The Communicant's Companion (continued)
crowded out good thoughts? Has not the "imagination of the thoughts of my heart" been evil, only evil, and that continually?
To give some assistance in this inquiry, I shall instance some heads of it.
Let the interrogatories be such as these:—I. How have I employed my thoughts? Has God been in all my thoughts?—It is well if he has been in any. When I awake, am I still with him? Or am I not still with the world and the flesh? When I should have been contemplating the glory of God, the love of Christ, and the great things of the other world, has not my heart been with the fool's eyes in the ends of the earth, "following after lying vanities, and forsaking mine own mercies?" How seldom have I thought seriously, and with any fixedness, on spiritual and divine things? I set myself sometimes to meditate, but I soon break off abruptly, and this treacherous heart starts aside like a broken bow, and nothing that is good is brought to any head; but how have vain and vile thoughts lodged within me, gone out and come in with me, lain down and risen up with me, and crowded out good thoughts? Has not the "imagination of the thoughts of my heart" been evil, only evil, and that continually?
2. How have I governed my passions?—Have they been kept under the dominion of religion and right reason? Or have they not grown intemperate and headstrong, and transgressed due bounds? Have not provocations been too much resented, and made too deep an impression? Has not my heart many times been hot within me, too hot, so that its heat has consumed the peace of my own mind, and the love I owe my brother? Has not anger rested in my bosom? Have not malice and uncharitableness, secret enmities and antipathies, been harbored there, where love and peace should have reigned and given law?