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?