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THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680) Contents The Wickedness and Vanity of the Heart .................................................................................. 2 What Is Meant by Thoughts? ..................................................................................................... 2 What Is Vanity?........................................................................................................................... 3 Thoughts Are Sinful ................................................................................................................... 4 In What Does This Vanity Consist? ........................................................................................... 4 The Positive Vanity of Our Thoughts to Evil ........................................................................... 5 Men’s Hearts Are Full of Speculative Evil ................................................................................ 8 The Good of Knowing the Vanity of Thoughts ....................................................................... 10 Remedies against Vain Thoughts ............................................................................................. 11 “How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?” —Jeremiah 4:14 In these words [our God] compares the heart to some house of common resort, one having many large rooms to enter- tain and lodge multitudes of guests in. And in this heart, before conversion, all the vain, light, wanton, profane, dissolute thoughts that fly up and down the world (as your thoughts do, running riot all the day) have free and open access; it gives them open house, willing, cheerful welcome. Yea, it goes with them, traveling all over the world for the daintiest pleasures 1 to feed them with. This carnal heart lodges and harbors these thoughts, allows them to lodge and revel day and night, defil- ing all its rooms with their loathsome filth and vomits. “How long,” says the Lord, “shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee,” while I and My Spirit, My Son, and My train of graces, “stand at the door, and knock” and cannot find admittance? This house, this heart must be washed of all this filthiness: “Wash thine heart from wickedness” (Jer 4:14). It is to be washed, not swept of only the gross evils (as in Matthew 12:44), it must be washed and cleansed of those defilements, which stick closer, which are incorporated and worked into the spirit. These vain and unruly guests, these thoughts, must be turned out of doors without any warning. They have stayed long enough, too long, for the Lord says, “How long,” and, the time passed is “enough.” In conversion, the house, the soul is not pulled down, but only these guests are turned out. And though we cannot keep them out (for they will ever be able to enter as long as we are in this house of clay,) yet we must not let them lodge within us anymore. If thoughts of anger or revenge come in, in the morning or in the daytime, they must be turned out before night, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Eph 4:26), for if you do so you may lodge an even worse guest in your heart with your wrathful thoughts. “Neither give place to the devil” (Eph 4:27), for it follows that he will bring seven worse with him (Mat 12:45). If unclean thoughts offer to come to bed with you, do not allow them to stay with you. The conclusion is: it is not what thoughts are in your hearts, or what passes through them, but it is what lodging you give to them that makes the difference, that proves your repentance. Many good thoughts and motions may pass as strangers through a bad man’s heart. And, likewise, multitudes of vain thoughts may make a thoroughfare of a believer’s heart, disturbing him in good duties, knocking on his heart to interrupt him. These may break in upon the heart of a good man, but they will not be allowed to stay there, they will not be fostered or harbored there. The Wickedness and Vanity of the Heart My scope will be to discover the wickedness and vanity of the heart by nature. This is for now, for we are yet in the upper parts of it, the understanding and the defilements of it, which are to be washed out of it. The next defilement which in my broken order I intend to handle is that which is our specified subject: The Vanity of Your Thoughts . I chose this text as my ground only for discovery’s sake, for my subject is, I confess, of an almost infinite vastness. To make an exact and particular discovery of the vanities in our thoughts, to travel over the whole creation and to take a survey and to give an account of all the vanity that abounds in all the creatures, was, as you know, the task of the wisest of men, Solomon. But the vanity of our thoughts cannot be compassed, there are so many varieties of vanities. Our thoughts made the creatures “subject to vanity,” therefore they must be even more subject to vanity. I will show: (1) what is meant by thoughts; (2) what by vanity; (3) that our thoughts are vain; and (4) in what that vanity consists, both in general and with some particulars. 1. What Is Meant by Thoughts? First, by thoughts the Scriptures comprehend all the internal acts of the mind of man, of whatever faculty: all of those reasonings, consultations, purposes, resolutions, intentions, ends, desires, cares, etc. of the mind of man—as opposed to our external words and actions. In Isaiah 66:18, all acts are divided into those two, “for their works and their thoughts: it shall come.” That which is transacted within the mind is called the thoughts . Whatever manifests themselves, breaking out into ac- tions, are called works. So we see in Genesis 6:5, “Every imagination of the thoughts”—that is, all that which the mind frames within itself, the purposes, desires, etc.—are “only evil continually.” This is said of the things “that come into your mind” (Eze 11:5), and so we use it and understand it. So, to remember a man is to “think” of him; to have purposed a thing, we say, I “thought” to do it; to take care about a business is to “take thought” (1Sa 9:5). The reason these are all called thoughts is because indeed all our affections, desires, purposes, are stirred up by our thoughts—they are bred, fomented, and nourished by them. Never does a thought pass but it stirs up some affection of fear, joy, care, or grief, etc. Although in this place (Jer 4:14) they are so largely taken, yet the vanity of thoughts in so large a sense cannot be han- dled at present. But our subject shall be that which is more properly called the thinking, meditating, considering power of man. In this sense, thoughts are not opposed only to your works, but opposed to your purposes and intentions. So as the soul and spirit (Heb 4:12), so thoughts and intentions seem to be opposed. And in Job 20:2-3, “thoughts” are appropriated to the “spirit of…understanding.” And again, yet more strictly, for not all the thoughts in the understanding are to be handled here—not the reasonings or deliberations in our actions, but only those musings in the speculative part: those more simple conceits, apprehensions that arise; those fancies and meditations which the understanding (with help of imagination) frames within itself of things; those on which your minds ponder and pore and muse—this is what I mean here by thoughts . I mean those “talkings of the mind” with the things that we know (Pro 6:22), those same interviews, chattings, which the mind has with the things that are let into it—with the things that we fear, with the things that we love. For our minds make all these things their companions, and our thoughts discourse with them, having a thousand concepts about them— this I mean by thoughts . We have a reasoning power, a deliberating power, by which we ask ourselves continually: What 2 shall we do? By this we reason and discuss things, which is a more inward closet, the cabinet and secret council of the heart. But there is a more outward place, that presence-room which entertains all comers, which is the thinking, meditating, mus- ing power in man. This suggests matter for deliberation, for consultation, for reasoning—this holds the objects until we view them, and entertains all that come to speak with any of our affections. Secondly, “that which the mind frames within itself,” for so the Scripture expresses their origin to us and their manner of rising, “Frowardness [perverseness] is in his heart” (Pro 6:14), and he is always forging mischief—like a smith, he is al- ways hammering it out. It is the thoughts that are the materials of this perverseness in us. Upon all the things which are presented to us, the mind conceives some thoughts and imaginations. As lusts are conceived, so are thoughts, “They con- ceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity” (Isa 59:4). In verse seven he instances in “thoughts of iniquity,” because our thoughts are spun out of our own hearts; they are eggs of our own laying, though the things presented to us may be from outside us. This is added to separate them from such thoughts as are injected and cast in from the outside, which are children of another. Such are blasphemous thoughts, which are cast in by Satan, in which the soul may be merely passive (as the word “buffet” implies in 2 Corinthians 12:7); they are not of your thoughts, but they are his.