In all the hellish rage of war?
See how these Christians love one another! Wherein are they preferable to Turks and Pagans? What abomination can be found among Mahometans or Heathens, which is not found among Christians also?” And thus my mind runs off, before I am aware, from one circumstance to another. Now all these are in some sense wandering thoughts. For altho’ they do not wander from God, much less fight against him, yet they do wander from the particular point I had in view.
II. Such is the nature, such are the sorts (to speak rather usefully, than philosophically) of wandering thoughts. But what are the general occasions of them? This we are, in the second place to consider.
1. And it is easy to observe, that the occasion of the former sort of thoughts which oppose or wander from God, are in general, sinful tempers. For instance. Why is not God in all the thoughts, in any of the thoughts of a natural man? For a plain reason: be he rich or poor, learned or unlearned, he is an atheist; (tho’ not vulgarly so called) he neither knows nor loves God. Why are his thoughts continually wandering after the world? Because he is an idolater. He does not indeed worship an image, or bow down to the stock of a tree: yet is he sunk into equally damnable idolatry: he loves, that is, worships the world. He seeks happiness in the things that are seen, in the pleasures that perish in the using. Why is it that his thoughts are perpetually wandering from the very end of his being, the knowledge of God in Christ? Because he is an unbeliever; because he has no faith, or at least, no more than a devil. So all these wandering thoughts easily and naturally spring from that evil root of unbelief.
2. The case is the same in other instances, pride, anger, revenge, vanity, lust, covetousness, every one of them occasion thoughts suitable to their own nature. And so does every sinful temper, of which the human mind is capable. The particulars it is hardly possible, nor is it needful to enumerate. It suffices to observe, that as many evil tempers as find a place in any soul, so many ways that soul will depart from God, by the worst kind of wandering thoughts.
3. The occasions of the latter kind of wandering thoughts, are exceeding various. Multitudes of them are occasioned, by the natural union between the soul and body. How immediately and how deeply is the understanding affected by a diseased body! Let but the blood move irregularly in the brain, and all regular thinking is at an end. Raging madness ensues, and then farewell to all evenness of thought. Yea, let only the spirits be hurried or agitated to a certain degree, and a temporary madness, a delirium prevents all settled thought. And is not the same irregularity of thought in a measure occasioned by every nervous disorder? So does the corruptible body press down the soul, and cause it to muse about many things.
4. *But does it only cause this in the time of sickness, or preternatural disorder? Nay, but more or less, at all times, even in a state of perfect health. Let a man be ever so healthy, he will be more or less delirious, every four-and-twenty hours. For does he not sleep? And while he sleeps, is he not liable to dream? And who then is master of his own thoughts, or able to preserve the order and consistency of them? Who can then keep them fixt to any one point, or prevent their wandering from pole to pole?
5. *But suppose we are awake, are we always so awake, that we can steadily govern our thoughts? Are we not unavoidably exposed to contrary extremes, by the very nature of this machine, the body? Sometimes we are too heavy too dull and languid, to pursue any chain of thought. Sometimes, on the other hand, we are too lively. The imagination, without leave, starts to and fro, and carries us away, hither and thither, whether we will or no: and all this, from the merely natural motion of the spirits, or vibration of the nerves.
6. *Farther, How many wanderings of thought may arise, from those various associations of our ideas, which are made entirely without our knowledge, and independently on our choice? How these connexions are formed we cannot tell: but they are formed in a thousand different manners. Nor is it in the power of the wisest or holiest of men, to break those associations, or to prevent what is the necessary consequence of them, and matter of daily observation. Let the fire but touch one end of the train, and it immediately runs on to the other.
7. *Once more. Let us fix our attention as studiously as we are able on any subject, yet let either pleasure or pain arise, especially if it be intense, and it will demand our immediate attention, and attach our thought to itself. It will interrupt the steadiest contemplation, and divert the mind from its favourite subject.