The Vanity of Thoughts

by Thomas Goodwin

In these words [our God] compares the heart to some house of common resort, one having many large rooms to entertain 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 to feed them with. This carnal heart lodges and harbors these thoughts, allows them to lodge and revel day and night, defiling 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?

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 any more.

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.

That which is transacted within the mind is called the thoughts. Whatever manifests themselves, breaking out into actions, are called works.

Never does a thought pass but it stirs up some affection of fear, joy, care, or grief, etc.

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.

those on which your minds ponder and pore and muse—this is what I mean here by thoughts.

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. It is as when one in [a different] room hears another swear and curse, but cannot get away from him—such thoughts, if they are only from without, do not defile a man. For nothing defiles a man but what comes from within (Mat 15), that is, that which the heart has conceived within it—as thoughts of uncleanness—in which, although Satan himself be the father of them, the heart is the mother and womb.

These therefore the heart loves, as a mother loves her natural children. It is by that we may distinguish them from the others outside: when the heart is soft toward them, when there is an inward love for them, so that the heart kisses the child—then they are truly our thoughts. When the heart broods on those eggs, then they are surely our thoughts, even if they come from the outside.

This much must be added: that even those thoughts in which the soul is passive, when Satan casts in evil thoughts which we in no way own, in which he rapes the heart (for if there is no consent to them within us, then it is no more than rape, as it is in the Law)—even those thoughts are often punishments meted out to us because of our neglect toward our thoughts, because we have allowed them to wander

We may feel punishmet of wandering/wayward thoughts that Satan bombards us with when we neglect paying attention to our thoughts. When we do not pay attention to the motions of the Spirit within our thoughts and grieve him by our lack of care. Taking care of our thoughts matters. It matters greatly and we should be so "in-step" with the Spirit that we are quick to be aware when our thoughts wander, when our thoughts are beign attacked, and when our thoughts are in accordance with the Spirit within us.

Men usually think that thoughts are free, but the only doctrine to be treated here is this, Thoughts are sins!

Thoughts are to be repented of. Yea, repentance is expressed as to begin at the thoughts, “Let the unrighteous man [forsake] his thoughts” (Isa 55:7). And a man is never truly and thoroughly wrought on until his “every thought” is brought into “obedience” (2Co 10:5), which argues that they are naturally rebellious and contrary to grace. And this also argues the power of grace, which is able to rule and subdue so great an army as our thoughts are, to command them all, now, as well as in the day when we are perfectly holy.

Vain thoughts draw the heart away, so that when a man should draw near to God, his heart, because of his thoughts, is “far from” Him (Isa 29:13).

Our thoughts are the first movers of all the evil that is in us. For they make the motion, bringing the heart and the object together; they are panderers to our lusts, holding up the object until the heart has played the adulterer with it. So in speculative uncleanness, and in other lusts, the thoughts hold up the images of those gods which they create, which the heart falls down and worships. Our thoughts present praise, riches, beauty to the heart until it has worshipped them—and this even when the things themselves are absent!

So now, in the same way, our hearts and minds ought to do, so far as they are sanctified. As the bee sucks honey out of every flower, as a good stomach gets out the sweet and wholesome nourishment from whatever is put into it, so a holy heart converts and digests all into spiritual and useful thoughts.

This you may see in Psalm 107. That Psalm gives many instances of God’s providence, the deliverances by sea, etc., but the foot of the song is, “Oh that men would praise the Lord for…his wonderful works to the children of men.” Now after so many instances, he concludes that the righteous shall see these things and rejoice, extract comfortable thoughts out of all of them. “Whoso is wise…will observe these things,” that is, he will make holy observations out of all these, out of a principle of wisdom he will understand God’s goodness in all and his heart will be raised to thoughts of praise and thankfulness and obedience.

When our heart reflects on and sees the goodness of God and all he has done, our hearts will respond with godly and pleasing thoughts. Our thoughts would be fixed on him instead of this world and the desires of our flesh

When outward mercies befall us, the next thoughts we are apt to have is to project ease by our wealth, “Thou hast much goods laid up for many years” (Luk 12:19), etc. When judgments come, we are apt to be filled with thoughts of complaint, of fear, of care about how we may wind ourselves out of it, etc. What then were Job’s first thoughts when he heard news of the loss of all he owned?—“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord…In all this did not Job sin” (Job 1:21; 2:10). A good heart apprehends such thoughts as these (whenever opportunities come). But if our thoughts are barren, then they are also vain.

We are to take our thoughts captive (in all situations), and then give them to the Lord

These things should draw out the attention of the mind, for the more excellent the object is, the stronger our attention should be. God is the most glorious object that our minds could ever fasten upon, the most alluring.

Does my heart believe God/Jesus to be the most alluring and glorious object that my mind could ever fix upon? If my heart saw God for who He is, how could I ever want to think on and ponder on anythign else?

But I appeal to your experience, are not your thoughts of Him the most unsteady? Do you not have as much trouble holding your thoughts on Him as you would holding a telescope on a star with a palsy-shaking hand? It takes a long time for our minds to focus on Him, to place the eyes of our minds upon Him—and when we have, O how our hands shake! how often we lose sight of Him! So while we are in the most serious talk with Him, when all other things should be kept out, yet how many chinks there are in the heart, at which a flood of other thoughts come in!

But our thoughts dance up and down in us like meteors.

And though the mind of man is truly nimble and able to run from one end of the earth to the other, that being its strength and excellence, yet God would have this strength and nimbleness put to a steady directing of our thoughts toward His glory, our own salvation, the good of others, etc.

There is a longing and itching to be fed with and to know the things that do not concern us at all; there is a delight in thinking of them.

Take the matter of reading, for many have leisure and ability to read much. They should ballast their heart with the Word of God; they should take in those precious words, that precious wisdom, in order to profit themselves and others. They should be building up their own souls, but what do their curious fancies carry them to? What are they versed in? Why, they know playbooks; they know romances, all the curious needlework of idle brains; they load their heads with “apes and peacocks feathers,” instead of pearls and precious stones. As Solomon said, “The heart of him that has understanding seeketh knowledge; but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness” (Pro 15:14). Foolish discourses please their eyes and ears; these are the purveyors of food for their thoughts—like chameleons are said to do, men live on air and wind.

Thoughts are precious things, they are the immediate fruits and buds of an immortal nature. God has given us power to coin thoughts, lay them out in things that concern our own good, our own neighbor’s good, and His own glory. And if we do not spend them on these things, it is the greatest waste in the world.

For thoughts are the caterers for our lusts, they lay in all their provision.

For example, does a man want to “get ahead”? Then his thoughts study the art of it, framing the ladder for climbing up, inventing ways to do it—though often they, like Haman, are only building their own gallows (Est 7:9). Or perhaps they want to be rich. Then what do they study? They study all the cheating tricks on the cards, as I may speak. They study all the cunning tricks of the world, all the ways to oppress, to defraud, to go beyond their fellows. They learn to pack things in all their dealing so that they themselves will be the winners, so that all who deal with them will be the losers. “He deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words” (Isa 32:7).

What do I want? At the core of my heart, what do I want? What I want is what I will think about and what I will seek after. Lord help me to have the ultimate desire of pleasing you!