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hen the fpirits flag, the blood chills, and he pulfe beats low, and the evil days come on wherein we have no pleafure in them, the deays of nature fet the foul at fome tolerable fort of liberty to reflect upon her own condition; but as to the other, age generally ferves only to confirm and establish us in them for how rarely do we see a covetous wretch let go his hold of the earth, tho' he is dropping into it? How feldom are envy and malice exchanged for contentment and good nature? And when fee we the proud, ambitious man reduced to the fame level of mind with his humble neighbours? Sins of this kind have too much of the Ethiopian's fkin and the leopard's fpots, eafily to admit the laver of regeneration. Accordingly, we find the angels who kept not their firft ftation, referved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgment of the great day, for fins of this incorrigible kind: for fuppofe their fin to be pride and ambition, malice, or envy, or what you will, 'twas certainly transacted in the mind, without the intervention of corporeal efficiency, and deriv'd its peculiar venom from the fpirituality of its nature. Mental fins then were the first, and are ftill, confidered in themselves, the most crying provocations.

SECT.

SECT. IV.

OTHER REASONS WHY WE SHOULD GO

VERN OUR THOUGHTS.

ESIDES what has been hitherto alledg'd

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on this behalf, the confideration of God's all-feeing eye ought alfo to influence the conduct of our thoughts: They lie not indeed within the sphere of human justice, are without the ken of human inspection, no eye can pry into the receffes of the heart; but God fees, and knows, and reads their fubtileft motions and darkest intrigues, with greater perfpicuity than we do men's outward words and actions: For lo there is not a Thought, not a motion of the leaft fibre in our hearts, but he knoweth it altogether, knoweth it afar off, at the diftance of eternity itself, 'ere we, or our Thoughts had any other being than in the divine idea. *For no Thought can be with-holden from him.+ Hell and Destruction are before him, how much more then the hearts of the Children of Men? And then how ftrongly are we obliged to keep good order there, fince they are under the eye of fo intimate and accurate an obferver of their internal motions, and fubject to the

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the inspection of fo true a judge of good difcipline, and fo fevere an avenger of bad? But I fhall urge this confideration farther in its proper place, as a means to affift us in the ordering of our Thoughts aright: And therefore,

II. In order to this end, it would be confidered, That God bears a fpecial regard to the obedience of our hearts and affections: For tho' bright and fhining examples of vire tue diffuse a luftre round them, promote the divine honour, and induce men to glorify the great Father of such burning lights which are in heaven; yet, nothing is fo unexceptionable a demonftration of the power of grace, and the fincerity of our hearts, as a confcientious care and management of thofe Thoughts that fly up and down in them: For where fuch an obedience is yielded to the divine commands as no eye can pry to, but that which is ten thousand times brighter than the fun in its zenith, it cannot poffibly admit of the leaft intermixture or fufpicion of by-respects; but must be tender'd to God purely for his own fake, from a true spiritual principle of life, and in a spiritual manner: And then what facrifice can poffibly be more acceptable to our Maker,

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than the immediate iffues and emanations of our fouls when there is no ftander by, no witness of what paffes betwixt God and our fouls in private; no fecular confideration that can poffibly engage us, nor temporal rewards or punishments to induce or force us to the discharge of spiritual and hidden a duty?

III. 'Tis a main point of wisdom, and argument of a good understanding, to be able to order our Thoughts aright; and the acquifition of that noble character should spur us on to this discipline of our minds: All the reasonable world will allow him to be a perfon of vaft compafs of understanding, who, by fore-feeing and providing against the exigencies of ftate, by knowing how to compound, temper, and qualify the different interefts, paffions, and perfuafions of men, &c. prudently adminifters a government; and if fo, no less will he deserve the character who governs his thoughts well; for they are a great people for number, and as mutinous and diforderly as the moft tumultuous rabble; fo that they who rule well, in this fenfe too, are worthy of double honour.

IV. AND laftly, let the confideration of the noble and dignified nature of our Thoughts,

Thoughts, induce us to an orderly management of them; for they are beams of that Light wich is inacceffible; the immediate fruits and eldest fons of that immortal parent in us, which is nearly allied to the Divinity itfelf: and how then can we poffibly be fo infenfible of our own high character, who were framed after the image of the immortal God, and are defigned to be made more ample partakers of his nature, as to lay out our time and pains fo bufily as we do in the management of a family, acquiring an eftate, and supporting or adorning a mouldering carcafe; and yet, totally difregard the menage of our Thoughts, which are the pride and glory of our nature? For wherein else, but in this thinking, reasoning power, do we differ from the inhabitants of our ftable, or our kennel? And as this in general difcriminates our nature from theirs; fo, I had almost faid, does one man as much differ from, and excel another, by how much he is the better mafter of his Thoughts, and can lay them out to more generous purpofes: If therefore we have any juft fenfe of the dignity of our human nature, and would advance and improve that part of us which is properly the man; we must manage those Thoughts by which we manage every thing

elfe.

CHAP.

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