444 DIRECTIONS AND PERSUASIONS them down the channel rather than you should have them, what would you think of such a one? espe- cially if it were your servant or your child, that owed you much more ?Thus do you by God, and your own souls. You have thoughts enough and to spare, you know not what to do with them ; and yet rather than you will spend one hour in a day or a week, in . serious thoughts of the state of your souls, and the life to come, you will cast them away upon news and tales, and other people's business, that do not concern . you ; yea, you will cast them down the sink of covet ousness, and , malice, and lust, and wantonness, and make them servants to the devil and the flesh. If you have a brook running by your land,. you will endeavour to turn it over your ground; that seeing it must run, it may as well run that way where it may do good, as run in vain. So when your thoughts must run, is it not better that you turn them to your own hearts and states, to prepare for the world that you are ready to step into, than to let them run in vain ? If you see a man gó into a wine cellar, (though it be his own,) and pull out all the spiggòts, and let all the wine run about the cellar, and suffer nobody to catch. it, or be the better for it, what would you conceive of the wisdom and charity of that man ? Your thoughts are a thing more precious than wine, and such a thing as should not be.,spilt. And yet is not this your every day's practice? You are before I-Iim that knows your thoughts: deny it if you can. What hour of the day can a man come to you, and find your thoughts altogether idle? What minute of an hour can a man come and ask you, What are you now thinking ón? And can you truly say, Nothing? I know, as long as you are awake, you are always thinking , of somewhat; and perhaps ,tie, hen you are asleep. And what is it on ? This body shall have a thought, and that body a thought ; every word you hear, and every wrong that is done' you, and almost every thing you look upon, shall have a thought: but God and your own salvation shall have none; that is
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