspotted from the world," our brother and all the commandments, but above all we are to keep our hearts—and in it our thoughts. For as in the same commandment where murder is forbidden, a malicious thought is also forbidden—let it be remembered it is so with the other commandments.

(2) Out of the heart "are the issues of life." Thoughts and affections are the spring, speeches and actions are the stream. As our thoughts are, so are our affections, for the thoughts are the bellows of the affections. So also it is with our prayers, and all other things, the thoughts are in the soul as the spirits in the body, they run through all, move all, act all.

(3) If you look to God, your thoughts are that spot of ground which He proclaims Himself to be sole Lord. He makes it one of His greatest titles, that He knows the thoughts, and judges them. Kings attempt to rule your tongues, to bind your hands and rule your actions, but only God can rule your thoughts. By them we chiefly sanctify Him in our hearts, and by them we walk with God. And shall we not make conscience of them?

(4) If you look to the work and power of grace, in what does it lie but in the "bringing of every thought into obedience"? (2 Cor 10:5). This is the glory of our religion above all others in the world. In what does the difficulty of the Christian religion lie? What is the strictness of it? What makes Christian life so hard? It is the observing and keeping of the thoughts in bounds. The difference between sincere-hearted Christians and others is in this keeping of our thoughts. Without this, all religion is but "bodily exercise." Papists may mumble over their prayers, hypocrites may talk, but this is godliness.

(5) If we look to things we must be careful of, we must be careful of our speeches because Christ has said that we shall "answer for every idle word." But why not also, and for the same reason, be careful of our thoughts (which are the words of the mind, lacking only a shape to be audible to others, which the tongue gives them) for you must answer for thoughts as well as for words (Heb 4:12, 1 Cor 4:5). If you are careful what companions you have, of all that you may take into your house, of those who lie in your bosom, then much more you should be careful what thoughts you lodge in your heart (for it is God's house, built for Himself and for Christ and His word to dwell in). Since the things you think of have the most intimate fellowship and conversation with you, you should be most careful what they are.

We are told in Proverbs 6:22 that when we think of God's word, it will talk with us. If you are careful of what you do because of your constitution, etc., then be most careful what you think because thoughts can either upset or feed your soul. "Thy words did I eat," said Jeremiah, speaking of meditation on them.

(6) If you look to the issue of things, what shall be the subject of that great inquest at the Day of Judgment? The Lord will "make 'manifest the counsels (the thoughts) of the heart," (1 Cor 4:5). After the Day of Judgment, a man's thoughts will prove to be his greatest executioner. They are the cords with which God will lash you throughout all eternity. Your own thoughts will accuse you, you will study over every sin, "Your heart shall dwell upon terror," (Isa 33:18). The hypocrite's torment is to "meditate terrors," to study God's wrath, the saint's blessedness and their own sins and miseries.

REMEDIES AGAINST VAIN THOUGHTS

Remedy 1. First you must get your heart furnished and enriched with a good stock of sanctified, heavenly knowledge in spiritual and God-given truths. A "good man has a good treasure in his heart," (Matt 12:35). That is, a good man has all graces, so many precious truths, which are as gold in the ore. And his thoughts, as the mint, coins this gold, which then is brought forth into words. "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things." But if there are no mines of precious truths hidden in our hearts, it is no wonder if our thoughts do not coin anything more than dross, frothy and vain thoughts. We are then lacking the materials from which the mind is to be fed. A wicked man, says Solomon, is always forging, minting, hammering out wickedness and evil (Prov 6:14).

If a man has a store of natural knowledge, but lacks useful spiritual knowledge, he may bring forth some very good speeches in company with others, but when he is alone his thoughts will not run on good things. Take a place in Scripture, Deuteronomy 6:6,7, which shows that laying up the word in the heart, and being made conversant in it, and getting knowledge out of it, is an effectual means to keep our thoughts well-exercised when we are alone. For it is said that the reason why those of the law are to be "laid up in the heart" is that we might teach them to others—but note this also, that it is so that we might have them with us when we are retired and alone, "these words shall be with you...when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up." When a man is riding, or walking, or lying down, or rising up (which are often and usually our most retired times for thoughts and are wholly spent in them), yet then, He says, you shall talk of the word. And since he that is alone cannot be said to talk, therefore the talking there meant is not an outward conference with others (though intended as occasion of talking with others is given, as with your bedfellow, your companion, etc.). But if you have no companion with you, then talk of the word to yourself, for the thoughts are the talking of the mind. So, comparing Proverbs 6:22 with this place, it appears that Solomon exhorts us to the same ituty of "binding the word to the heart" with this motive, which is the fruit of it, "that when you awake, it will talk with you"—that is, by your thinking of it, it will talk with you when you and it are alone. You shall not need a better companion, it will be putting in and suggesting something to you all the time.

Remedy 2. Endeavor to preserve and keep up lively, holy and spiritual affections in your heart. Do not let them cool. Do not fall from your first love, or fear, or joy in God. Or if you have grown remiss, endeavor to recover those affections again. For as your affections are, so your thoughts will be, and they incline the mind to think of such or such objects that will please them. That is why David says, "O how I love Thy law! It is my meditation all the day" (Psa 119:97). It was his love which made him think of it so frequently. So "Those who feared the Lord and thought upon His name" are joined together (Mal 3:16). For what we fear, we often think of and also often speak of it. It is added, "They spoke often to one another," because fear made them think much of His name, and thinking of it made them speak of it. It is true that thoughts and affections are the mutual causes of each other, as it is written, "As I mused, the fire burned," (Psa 39:3)—the thoughts are the bellows that kindle and inflame the affections. And then when they are, inflamed, they cause thoughts to boil. Men newly converted to God, having new and strong affections, can with more pleasure think of God than any.

Remedy 3. Get your heart possessed with deep, strong and powerful apprehensions and impressions of God's holiness, majesty, omnipresence and omniscience. If any of our thoughts have the power to fix and draw in our minds, they are the thoughts which we have of Him. Why do the saints and angels in Heaven never have a vain thought, no, not in all eternity? His presence fixes them, their eye is never off Him. Even a wanton, loose-spirited man will often be held in the presence of a feared superior. Job was careful not to look awry, because, he said, "Does not He see my ways and count all my steps?" (Job 31:4). This drew in and fastened David's thoughts (Psa 139:1-17). That is why we have found by experience that we can avoid distractions in prayer by enlarging our thoughts beforehand by considering God's attributes and relations to us. It will and it does make us serious.

Remedy 4. Especially determine to speak with God when you first awake, as David did, "When I awake, I am still with Thee." To prevent vain, windy, frothy thought from taking possession of your thoughts when you first awake, first fill your heart with thoughts of God. Observe it, if you will, when you first open your eyes in the morning, many suitors will be attending upon you, like clients waiting at lawyer's doors, many vanities and businesses will be seeking to rush into your thoughts. But you must speak with God first, He will say something to your heart that will settle it for all that day. Do this before the crowd of businesses come in upon you. Some heathen, it is said, worship as their god that which they first see in the morning. So it is with the idols of men's hearts. Let God be first in your thoughts!

Remedy 5. Have a watchful eye. Guard your heart all day long. Though they crowd in, yet observe them, let them know that they do not pass unseen. If a man wants to pray aright, he must watch who comes in and who goes out. Where a strict watch is kept, where the officers are diligent to examine every vagrant person, you will have few vagrants there. So it is with the swarms of vagrant thoughts which will come upon him who does not keep a strict watch against them. Then if they pass through anyhow, yet you should complain of them, whip them, etc.

Remedy 6. Be careful not to please your fancy too much with vanities and curious sights. This engenders vain and worthless thoughts. That is why Job said that he "made a covenant with his eyes, that he should not think upon a virgin."

Remedy 7. Be diligent in your calling. "What your hands find to do, do it with all your might," (Eccl 9:10). Put to it all the intention and strength of your mind. Let all the stream run about your mill; the keeping of your thoughts to that channel will keep them from overflowing into vanity and folly. Those that do not labor are apt to be busybodies, (2 Thess 3:11). Those that are called idle and wandering in 1 Timothy 5:13 are not only called idle because they were not busy about the things that they should do, but they are also called idle because they are busy about the things they should not do. If you let ground lie fallow, what weeds will the soon be growing on it!

God has given us our callings to entertain our thoughts, and to find work for them in the interims between the duties of His worship—because the spirit and thoughts of men are restless and must be busy some way. Kings keep those men with active spirits in continual employment, lest their heads should be working and plotting amiss. And God appointed (even in Paradise) that man should have something to keep him busy. God hedges in a man's thoughts in this way, sets them in a narrow lane, knowing that if they are unconfined they will be like "wild asses snuffing up the wind." But be careful not to encumber your mind with too much business, more than you can grasp. It made Martha forget that "one thing needful" (Luke 10:42). This breeds cares which distract the mind, divides it, causes wandering thoughts, so that the mind is not itself. This weakens it, enervates it,—you will be as Jethro said to Moses, "You will fade away like a leaf." Even the juice which should be left for good duties will be exhausted. As dreams come through multitudes of business (Eccl 5:3) so do a multitude of thoughts come from a cumber of business.

Remedy 8. In your calling, and in all your ways, commit your ways to God. "Commit your way to the Lord, and your thoughts shall be blessed [or, ordered]" (Prov 16:3). Keep back from that confusion and disorder, those swarms of cares, which others are annoyed with. A few thoughts of faith would save us many thoughts of cares and fears as we go about our business. And such thoughts are vain, for they do not forward the business we intend. When such thoughts toss the heart and stir it up into turmoil, when the winds of passion are up, then a few thoughts of faith will calm the heart and fix it upon the Anchor of the soul once more.

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