LECTURE VIII.

CORRECTIVES OF VAIN THOUGHTS,

JEREMIAH iv. 14.

"How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?"

THE former discourse on this text was chiefly a representation of matter of fact. It was an attempt to describe the plague of vain thoughts, a mental grievance bearing really no small analogy to one or two of the plagues of Egypt. The description was in too many particulars to allow of any attempt at recapitulation. With all their varieties, however, and compass, and mischief, they stand as but one class of the evil thoughts by which the human mind is infested, that of the trifling, empty, impertinent, volatile, useless-as distinguishable from vicious or polluted thoughts, malignant thoughts, and thoughts directly impious.

The evil, the sin and perniciousness of vain thoughts, could not but be manifest in a mere description of them, if at all adequately given. Such a description would necessarily display, as a miserable thing, the waste of the activity of the thinking principle. Consider, that we have need of a profitable use of all this, and are kept poor by the waste; we cannot afford it. The sun may waste an immense proportion of his beams-the clouds of their showers—but these can be spared; there is an infinite opulence still, for all the indispensable purposes of nature. It is not so with our thinking faculty. The most saving use of our thinking power will but imperfectly suffice for the knowledge, sound judgment, and wisdom which are so very necessary for us.

It is wretched, then, that this precious thing, the activity of our thinking spirit, should run to utter waste. It is as if the fine element by means of which your city is now lighted should be suffered to expire into the air without being kindled into light.

Again, this vanity of the thoughts puts us practically out of the relation we are placed in to the highest objects and interests. We are placed in a relation to God-Christ—a future world-to an infinite interest. Now how is this relation to be recognized, to be practically realized to our minds? how can it be, but by thought of an appropriate kind ? The sensible connexion of the mind with those great objects, its contact with them, must be by means of there being in it ideas of those objects, ideas in a degree corresponding to their greatness. Certainly, not ideas alone, when we are speaking of a saving and happy connexion with divine objects, but at all events, ideas. Now how are these important and solemn ideas to have any occupancy and hold of the mind when it is filled and dissipated with all the vanities of thought? they cannot abide on the mind, nor come to it in such a state. It is, as when, in some regions, a swarm of locusts fills the air, so as to exclude the sun, at once intercepting the light of heaven, and devouring what it should shine on. Thus by ill-regulated thought we are defrauded of what is the supreme value of thought. We amuse ourselves with 'the flying chaff, careless of the precious grain.

And then, if we advert to the important matters of practical duty, it is instantly seen how ill vain thoughts will serve us there. To note but one, the duty of imparting instruction, the social promotion of wisdom. What will ten thousand of these trifling volatile thoughts come to, for explaining any subject, disentangling any perplexity, rectifying any false notion, enforcing any argument, maintaining

any truth? It is in vain that the man glances, in recollection and research, through all the idle crowd of his ideas for anything to avail him. It were like bringing straws, and leaves, and feathers to meet an accompt where silver and gold are required. Such a person feels an inability to concentrate his thoughts to a purpose of social wisdom, when there is a particular occasion to do so, and an extreme repugnance to make the attempt. In consequence, the communications of social life will contribute little to improvement; they will be dissipated among trifling topics; they will be shallow and unprofitable on important ones; they will tend to run quite into levity and folly.

Now if we endeavour to survey in one collective view the modes and characters of this evil habit, and its effects, we behold something utterly unsuited to the condition of the immortal spirit on earth, and fatally at variance with its high destiny. It is here under a great and solemn appointment, advancing into a life of the same duration as that of its Creator. And a prevailing vanity of thought is a flagrant inconsistency with the nature and obligations of this awful predicament. Here is a destination to the magnitude of which the greatest thoughts of the highest created being are inadequate—and a prevailing manner of thinking but just worthy-hardly worthy-of a creature whose utmost scope of interest should be to amuse away a few years on earth, and then sink in the dust wholly and

for ever!

Now if we are conscious that this vanity of the thoughts is an evil besetting us, shall we not be earnestly desirous that it may be counteracted? If we are, we shall be well disposed to the consideration of anything that may contribute to the remedy of so great an evil. Our present business is to offer a few suggestions to this purpose.

But, in the first place, we are to beware of imagining,

that for such an evil, there can be any discipline exclusively specific and peculiar; any discipline that should treat the malady as a circumstance only of the state of the mind, separable from its general condition; as in the healing art there are what they call topical complaints, and their appropriate applications.

It is indeed self-evident that the habitual quality of the thoughts will correspond to the general state of the mind. Just left to themselves, to arise and act spontaneously, they would express the very state of the soul, its inclinations, perversions, ignorance, or any better quality there may be in it. So that if the involuntary thoughts could but strike against a mirror, a man might see his mental image.

Therefore no corrective discipline for the thoughts can be effectual that does not apply to the substantial, habitual state of the mind. If there were a spot of marshy ground, which exhaled offensive vapours, it would be ridiculous to think of expedients to be used in the air above it, fumigations, or any such thing; the ground itself must be drained and reclaimed. And as to the correction of the mental vice in question, how evident it is that it is not to be a thing to operate solely on the thoughts themselves (rejecting, repelling, substituting, &c.), but to operate too, and primarily, on that in the mind which causes their prevalence. The passions and affections are grand sources of thoughts,they, therefore, are to be in a rectified state not tending to produce vain thoughts. The subjects most largely occupying the mind, most effectually "lodged" in it--the measure of valuable knowledge-will have a great effect on even the involuntary thoughts. It is requisite the mind be in a settled state, not essentially tending to vain thoughts; and that there be strong fixed principles adverse to them, so that the case shall be, "I hate vain thoughts." (Psalm exix. 113.)

We should here in passing, mark a distinction. The evil in question may be seen reversed in a special and partial sense. In some one capacity a man may be in a great measure freed or exempted from the trifling, empty, volatile class of ideas. For instance, a man of science, vigorously disciplined to think, so that few of his ideas absolutely run to waste; or a man of learning; or a man of arduous worldly enterprise. Now this is great and admirable, regarded simply in an intellectual view; viewed apart from moral and religious references. The defect may be that his object is fatally limited and exclusive; that he leaves out the most important of all duties and interests of an immortal being, and trifles with them.

In our exhortation against the vanities of thought, we are regarding man in his general whole capacity, as related to this world and the next. And we want him to acquire some measure of such a well-ordered habit of thought as directed to all his concerns. In other words, that as a Christian, he should be such, in the discipline of his thinking, as some men are in capacity of worldly schemers, or scholars, or philosophers.

And now, having insisted on it as the primary point, that the substantial state of the mind must be cured of vanity, in order to the radical correction of vain thoughts, and always keeping this in remembrance, can we suggest any particular expedients of a discipline against vain thoughts? We must not for a moment fancy there are any expedients that can avail independently of resolute exertion. There is no dexterous device to obviate an evil arising from a habitual propensity of the mind; especially when it is added that a habitual propensity will have been in some degree habitually indulged. There is no mental wand of enchantment at the waving of which the infesting swarm shall suddenly die, and the grievance cease. They will but make sport of any