perceive the almost irresistible tendency of his thoughts And wherefore ? Let him soberly make out to himself, what mine of wealth, what reservoir of felicity, what principle of divinity, there can be enclosed within that trifle! And suppose divine wisdom to come in upon him, and he would execrate this vanity of his thoughts. And the principle, the spell of this captivation, what should he call it but the magnetism of Satan.

VIII. Partly like this is that vanity of which many have to accuse their thoughts, in relation to things perhaps not exactly of the frivolous class, and that justly claim a measure of thought; namely, the tendency to return to them continually, when it is sensibly evident that the thinking more of them can be of no advantage. The thought goes again just in the very same track, and the same length; nor expects to do any more. It makes the same enumeration of things, the same comparison, the same calculation. A person perhaps repeats within himself twenty times over what he has said in some particular case, or heard, or done; he measures fifty times over the probable distance of time to some wished for future event, when he knows that nothing on earth is more useless.

IX. This will often be accompanied by another mode of vain thought, that of allowing the mind to dwell on fancies, of how things might be, or might have been; when the plain reality of how they are and must be, is before us.

X. Finally, a wide and aggravated charge of vain thought falls upon men's notions and schemings of worldly felicity. The evil attending and resulting from all this might be exposed as a distinct additional topic of illustration; but it must in a measure be evident in the mere description of these vanities of the thoughts.

Some suggestions of a corrective discipline, however, we did intend to have made. If we may assume that it is a

subject as acceptable, as it is plainly important, it might be a good use of our moments on the next occasion to direct our thoughts to that subject. But the great point is, that we be desirous, in good earnest, to have so pernicious an evil corrected; that our thinking and immortal spirits, which should be temples of the Most High, may not be the degraded recesses of every vanity with which his Spirit cannot dwell.

April 4th, 1822.

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 occupaney 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,