When it was communicated to him that his medical attendants had no ground to expect his recovery; the information was received with calm resignation, and he observed to his family: "I shall soon then be with mother, and when we meet again, we shall part no more for

ever.

Here it may be observed, that his affectionate partner died in July, 1837.* He deeply felt his bereavement, and his frequent references to the loss he had sustained, shewed how affectionately he cherished her memory.

The last day of his life he spoke but little, but desired that prayer should be offered frequently. He retained to the last, the powerful exercise of memory; for, on one repeating to him, about an hour before his death, a passage of Scripture inaccurately, he immediately corrected it; repeating the word which had been omitted several times, earnestly and emphatically. The quotation is as follows, Psa. lxxiii. 26. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." This is a proof that he had given attention to the apostolic injunction, "Let the word of God dwell in you richly."

At such an hour, how desirable and consolatory to be able to say, Thy word have I hid in my heart." Our departed brother loved the Bible. He loved the God whose word it is, and who by it spoke to his heart. By its light he had shaped his course. On its promises he rested his hopes. To the heaven which it revealed he had directed his steps, and now he has gone to that place, where the Lord God and the Lamb are the light of it."

He has regained the society of dear departed relatives, fellow travellers who had got the start of him, and who had got earlier permission to go home; and he has now joined the countless number, out of every kindred, tongue, and nation, who are before the throne. Be it ours, to adopt his example, as he adopted Christ's. Let us live the life of the righteous, then may we pray, Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

ON SINFUL THOUGHTS.

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts.—Matt. xv. 19.

As it is God alone that knows the thoughts of man, so his commands alone directly reach to them; and no little part of religion consists in the due government of them; whence it is commonly laid down as a rule of interpreting any of God's laws, that though only the outward action be expressly commanded or forbidden, yet it must be extended to the inward thoughts, affections, and dispositions of our minds; and he that appears unblameable as to his words and actions,

A Memoir of Mrs. Booth will be found in the Magazine for March 1838.

may yet really in the sight of God stand guilty of the greatest wickedness by reason of his impure, malicious, or otherwise evil thoughts.

Thoughts indeed are free from the dominion of men: we may conceal or disguise them from all the world: we may deceive the most subtle, by speaking and acting contrary to our minds; by pretending what we never mean, by promising what we never intend; but yet our thoughts are absolutely subject to God's authority; are under His jurisdiction who is omniscient, "who seeth not as man seeth, nor judgeth as man judgeth; for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins," discerneth the most hidden workings of our souls, is conscious of all the wanderings of our imaginations, is acquainted with all our private designs and contrivances, and knoweth our secret ends; so that in respect to the divine laws, our very thoughts are as capable of being really good or really evil as our actions.

Now thoughts here I understand in the largest sense, as comprehending all the internal acts of the mind of man, viz., not only simple apprehensions, fancies, pondering, or musing of any thing in our minds; but also all the reasonings, consultations, purposes, resolutions, designs, contrivances, desires, and cares of our minds, as opposed to our external words and actions. Whatever is transacted within ourselves, of which none are conscious but God and our own souls, I understand here by thoughts.

But, then, by evil thoughts, I do not mean the bare thinking of anything that is evil, or the apprehending or considering what is sinful; for this of itself doth no more defile our souls, than seeing a loathsome sight doth hurt the eye.

The Prophet indeed tells us, "that God is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that he cannot look on iniquity," that is, not with the least degree of complacence or approbation; but yet for all this, God seeth all the sins that are committed in the world; "for he beholdeth mischief and spite to requite it with his hand; " and when he forbids it, punisheth it, or pardons it; sin must then be the object of the divine understanding. The eyes of the Lord are in every place,

beholding the evil and the good."

Thus our blessed Saviour, though he was free from all sin, yet when he was tempted by the devil, had in his mind the apprehension of that evil he was instigated to by that wicked spirit; it was all at that instant represented to his thoughts; but since his will did not in the least 'comply with it, since the motion was rejected with infinite abhorrence, he contracted not the least guilt thereby.

A bad man may often think of what is good, may entertain his mind with speculations about God, his immortal soul, a future life, the benefits purchased for us by Jesus Christ; nay, he may take pleasure in thinking of such objects, and in using his reason, judgment, invention, or fancy about them, as other men are delighted in the study of any other sciences, or in any acquired knowledge. Yet these thoughts about good things, are not good thoughts, nor is the man at all the better for them, if his will do not join with nor is governed by them.

And on the other side, good men may, and sometimes must, think of those things that are sinful. There is no reading the Holy Scriptures, or any other history, wherein the evil actions and speeches of

wicked men are recorded; there is no living or conversing in the world, where so much evil is every day committed, without thinking of that which is sinful: but then in good men the thought of any such thing is always with grief and detestation; they think of it as of a thing that is most hateful to them; as men think of a plague, shivering at the very naming of it, and praying to God to preserve them from it.

Nor by evil thoughts do I understand sudden thoughts, starting up in our minds before we are aware, which will not, I believe, be imputed to us as sins; though if consented to, they are undoubtedly evil. For nothing will be reckoned to us as a sin, but what is some way or other voluntary, and might have been avoided. Now such first motions which come upon us, without our knowledge and against our wills, are only the exercise of our virtues, when presently checked and contradicted; but when consented to and delighted in, they then bring forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." But to be more particular, I shall,—

FIRST, show you, when we are justly answerable for our thoughts, or when they may be reckoned voluntary.

1. When evil thoughts are plainly occasioned by anything that was voluntary in us, then they are to be accounted voluntary and sinful. What our thoughts shall be, depends very much upon the choice of the outward objects that we converse most with in the world. They will be oftenest on those things which we delight most in, and accustom ourselves most to. So far therefore as our company, discourse, employments, books, I may add diet too, contribute to the stirring up in our minds, wanton and lustful, covetous or ambitious, angry or revengeful thoughts, so far are such thoughts voluntary in us, and though they may arise in our minds without any actual consent of our wills, yet we are justly answerable for them, as having by some wilful act of our own disposed ourselves for such thoughts.

By sensuality and intemperance, and indulging themselves in bodily pleasures, men may so debase their minds, that hardly any thoughts shall offer, but what are beastly and lewd, or at best trifling and useless. Empty, light, vain, foolish, extravagant thoughts, are the natural product of idleness, pride, and luxury. So that, though what we shall think of be not at all times in our power, yet it is in our power in a very great measure to abstain from those things which are apt to incite evil thoughts, and minister fuel to them; from all incentives or provocations to inordinate or filthy imaginations. And as far as we ourselves give occasion to the raising evil thoughts in our minds, so far are they voluntary and imputable to us.

2. When evil thoughts proceed from negligence and carelessness, then are we accountable for them: when we keep no guard over our minds, but give them liberty to rove, and let what will come into our thoughts; if they then prove vile and wicked, it is very much our own fault, and we must answer for them. When we set the doors wide open without any watch or guard, we must blame ourselves if dishonest men enter in sometimes as well as good friends.

Our souls are active and busy; and if we do not take care to furnish our minds continually with good and useful matter for our

thoughts, they will soon find out something else to exercise themselves upon; and when we let them run at random, and think as it happens, we then tempt the devil to choose a subject for us, we expose ourselves to the wildness and extravagance of our own vain imaginations; and when we keep no watch, no wonder that we are overrun with swarms of vagrant thoughts. When, therefore, our evil thoughts arise from neglect and carelessness, they then may be accounted voluntary, and charged on us as sins.

3. Though evil thoughts may be involuntary at first, being occasioned by what we could not avoid hearing or seeing, or coming upon us unawares, or proceeding from the habit of our bodies, or impulses and motions of the animal spirits in our brain; yet if we with pleasure entertain and cherish them, this implies the consent of our wills, and they then become greatly sinful in us.

Nay, when such enemies have invaded our minds, if we do not presently raise all the forces we can against them, labour with all our power to quell and root them out, we are reasonably presumed to join with them. My meaning is this, that though evil thoughts at first enter without our leave and consent, yet if afterwards we knowingly indulge them, nay, if we do not straight upon reflection reject them with utter hatred and indignation, we then stand guilty of them; which some have used to express thus, that "though we cannot hinder the birds from flying over our heads, yet we may prevent their making nests in our hair."

The sum of all I have said is this: that evil thoughts are no farther sinful, than they are voluntary, or than they may be helped and avoided whenever, therefore, we give manifest occasion to them by allowing ourselves in such practices as are apt to incite evil thoughts, or when we do not beforehand duly watch against them, or when, if they do at any time arise in our minds, we fail to stifle them as soon and as far as we are able, then they are reckoned to us as sins, and are to be repented of as well as actual transgressions. Having thus briefly shown you when we are in fault if our thoughts be evil; I proceed now,

SECONDLY, to give some account of the nature and kinds of evil thoughts.

66

And here you must not expect that I should give you a particular enumeration of all the several sorts of them, for that would be an impossible thing: Who can tell how oft he offendeth ?" Who can declare all the several thoughts that come into a man's mind but in one day or one hour, which yet he would blush to have made known to those he converses with ? Our thoughts are very nimble and volatile, can wander in a moment to the utmost ends of the earth, can leap straight from one pole to the other, are as various as the several objects of our senses, and the infinitely different ways whereby they may be disposed, united, or blended together. And if we should be at a loss for external objects to think of, the mind can easily frame objects to itself, and a thousand frenzies and extravagancies, and whimsies and conceits, are the monstrous issues of men's brains: I shall therefore only give some few instances of thoughts undoubtedly evil and sinful. Such are,

1. The representing and acting sins in our thoughts; when we erect a stage in our fancies, and on it, with strange complacence, imagine those satisfactions which yet we dare not, which yet we have not opportunity to bring into outward act. This is by some called speculative wickedness, the dreams of men awake. When we gratify our covetous or impure desires with the feigned representation of those pleasures we have a mind to. Now such kind of thoughts may be considered with respect to the time present, past, or to come.

(1.) If we consider these imaginations as to the present time, there is no sin so vile and heinous, but a man may become truly guilty of it in the sight of God, by imagining it done in his mind, and taking pleasure in such a thought.

Thus the revengeful person, who perhaps hath hardly courage to look his enemy in the face, yet in his thoughts can fight him and subdue him, imagine him lying at his mercy, and exercise all manner of cruelty towards him: he may fancy him undone and ruined, and then rejoice in his own mind, that he is thus even with him; and by this means may become guilty of the sins of murder and revenge, though he hath not done his enemy the least mischief. Thus he is a thief that covets, though he never rifles another man's goods, if in his imagination only he possesses them: nay, a man may thus contract the guilt of more sins than ever he can possibly act.

:

For this I take for an undoubted truth, that they who allow themselves in evil thoughts and imaginations, who give way to their ambitious, covetous, or lustful fancies, are not restrained by the fear of God from the actual commission of those sins they love to think of; but by some other by consideration, than the sense of their duty and religion and this, I believe, every one that faithfully examines his own mind will admit, that if he could as freely, and as safely and secretly commit any sin, as he can think of it, he should not stick to do all those things he thinks of with so much joy. Could the revengeful person, whose mind boils with inward spleen and rage, by a thought, with as little danger, and as secure from all knowledge of other men, or wound, or mischief his enemy, as he can desire it in his mind, do you believe he would spare any of his adversaries? Could the greedy wretch as secretly get the possession of his neighbour's goods, as he can covet them, I doubt not but every such person would soon actually invade and usurp all those things he now swallows in his imagination. But, farther,

kill

(2.) As to what is past, there is repeating over those sins in our fancies, which we had long before committed, and perhaps, as to the external acts, quite forsaken. When we revive our stolen pleasures in our memories, and run over all the circumstances of sins long since committed, with new delight, this is much the same as if we lived continually in them. As good men with satisfaction reflect upon a well-spent life, recalling to their minds with joy what at any time they have well done; after the same manner do wicked men, as it were, raise again, by the witchcraft of their filthy imaginations, their past sins, renew their acquaintance with them, and approbation of them. When weak and impotent, disabled by poverty, age, want of convenience or opportunity for the repeated commission of them, they