Sometimes they are tormented with Blafphemous Thoughts, and they cannot fet themselves to the Performance of any Office of Devotion, but a Thousand impious Fancies will come in and spoil all.

Sometimes they fancy they are guilty of feveral grievous Crimes, which it is to be hoped, it was hardly poffible they fhould be guilty of; nay, you cannot convince them, but that they do every Day commit fome of thefe Crimes, because they imagine they give confent to them.

And whilft thefe Sorts of Thoughts fill their Imaginations, there is not a Paffage in the Bible that they read, nor a Sermon that they hear, but they find something in it, which they do fo perverfly apply to their own Cafe, as thereby to increase their Trouble, but not to get any Relief.

I have known feveral well difpofed Perfons, and fome of them fincerely Pious, that have been in this Condition.

What now is to be faid to this? Why, it is very certain that all thefe Thoughts and Fancies are thrust upon them, and are not the free, natural, voluntary Operations of their own Minds; but the Effects of Vapours or Hypochondriac Melancholy. Nor can the Perfons themfelves any more help their thus Thinking, or Fancying, than they can help the Disturbances of their Dreams, when they have a Mind to fleep quietly. Indeed, we may properly enough call thefe Fancies of theirs, their waking Dreams ; as their Dreams are their fleeping Fancies.

Well, but now of all Perfons whatsoever, these People are most defirous to have Rules Dd 2

given

given them for the Government of their Thoughts. And I cannot blame them, because their Thoughts are certainly very Troublesome. But truly, if we fhould fpeak pertinently to their Cafe, instead of giving them Advices for the regulating their Thoughts, they should ra ther be advised to look after their Bodies, and by the help of good Prescriptions to get rid of those Fumes and Vapours, which occafion these Fancies. When the Cause is removed, the Effect will foon cease. I do not in the least doubt, whatever these People may think of their own Cafe, but that this is as properly a Bodily Dif eafe as a Fever, or Fits of the Falling Sickness.

In the mean Time, while they are in this Condition, whatever Rules are proper to be given to other Perfons, for the Government of the Thoughts, of all People living, thofe Rules do the leaft concern them. For those Thoughts which they complain of, do not at all fall under Regulation or Government; because they are suggested to their Minds, whether they will or no. And for my Part, I think it a great deal more advisable (if it could be) to neglect and despise them; than to be perpetually ftruggling and difputing with them, and vexing themselves about them.

But, you will fay, If Men be fuch Slaves to their Thoughts, and are thus neceffarily paffive under them, where is the Freedom of Thought? To this I Answer,

In the Fourth Place, Out of these Three Cafes I before-mentioned, we have Liberty of Thinking, and may chufe our own Thoughts. And that Liberty and Freedom we have in Thinking,

doth,

doth, to my apprehenfion, mainly confift in this, viz. That all of us (who are not in the Circumftances I have been hitherto speaking of) can, if we please, apply our Minds more vigorously to one fort of thing than to another; and accordingly, as we do thus apply our Minds, fo will the most of our Thoughts be.

It is in our Power, among the multitude of Objects, which prefent themfelves to our Mind, (as for Inftance, God, Vertue, Holiness, Heaven, Wealth, Power, Greatness,Preferments,Fine Cloaths, Splendid Equipage, Senfual Pleasures, Recreations, Divertifements, Knowledge, Learning, Arts, and the like;) I fay, that among all this multitude of Objects, that prefent themselves to our Minds, it is in our Power to determine our felves, which of them we will dwell upon, and make a Business of. And accordingly, when at any Time we have pitched upon any of them, as a Bufinefs, it is in our power to mind that Bufinefs either more or lefs diligently. And if it be fuch one, as that we mean in good earnest to concern ourselves about it, it will then fo fill our Minds, as that by attending to that, we shall either prevent in a great measure, other Thoughts from coming into our Heads; or if they do come in, they will not long ftay there, but will very speedily give place to that which is our main Business at that Time.

And the Reason of this is plain; because our Natures are of that Make, that Two Things at once cannot well poffefs our Minds; and therefore if we be intent about one thing, we cannot have much room or leifure for Thoughts of another Nature.

But then Fifthly and Laftty, Though this that I have faid, be the true Nature of that Power we have over our Thoughts, as to the directing them to a particular Object: Yet there is another Power we have over them, that ought here more especially to be confidered; because in it are laid the very Foundations of Vertue and Vice, and upon account of it, all our Thoughts become either morally Good or Evil.

That which I mean is this; Tho' we cannot in many Cafes,think always of what we would; nay, though we cannot hinder abundance of Thoughts from coming into our Minds against our Will; yet it is always in our Power to Affent to our Thoughts, or to deny our Confent to them. And here it is that the Morality of our Thoughts begins; according as we Affent or Diffent to the Motions that are made in our Minds; fo will our Thoughts have the Notions of Vertuous or Sinful Thoughts.

When any Temptations are prefented to us from without, we cannot perhaps (as I faid before) avoid the feeling an irregular Paffion, or Motion, or Inclination ftirring within us, upon occafion thereof; but yet at that very Time it is in our Power, whether we will comply with thofe Paffions and Inclinations, or not; whether we will confent to them, or not; whether we will pursue them further, or not. Now if we do not confent to them, but endeavour to ftop, and ftifle, and refift them, as foon as we are aware of them, there is yet no Harm done. Our Thoughts, how undecent or irregular foever they were, are rather to be accounted the Infirmities of our Corrupt Nature, than our Sins, properly fo called. And

And thus it is likewife as to our Wandring Thoughts in our Prayers. If we ftrive against them, and endeavour to keep our Minds in a Devout Compofed Temper, and attend as well as we can to the Duty we are about: I fay, if we do this, I hope thofe Distractions and Wandrings will never rife up in Judgment against us.

And as for the frightful Blafphemous Fancies, which, as I told you, fome, even Pious Perfons are tormented with: As to them, I fay, they, of all other irregular Thoughts, have the leaft danger of Sin in them, tho' they be not fo folemnly and formally disputed with, and contefted againft. Because, indeed, they are fo terrible in their own Nature, that no Man in his Wits, and that hath any sense of God or Goodness, can be fuppofed to confent to them. They are, indeed, great Infelicities, but by no means any Sin, any farther than we approve of them; and to approve of them, for any tolerable good Man, is impoffible.

But then on the other fide, If we consent to any wicked Motion or Inclination that we feel in our felves; let it come in how it will, never fo fuddenly, never fo unexpectedly; if we close with any Thought that prompts us to Evil, fo as to be pleased with it, to delight in it, to think of pursuing it, 'till it be brought into Action: In that cafe we are no longer to plead our Original Corruption; for in that very Inftant we become Actual Sinners, Actual Tranfgreffors of the Law of God, the Obligation of which reaches to our very Hearts and Thoughts as well as our Actions. Though yet we are not fo great Tranfgreffors, fo long as our Sin is only in Dd 4 Thought,