Latest / Philosophy and Faith / 42 - Wandering Thoughts - Sermons on Several Occasions
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Wandering thoughts, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
- 0:05Speaker 1: of Christ. Second Corinthians ten five. But will God so
- 0:10Speaker 1: bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
- 0:13Speaker 1: that no wandering thought will find a place in the mind,
- 0:17Speaker 1: even while we remain in the body. So some have
- 0:20Speaker 1: vehemently maintained, YEA, have affirmed that none are perfected in love,
- 0:24Speaker 1: lest they are so far perfected in understanding, that all
- 0:27Speaker 1: wandering thoughts are done away, unless not only every affection
- 0:31Speaker 1: and temper be wholly and just and good, but every
- 0:33Speaker 1: individual thought which arises in the mind be wise and regular.
- 0:38Speaker 1: This is a question of no small importance. For how
- 0:41Speaker 1: many of those who fear God YEA, and love Him
- 0:44Speaker 1: perhaps with all their heart, have been greatly distressed on
- 0:47Speaker 1: this account? How many, by not understanding it right, have
- 0:51Speaker 1: not only been distressed, but greatly hurt in their souls,
- 0:55Speaker 1: cast into unprofitable YEA. Mischievous reasonings thatch as slacken their
- 0:59Speaker 1: moste towards God and weaken them in running the race
- 1:02Speaker 1: set before them. Nay, many, through misapprehensions of this very thing,
- 1:07Speaker 1: have cast away the precious gift of God. They have
- 1:09Speaker 1: been induced first to doubt of and then to deny
- 1:13Speaker 1: the work God had wrought in their souls, and hereby
- 1:16Speaker 1: have grieved the spirit of God till he withdrew and
- 1:19Speaker 1: left them in utter darkness. How is it, then, that,
- 1:22Speaker 1: admits the abundance of books which have been lately published
- 1:25Speaker 1: almost on all subjects, we should have none upon wandering thoughts,
- 1:29Speaker 1: at least none that will all satisfy a calm and
- 1:32Speaker 1: serious mind. In order to do this, in some degree,
- 1:35Speaker 1: I purpose to inquire, what are the several sorts of
- 1:39Speaker 1: wandering thoughts? What are the general occasions of them? Which
- 1:42Speaker 1: of them are sinful? And which not? Which of them
- 1:45Speaker 1: we may expect and pray to be delivered? From my
- 1:48Speaker 1: purpose to inquire, first, what are the several sorts of
- 1:52Speaker 1: wandering thoughts? The particular sorts are innumerable, But in general
- 1:56Speaker 1: they are of two sorts. Thoughts that wander from God,
- 1:59Speaker 1: and thoughts wander from the particular point we have in hand.
- 2:03Speaker 1: With regard to the former, all our thoughts are naturally
- 2:06Speaker 1: of this kind, for they are continually wandering from God.
- 2:09Speaker 1: We think nothing about him. God is not in all
- 2:12Speaker 1: our thoughts. We are one and all, as the apostle observes,
- 2:16Speaker 1: without God in the world we think of what we love,
- 2:19Speaker 1: but we do not love God. Therefore we think not
- 2:22Speaker 1: of Him. Or if we are now and then constrained
- 2:25Speaker 1: to think of Him for a time, yet as we
- 2:27Speaker 1: have not pleasure therein, and nay, rather, as these thoughts
- 2:30Speaker 1: are not only insipid, but distasteful and irksome to us,
- 2:34Speaker 1: we drive them out as soon as we can, and
- 2:36Speaker 1: return to what we love to think of, so that
- 2:38Speaker 1: the world and the things of the world, what we
- 2:41Speaker 1: shall eat, what we shall drink, what we shall put on,
- 2:44Speaker 1: what we shall see, what we shall hear, what we
- 2:47Speaker 1: shall gain, how we shall please our senses of our
- 2:49Speaker 1: imagination takes up all our time and engrosses all our thoughts.
- 2:54Speaker 1: So long therefore, as we love the world, that is,
- 2:58Speaker 1: so long as we are in our natural state, all
- 3:00Speaker 1: our thoughts from morning to evening, and from evening to
- 3:03Speaker 1: morning are no other than wandering thoughts. But many times
- 3:07Speaker 1: we are not only without God in the world, but
- 3:09Speaker 1: also fighting against Him, as there is in every man
- 3:12Speaker 1: by nature a carnal mind, which is an enmity against God.
- 3:16Speaker 1: No wonder, therefore the men abound with unbelieving thoughts, either
- 3:20Speaker 1: saying in their hearts. There is no God or questioning,
- 3:23Speaker 1: if not denying his power or wisdom, his mercy, or
- 3:27Speaker 1: justice or holiness. No wonder that they so often doubt
- 3:30Speaker 1: of His providence, at least of its extending to all events,
- 3:35Speaker 1: or that even though they allow it, they still entertain
- 3:37Speaker 1: murmuring or repining thoughts. Nearly related to these, and frequently
- 3:41Speaker 1: connected with them, are proud and vain imaginations. Again, sometimes
- 3:46Speaker 1: they are taken up with angry, malicious, or revengeful thoughts,
- 3:50Speaker 1: at other times with airy scenes of pleasure, whether of
- 3:53Speaker 1: sense or imagination, whereby the earthly sensual mind becomes more
- 3:57Speaker 1: earthy and sensual. Still, now, by all these they make
- 4:01Speaker 1: flat war with God. These are wandering thoughts of the
- 4:04Speaker 1: highest kind. Widely different from these are the other sort
- 4:07Speaker 1: of wandering thoughts, which the heart does not wander from God,
- 4:11Speaker 1: but the understanding wanders from the particular point it had
- 4:14Speaker 1: then in view. For instance, I sit down to consider
- 4:17Speaker 1: those words in the verse preceding the text. The weapons
- 4:20Speaker 1: of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God.
- 4:24Speaker 1: I think this ought to be the case with all
- 4:27Speaker 1: that are called Christians. But how far it is that otherwise?
- 4:30Speaker 1: Look round into almost every part of what is termed
- 4:32Speaker 1: the Christian world. What manner of weapons are these using?
- 4:36Speaker 1: And what kind of warfare are they engaged? While men
- 4:39Speaker 1: like fiends each other terror in all the hellas rage
- 4:42Speaker 1: of war? See how these Christians love one another? Wherein
- 4:47Speaker 1: are they preferable to Turks and Pagans? What abomination can
- 4:50Speaker 1: be found among Omedans or Heathens which is not found
- 4:53Speaker 1: among Christians? Also? And thus my mind runs off before
- 4:57Speaker 1: I am aware one circumstances to another. Now, all these
- 5:00Speaker 1: are in some sense wandering thoughts. For although they do
- 5:03Speaker 1: not wander from God, much less fight against Him, yet
- 5:07Speaker 1: they do wander from the particular point I had in view.
- 5:10Speaker 1: Such is the nature. Such are the sorts, to speak
- 5:13Speaker 1: rather usefully than philosophically, of wandering thoughts. What are the
- 5:17Speaker 1: general occasions of them? This we are in the second
- 5:20Speaker 1: place to consider. And it is easy to observe the
- 5:23Speaker 1: occasion of the wandering sort of thoughts which oppose or
- 5:26Speaker 1: wander from God are in general sinful tempers. For instance,
- 5:31Speaker 1: why is not God in all the thoughts in any
- 5:33Speaker 1: of the thoughts of a natural man? For a plain reason,
- 5:36Speaker 1: be he rich or poor, learned, or unlearned. He is
- 5:39Speaker 1: an atheist, though not vulgarly so called. He neither knows
- 5:44Speaker 1: nor loves God. Why are his thoughts continually wandering after
- 5:47Speaker 1: the world? Because he is an idolater. He does not
- 5:49Speaker 1: indeed worship an image or bout down to the stock
- 5:52Speaker 1: of a tree. Yet is he sunk into equally damnable idolatry.
- 5:56Speaker 1: He loves, that is, worships of the world. He seeks
- 6:00Speaker 1: happiness in the things that are seen, in the pleasures
- 6:03Speaker 1: that perish in the using. Why is it that his
- 6:05Speaker 1: thoughts perpetually wandering from the very end of his being,
- 6:08Speaker 1: the knowledge of God in Christ. Because he is an unbeliever,
- 6:12Speaker 1: because he has no faith, or at least no more
- 6:14Speaker 1: than a devil. So all these wandering thoughts easily and
- 6:17Speaker 1: naturally spring from that evil root of unbelief. The case
- 6:21Speaker 1: is the same in other instances. Pride, anger, revenge, vanity, lust, covetousness.
- 6:27Speaker 1: Every one of them occasions thoughts suitable to its own nature,
- 6:31Speaker 1: And so does every sinful temper which the human mind
- 6:33Speaker 1: is capable. The particulars, it is hardly possible, nor is
- 6:37Speaker 1: it needful to enumerate. It suffices to observe that as
- 6:40Speaker 1: many evil tempers as find a place in any soul,
- 6:44Speaker 1: so many ways that soul will depart from God by
- 6:46Speaker 1: the worst kind of wandering thoughts. The occasions of the
- 6:50Speaker 1: latter kind of wandering thoughts are exceeding. Various multitudes of
- 6:54Speaker 1: them are occasioned by the natural union between the soul
- 6:57Speaker 1: and body. How immediately and how deeply is understand affected
- 7:00Speaker 1: by a diseased body. Let but the blood move irregularly
- 7:03Speaker 1: in the brain, and all regular thinking is at an end,
- 7:06Speaker 1: raging madness ensues, and then farewell to all evenness of thought. Yea,
- 7:11Speaker 1: let only the spirits be hurried or agitated to a
- 7:13Speaker 1: certain degree, and a temporary madness, a delirium, prevents all
- 7:18Speaker 1: subtled thought, and is not the same regularity of thought
- 7:21Speaker 1: in a measure occasioned by every nervous disorder. So does
- 7:24Speaker 1: the corruptible body press down the soul and cause it
- 7:27Speaker 1: to muse about many things? Does it only cause this
- 7:30Speaker 1: in the time of sickness, or preach natural disorder? Nay,
- 7:34Speaker 1: but more or less at all times. Even in a
- 7:36Speaker 1: state of perfect health. Let a man be ever so healthy,
- 7:40Speaker 1: he will be more or less delirious every four and
- 7:42Speaker 1: twenty hours, Or does he not sleep? While he sleeps?
- 7:45Speaker 1: Is he not liable to dream? And who then is
- 7:48Speaker 1: master of his own thoughts? Are able to preserve the
- 7:50Speaker 1: order in consistency of them? Who can then keep them
- 7:53Speaker 1: fixed to any one point, or prevent their wandering from
- 7:56Speaker 1: pole to pole? But suppose we are awake, Are we
- 7:59Speaker 1: always so awake that we can steadily govern our thoughts?
- 8:02Speaker 1: Are we not unavoidably exposed to contrary extremes by the
- 8:06Speaker 1: very nature of this machine the body? Sometimes we are
- 8:09Speaker 1: too heavy, too dull, and languid to pursue any chain
- 8:12Speaker 1: of thought. Sometimes, on the other hand, we are too lively.
- 8:16Speaker 1: The imagination, without leave starts to and fro and carries
- 8:20Speaker 1: us away hither and thither, whether we will or no,
- 8:23Speaker 1: And all this from the merely natural motion of the
- 8:25Speaker 1: spirits or vibration of the nerves farther, How many wanderings
- 8:30Speaker 1: of thoughts may arise from these various associations of our ideas,
- 8:33Speaker 1: which are made entirely without our knowledge and independently on
- 8:37Speaker 1: our choice. How these connections are formed we cannot tell.
- 8:40Speaker 1: But they are formed in a thousand different manners. Nor
- 8:43Speaker 1: is it in the power of the wisest or holiest
- 8:45Speaker 1: of men to break those associations or prevent what is
- 8:48Speaker 1: the necessary consequence of them. And matter of daily observation
- 8:53Speaker 1: the fire. But touch one end of the train, and
- 8:56Speaker 1: it immediately runs on to the other. Once more, let
- 9:00Speaker 1: us fix our attention as studiously as we are able,
- 9:02Speaker 1: on any subject, and let either pleasure or pain arise,
- 9:06Speaker 1: especially if it be intense, and it will demand our
- 9:08Speaker 1: immediate attention and attach our thoughts to itself. It will
- 9:12Speaker 1: interrupt the steadiest contemplation and divert the mind from its
- 9:15Speaker 1: favorite subjects. These occasions of wandering thoughts lie within, are
- 9:18Speaker 1: wrought into our very nature. But they will likewise naturally
- 9:22Speaker 1: and necessarily arise from the various impulse of outward objects.
- 9:26Speaker 1: Whatever strikes upon the organ of sense, the eye or
- 9:28Speaker 1: ear will raise a perception in the mind, and accordingly,
- 9:32Speaker 1: but if we see or hear, will break in upon
- 9:34Speaker 1: our former train of thought. Every man, Therefore, that is
- 9:38Speaker 1: anything in our sight which speaks anything on our hearing,
- 9:41Speaker 1: occasions our mind to wander more or less from that
- 9:44Speaker 1: point it was thinking of before. And there is no
- 9:46Speaker 1: question but those evil spirits who are continually seeking whom
- 9:49Speaker 1: they may devour, make use of all the foregoing occasions
- 9:52Speaker 1: to hurry and distract our minds, sometimes by one, sometimes
- 9:56Speaker 1: sometimes by another. Of these means, they will harass and
- 9:59Speaker 1: perplex it, and so far as God permits, interrupt our thoughts,
- 10:03Speaker 1: particularly when they are engaged on the best subjects. Nor
- 10:06Speaker 1: is this at all strange. They will understand the very
- 10:09Speaker 1: springs of thought and know on which of the bodily organs,
- 10:12Speaker 1: the imagination, the understanding, and every other faculty of the
- 10:15Speaker 1: mind more immediately depends. And hereby they know how by
- 10:18Speaker 1: affecting those organs, to effect the operations dependent on them.
- 10:22Speaker 1: Add to this that they can inject the thousand thoughts
- 10:24Speaker 1: without any of the preceding means, in being as natural
- 10:27Speaker 1: for spirit to act upon spirit, as form matter to
- 10:30Speaker 1: act upon matter. These things being considered, we cannot admire
- 10:33Speaker 1: that our thoughts so often wanders from any point which
- 10:36Speaker 1: we have in view. What kind of wandering thoughts are sinful?
- 10:39Speaker 1: And what not? Is the third thing to be inquired into.
- 10:42Speaker 1: And first, all those thoughts which wander from God, which
- 10:45Speaker 1: leave him no room in our minds, are undoubtedly sinful.
- 10:49Speaker 1: For all these imply practical atheism, and by these we
- 10:52Speaker 1: are without God in the world. And so much more
- 10:55Speaker 1: are all those which are contrary to God, which imply
- 10:57Speaker 1: opposition or enmity to Him, such a murmuring, discontented thought,
- 11:02Speaker 1: which say, in effect, we will not have THEE to
- 11:04Speaker 1: rule over us all unbelieving thoughts, whether with regard to
- 11:08Speaker 1: His being, his attributes, or his providence, I mean his
- 11:11Speaker 1: particular providence over all things, as well as all persons
- 11:15Speaker 1: in the universe, that without which not its sparrow falls
- 11:17Speaker 1: to the ground, which the hairs of our head are
- 11:20Speaker 1: all numbered. For as to a general providence, vulgarly so
- 11:23Speaker 1: called hutter, distinguished from a particular is only a decent
- 11:27Speaker 1: while sounding word which means just nothing. Again, all thoughts
- 11:32Speaker 1: which spring from sinful tempers are undoubtedly sinful, such for instance,
- 11:36Speaker 1: of those that spring from revengeful temper, pride, or lust,
- 11:39Speaker 1: or vanity. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit. Therefore,
- 11:44Speaker 1: if the tree be evil, so must the fruit be also,
- 11:47Speaker 1: And so must those be which either produce or feed
- 11:49Speaker 1: any sinful temper. Those which either give rise to pride
- 11:52Speaker 1: or vanity, to anger, or love of the world, or
- 11:55Speaker 1: confirm and increase these or any other unholy temper, passion,
- 11:59Speaker 1: or effect. But not only whatever flows from evil is evil,
- 12:03Speaker 1: but also whatever leads to it, whatever tends to alienate
- 12:06Speaker 1: the soul from God, and to make or keep it earthly, sensual,
- 12:10Speaker 1: and devilish. Hence, even those thoughts which are occasioned by
- 12:13Speaker 1: weakness or disease, by the natural mechanism of the body,
- 12:16Speaker 1: are by the laws of vital union. However innocent they
- 12:19Speaker 1: may be in themselves, do nevertheless become sinful when they
- 12:23Speaker 1: eye that produce or cherish an increase in us any
- 12:25Speaker 1: sinful temper, suppose the desire of the flesh, the desire
- 12:28Speaker 1: of the eye, or the pride of life. In like manner,
- 12:31Speaker 1: the wandering thoughts which are occasioned by the words or
- 12:34Speaker 1: actions of other men, if they cause or feet any
- 12:36Speaker 1: wrong disposition, then commence sinful. And the same we may
- 12:40Speaker 1: observe those which are suggested or injected by the devil.
- 12:44Speaker 1: When they administer to any earthly or devilish temper, which
- 12:47Speaker 1: they do whenever we give place to them, and hereby
- 12:50Speaker 1: make them our own, then they are equally sinful the
- 12:52Speaker 1: tempers to which they minister. But abstracting from these cases,
- 12:56Speaker 1: wandering thoughts in the latter sense of the word, that
- 12:59Speaker 1: his thoughts, wherein our understanding, wanders from the point it
- 13:01Speaker 1: has in view, are no more sinful than the motion
- 13:04Speaker 1: of the blood in our veins or the spirits in
- 13:06Speaker 1: our brain. If they arise from an infirm constitution, or
- 13:09Speaker 1: from accidental weakness or distemper they are as innocent as
- 13:13Speaker 1: it is to have a weak constitution or a distempered body.
- 13:16Speaker 1: And surely no one doubts, but a bad state of nerves,
- 13:19Speaker 1: a fever of any kind, and either transient or lasting delirium,
- 13:23Speaker 1: may consist with perfect innocence, And they should arise in
- 13:26Speaker 1: a soul which is united to a healthful body, Are
- 13:28Speaker 1: that from the natural union between the body and soul,
- 13:31Speaker 1: or from any of ten thousand changes which it may
- 13:33Speaker 1: occur in those organs of the body that minister to thought.
- 13:36Speaker 1: In any of these cases, they are as perfectly innocent
- 13:38Speaker 1: as to causes from which they spring, And so they
- 13:41Speaker 1: are when they spring from the casual, involuntary associations of
- 13:45Speaker 1: our thoughts. If our thoughts wander from the point we
- 13:48Speaker 1: had in view by means of other men variously affecting
- 13:51Speaker 1: our senses, they are equally innocent still, for it is
- 13:54Speaker 1: no more a sin to understand what I see and hear,
- 13:58Speaker 1: and in many cases cannot help seeing and understanding, than
- 14:01Speaker 1: it is to have eyes and ears. And if the
- 14:04Speaker 1: devil injects wandering thoughts, are not those thoughts evil, They
- 14:08Speaker 1: are troublesome in that sense evil, but they are not sinful.
- 14:12Speaker 1: I do not know that he spoke to our Lord
- 14:14Speaker 1: with an audible voice. Perhaps he spoke to his heart
- 14:17Speaker 1: only when he said, all these things, will they give
- 14:19Speaker 1: thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me. But
- 14:22Speaker 1: whether he spoke inwardly or outwardly, our Lord doubtless understood
- 14:25Speaker 1: what he said. He had therefore a thought correspondent to
- 14:28Speaker 1: those words. But was it a sinful thoughts? We know
- 14:31Speaker 1: it was not in him was no sin, either in
- 14:33Speaker 1: action or a word or thought. Nor is there any
- 14:36Speaker 1: sin in the thousand thoughts of the same kind which
- 14:38Speaker 1: Satan may inject into any of our Lord's followers. It
- 14:41Speaker 1: follows that none of these wandering thoughts, whatever unweary persons
- 14:45Speaker 1: have affirmed thereby grieving whom the Lord had not grieved,
- 14:48Speaker 1: are inconsistent with perfect love. Indeed, if they were, then
- 14:51Speaker 1: not only sharp pain, but sleep itself and be inconsistent
- 14:54Speaker 1: with it sharp pain. For whenever this supervenes whatever we
- 14:58Speaker 1: are before thinking of, it will interrupt our thinking, and
- 15:01Speaker 1: of course draw our thoughts into another channel. Yea, and
- 15:04Speaker 1: sleep itself, as it is a state of insensibility and stupidity,
- 15:07Speaker 1: and such as is generally mixed with the thoughts wandering
- 15:10Speaker 1: over the earth, loose, wild and incoherent it. Certainly these
- 15:13Speaker 1: are consistent with perfect love. So then, are all wandering
- 15:16Speaker 1: thoughts of this kind. What has been observed is easy
- 15:20Speaker 1: to give a clear answer to the last question. What
- 15:22Speaker 1: kind of wandering thoughts we may expect and pray to
- 15:25Speaker 1: be delivered from? From the former sort of wandering thoughts
- 15:28Speaker 1: those who are in the heart wanders from God, from
- 15:30Speaker 1: all their contrary to His will, or to leave us
- 15:33Speaker 1: without God in the world. Every one is perfected in
- 15:35Speaker 1: love is unquestionably delivered this deliverance. Therefore we may expect this.
- 15:41Speaker 1: We may we ought to pray for wandering thoughts of
- 15:43Speaker 1: this kind imply unbelief, if not enmity against God. But
- 15:47Speaker 1: both of these He will destroy bring utterly to an end.
- 15:51Speaker 1: And indeed, from all sinful wandering thoughts, we shall be
- 15:53Speaker 1: absolutely delivered all their perfected in love are delivered from these,
- 15:58Speaker 1: else they are not saved from sin. Men and devils
- 16:00Speaker 1: will tempt them all manner of ways, but they cannot
- 16:03Speaker 1: prevail over them. With regard to the latter sort of
- 16:06Speaker 1: wandering thoughts, the case is widely different. Till the cause
- 16:09Speaker 1: is removed, we cannot in reason expect the effect should cease.
- 16:12Speaker 1: But the causes or occasions of these will remain as
- 16:14Speaker 1: long as we remain in the body. So long therefore
- 16:17Speaker 1: we have all reason to believe the effects will remain. Also,
- 16:20Speaker 1: to be more particular, suppose a soul, however, wholly to
- 16:23Speaker 1: dwell in a distempered body. Suppose the brain be so
- 16:26Speaker 1: thoroughly disordered as that raging madness follows, will not all
- 16:29Speaker 1: the thoughts be wild and unconnected as long as that
- 16:32Speaker 1: disorder continues. Suppose a fever occasions at temporary madness, which
- 16:36Speaker 1: we term a delirium. Can there be any just connection
- 16:39Speaker 1: of thought till that delirium is removed? YEA suppose of
- 16:42Speaker 1: what is called a nervous disorder de rise to so
- 16:45Speaker 1: high a degree as to occasion at least that partial madness.
- 16:48Speaker 1: Whether not be a thousand wandering thoughts, and must not
- 16:50Speaker 1: these irregular thoughts continue as long as the disorder which
- 16:53Speaker 1: occasions them. Will not the case be the same with
- 16:56Speaker 1: regard to those thoughts but necessarily arise from violent pain.
- 17:00Speaker 1: They will more or less continue while that pain continues
- 17:02Speaker 1: by the unviolable order of nature. This order, likewise will
- 17:06Speaker 1: obtain where the thoughts are disturbed, broken, or interrupted by
- 17:10Speaker 1: any defect of the apprehension, judgment, or imagination flowing from
- 17:14Speaker 1: the natural constitution of the body. And how many interruptions
- 17:17Speaker 1: may spring from the unaccountable and involuntary association of our ideas.
- 17:22Speaker 1: Now all these are directly or indirectly caused by the
- 17:25Speaker 1: in corruptible body pressing down the mind. Nor therefore can
- 17:29Speaker 1: we expect them to be removed till this corruptible should
- 17:31Speaker 1: be put on in corruption. And then only when we
- 17:34Speaker 1: lie down in the dust shall we be delivered from
- 17:36Speaker 1: those wandering thoughts which are occasioned by what we see
- 17:39Speaker 1: and hear among those by whom we are now surrounded.
- 17:43Speaker 1: To avoid these, you must go out of the world
- 17:45Speaker 1: for as long as we remain therein as long as
- 17:47Speaker 1: there are men and women round about us. And we
- 17:49Speaker 1: have eyes to see and ears to hear. The things
- 17:51Speaker 1: which we daily see and hear will certainly affect our mind,
- 17:54Speaker 1: and will more or less break in upon and interrupt
- 17:57Speaker 1: our preceding thoughts. And as long as evil spirits run
- 18:00Speaker 1: to and fro in a miserable, disordered world, so long
- 18:03Speaker 1: they will assault, whether they can prevail or know every
- 18:06Speaker 1: inhabitant of flesh and blood. They will trouble, even those
- 18:08Speaker 1: whom they cannot destroy. They will attack if they cannot conquer.
- 18:13Speaker 1: And from these attacks of our restless, unwearied enemies, we
- 18:16Speaker 1: must look not for an entire deliverance till we are lodged,
- 18:18Speaker 1: whether the wicked cease from troubling, and from where the
- 18:20Speaker 1: weary are at rest. To sum up the whole, To
- 18:23Speaker 1: expect deliverance from those wandering thoughts which are occasioned by
- 18:26Speaker 1: evil spirits is to expect that the devil shall die
- 18:29Speaker 1: or fall asleep, or at least should no more go
- 18:31Speaker 1: about as a roaring lion. To expect a deliverance from
- 18:34Speaker 1: those which are occasioned by other men is to expect
- 18:36Speaker 1: either that men should cease from the earth, or that
- 18:38Speaker 1: we should be absolutely secluded from them, And have no
- 18:41Speaker 1: intercourse with them, whe that having eyes, we should see
- 18:43Speaker 1: neither here with our ears, but be as senseless as
- 18:46Speaker 1: stocks or stones. And to pray for deliverance from those
- 18:49Speaker 1: which are occasioned by the body is in effect to
- 18:51Speaker 1: pray that we may leave the body. Otherwise it is
- 18:54Speaker 1: praying for impossibilities and absurdities, praying that God would reconcile
- 18:58Speaker 1: contradictions by continuing our union with a corruptible body without
- 19:01Speaker 1: the natural necessary consequences of that union. It as if
- 19:04Speaker 1: we should pray to be angels in men, mortal and
- 19:07Speaker 1: immortal at the same time. Nay, but when that which
- 19:10Speaker 1: is immortal has come, mortality is done away. Or rather,
- 19:14Speaker 1: let us pray both that the spirit and with the understanding,
- 19:17Speaker 1: that all these things may work together for our good,
- 19:19Speaker 1: that we may suffer all the infirmities of our nature,
- 19:22Speaker 1: all the interruptions of men, all the assault and suggestions
- 19:25Speaker 1: of evil spirits, and in all be more than conquerors.
- 19:28Speaker 1: Let us pray that we may be delivered from all sin,
- 19:31Speaker 1: that both the roots and branch may be destroyed, that
- 19:34Speaker 1: we may be cleansed from all pollution of flesh and spirit,
- 19:37Speaker 1: from every evil temper and word, and work, that we
- 19:40Speaker 1: may love the Lord, our God with all our heart,
- 19:42Speaker 1: with all our mind, with all our soul, with all
- 19:45Speaker 1: our strength, that all the Spirit may be found in us,
- 19:48Speaker 1: not only love, joy, peace, but also long suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, temperance.
- 19:56Speaker 1: Pray that all these things may flourish and abound, may
- 19:59Speaker 1: increase in you. More more, do an abundant entrance be
- 20:01Speaker 1: ministered unto you into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord
- 20:05Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. End of Section forty two.