tion another important consideration, taken from the present state of human nature. Think what your heart now is, and what must be the consequence of remitting your vigilance in watching over it. With too much justice it is said in Scripture to be deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Its bias of innate corruption, gives it a perpetual tendency downwards into vice and disorder. To direct and impel it upwards, requires a constant effort. Experience may convince you, that almost every desire has a propensity to wander into an improper direction; that every passion tends to excess; and that around your imagi nation there perpetually crowds a whole swarm of vain and corrupting thoughts. After all the care that can be bestowed by the best men on the regulation of the heart, it frequently baffles their efforts to keep it under proper discipline. Into what universal tumult, then, must it rise, if no vigilance be employed, and no government be exercised over it? Inattention and remissness are all that the great adversary of mankind desires, in order to gain full advantage. While you sleep, he sows his tares in the field. The house which he finds vacant and unguarded, he presently garnishes with evil spirits.

Add to this, that the human temper is to be

considered as a system, the parts of which have a mutual dependence on each other. Introduce disorder into any one part, and you derange the whole. Suffer but one passion to go out of its place, or to acquire an unnatural force, and presently the balance of the soul will be broken; its powers will jar among themselves, and their operations become discordant.-Keep thy heart, therefore, with all diligence, for all thy diligence is here required. And though thine own keeping alone will not avail, unless the assistance of a higher power concur, yet of this be well assured, that no aid from heaven is to be expected, if thou shalt neglect to exert thyself in performing the part assigned thee.

Having now shewn the importance of exercising government over the heart, I proceed to consider more particularly in what the government consists, as it respects the thoughts, the passions, and the temper.

I begin with the thoughts, which are the prime movers of the whole human conduct. All that makes a figure on the great theatre of the world, the employments of the busy, the enterprises of the ambitious, and the exploits of the warlike, the virtues which form the

happiness, and the crimes which occasion the misery of mankind, originate in that silent and secret recess of thought which is hidden from every human eye. The secrecy and silence which reign there, favour the prejudice, entertained by too many, that thought is exempted from all control. Passions, they perhaps admit, require government and restraint, because they are violent emotions, and disturb society. But with their thoughts they plead, no one is concerned. By these, as long as they remain in their bosom, no offence can be given, and no injury committed. To enjoy, unrestrained, the full range of imagination, appears to them the native right and privilege of man.

Had they to do with none but their fellowcreatures, such reasoning might be specious. But they ought to remember, that in the sight of the Supreme Being, thoughts bear the character of good and evil as much as actions; and that they are, in an especial manner, the subjects of divine jurisdiction, because they are cognizable at no other tribunal. The moral regulation of our thoughts, is the particular test of our reverence for God. If we restrain our passions from breaking forth into open disorders, while we abandon our imagination in secret to corruption; we show that virtue rests with us upon regard to men; and that how

ever we may act a part in public with propriety, there is before our eyes no fear of that God who searcheth the heart, and requireth truth in the inward parts.

But, even abstracting from this awful consideration, the government of our thoughts must appear to be of high consequence, from their direct influence on conduct. It is plain, that thought gives the impulse to every principle of action. Actions are, in truth, no other than thoughts ripened into consistency and substance. So certain is this, that to judge with precision of the character of any man, and to foretel with confidence what part he will act, no more were requisite, than to be rendered capable of viewing the current of thought which passes most frequently within him. Though by such a method we have no access to judge of one another, yet thus it is always in our power to judge of ourselves. Each of us, by impartially scrutinizing his indulged and favourite thoughts, may discover the whole secret of his real character. This consideration alone is sufficient to show of what importance the government of thought is to the keeping of the heart.

But, supposing us convinced of its importance, a question may arise, How far it is within our power, and in what degree thoughts are

subject to the command of the will? It is plain that they are not always the offspring of choice. Often they are inevitably impressed upon the mind by surrounding objects. Often they start up, as of themselves, without any principle of introduction which we are able to trace. As the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth, equally rapid in its transitions, and inscrutable in its progress, is the course of thought. Moving along a train of connections which are too delicate for our observation, it defeats all endeavours either to explore or to stop its path. Hence vain and fantastic imaginations sometimes break in upon the most settled attention, and disturb even the devout exercises of pious minds. Instances of this sort must be placed to the account of human frailty. They are misfortunes to be deplored, rather than crimes to be condemned; and our gracious Creator, who knows our frame, and remembers we are dust, will not be severe in marking every such error, and wandering of the mind. But after these allowances are made, still there remains much for the proper government of thought; and a multitude of cases occur, in which we are no less accountable for what we think, than for what we do.:

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