donment of sin, and the purification of the heart. To this method of averting the judgments of their offended God, and of arresting the progress of those enemies who menaced them with captivity and death, they are faithfully and affectionately urged:-"O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?" There had commenced at Jerusalem some appearance of external reformation: but the hearts of its inhabitants retained a defiling love of sin, and a prevailing inclination to vile idolatry; vain thoughts, evil desires, and debasing affections, still obtained a dwelling-place, as welcome guests, even in their inmost souls. Not more inimical

to the peace and safety of Jerusalem, were vain and evil thoughts, than are such thoughts to our best interests. Be assured that the right regulation of the thoughts enters deeply and essentially into the nature of personal holiness and happiness. Favor me, then, with your unremitted attention, while I endeavor to exhibit

FIRST, The importance of the right government of the Thoughts: and SECONDLY, The most effectual means of securing this important object.

FIRST, Let me direct your regard to the importance of acquiring and maintaining the due government of the Thoughts.

First, then let it be considered, that the absence of good thoughts is itself

a sufficient ground of condemnation

at the bar of God.

Of the unrighteous and unholy it is said "God is not in all their thoughts ;" and is not this ample evidence of the prevailing character of their minds and hearts? Must it not be a "carnal mind," and must it not be a hardened heart, in which the thought of God can find no place? Must not the love of God be altogether absent from the heart which gives no entertainment, no dwellingplace, even to the thought of his character and his claims? Is it possible for a man to love God, and yet to spend day after day without cherishing any thoughts of God? What ideas are we to form of the man who

spends his days without any grateful recollections of the divine goodness, without any admiring delight in the divine perfections, without any solicitude to enjoy the divine favor, and without any desire to promote the divine glory? That the love of the blessed God dwells not in his heart, is absolutely certain. The God in whose hands his breath is, and in whom are all his springs of existence and capacity and enjoyment, he has not glorified, even in thought, or purpose, or desire! Let every one, then, listen to the voice of conscience, while summoned to answer the question-Is it I, whose mental character, whose prevailing habits of thought have been thus convicted of a radical and most alarming defect?

Let it be considered,

Secondly, That the human mind, while unrenewed, is habitually disposed to the indulgence of thoughts positively vain and evil.

In every human mind which continues unrenewed, not receiving, because not desiring, the control of the sanctifying Spirit, vain and evil thoughts exert an entire ascendancy. Thus it was in the world before the flood and the record of human depravity at that early period might be adopted by the historian of the age in which we live:-" And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." It is to