avenues. Some have found to their cost, that one sinful idea, which they have either seen in a book or picture, or heard in conversation, has abode with them through life, when they have greatly desired to forget it ; whilst hundreds of sermons which they would have been glad to have remembered, have passed from their minds like the early cloud. Behold David, the man after God's own heart; what reason had he to curse the day
that he ever looked upon Bathsheba ! What reason too
had Solomon's fool to lament that ever he listened to the voice of the enchanting adulteress0! It is not without reason that Solomon advises us not to look upon the wine when sparkling in the glass d. We must resist the very first entrance of sin into the soul ; for it will operate like fire on a house of wood. Alas! " how great a matter does a little fire kindlee!" Its progress is very rapid: and who shall stop the conflagration, when once it is begun ? " When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death f." We exhort all then, like Solomon, to make a covenant with their eyes, and with their ears also, yea, and with the very imaginations of their heart; that neither their corporeal nor intel- lectual eyes become ministers of sin, or traitors to their souls.]
We should cry earnestly to God for his effectual grace —
[God does and will preserve his people from evil, if they cry unto him. We should therefore call upon him both for his preventing and his quickening grace: we should pray, as David, " Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity ; and quicken thou me in thy way."
There are many ways in which God will turn away our eyes " from beholding vanity." He will, if we are really seeking it at his hands, keep temptation from us. And how much we are all indebted to him for this, we shall never know, till we come to the bar of judgment, and have all his mercies unfolded to our view. Thousands of our fellow-creatures, who were once as respectable in every point of view as ourselves, have in an hour of temptation so fallen, as to destroy all their own honour and happiness through life. And why have not we done the same? Are we sure that we, if subjected to the same tempta- tions as they, should not have done the same? Oh! if we are wise, we shall cry day and night, " Lead us not into temptation." But there are many other ways in which God can, and does, impart the same blessing. Perhaps he lays some affliction upon our loins, and visits us with some personal or domestic calamity. We are apt on such occasions to complain of the affliction ; whereas, if we saw from what evils the visitation
c Prov. vii. 6 — 23. d Prov. xxiii. 31, 32.
e Jam. iii. 5. f Jam. i. 15.