all orders and degrees of men, are impelled or distracted by them. Doubtless, it is the duty of every man to attend to the proper business of his calling : but when his mind is so occu- pied with earthly things as that he can find no delight in those which are heavenly, he is sinning against God, who would have him without carefulness0, and commands him to "set his affections on things above, and not on things below d."
It is scarcely needful to mention, that amongst the vainest thoughts which find a lodgment within us, are those which are impure. It is surprising with what violence these will some- times assault the soul ; how they will haunt it by night and by day ; how they will intrude even into the holiest places, and interrupt our holiest services. Nor can we doubt in what light they are to be regarded, when God himself has declared an unchaste look to be the same in his sight as actual adultery e.]
Not to enumerate any more vain thoughts, we shall rather proceed to shew,
II. The necessity of cleansing ourselves from them —
We cannot cleanse ourselves from the guilt which we have already contracted, unless we wash in " the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness." Nor can we purify ourselves from the pollution of sin, un- less the Holy Ghost work effectually in usf. Yet this does not supersede the use of means ; for when the text exhorts us to " wash our hearts from wickedness," it implies that,
1. It may be done —
[Though the power is certainly of God, yet there is much to be done by us : we should maintain a sense of God 's pre- sence with us. If the eye of a fellow-creature, even of a child, were upon us, we should be deterred by it from the commis- sion of many sins : how then should we be restrained from evil thoughts, if we felt a consciousness that God was privy to every imagination of our hearts !
We should guard against the occasions of sin. All our senses and faculties are inlets to sin, or instruments whereby we commit it. All our intercourse with each other gives occasion to evil, if we be not much on our guard against it. We may, by flattering, or worldly, or light conversation, or
c 1 Cor. vii. 32. Phil. iv. 6. Matt. vi. 25 — 34. d Col. iii. 2. e Matt. v. 28.
f To this effect we pray that " God would cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit."