323 THE POWERS' AND CONTESTS. OP FLESH AND SPIRIT. in such instances of sinful imagination, where there is no indulgence. Yet here it is necessary to take notice, that some per- sons have heretofore given so criminal an indulgence to their sensual lusts, or have been so freely engaged in profane or immoral conversation in their younger years, that they have tainted their fancy with many foul and impious representations, inscribed it with vicious words and images, and lodged a fatal treasure ofiniquity there. They have often recalled these scenes with so much de- light, that when divine grace has been pleased to awaken them to a sense of their folly, and give a pious turn to their. souls, they have been many years perplexed with the vile workings of imagination : The scenes of iniquity have returned unbidden, and risen up incessantly, in spite of all their sacred labour to abolish them : These have filled their spirits with sorrow and perpetual anguish : and there is just reason they should deeply humble them- selves before God on this account. For though it is possible such wicked thoughts may be suggested to holy souls, who have kept themselves in their youth from this sort of defilement; yet when persons themselves have been so far accessary to their own guilt and misery,. they ought to take fresh occasion from their present temp- tations, to renew and maintain repentance for their old sins. Besides the habit or customary return of such cor- rupt imaginations that these unhappy sinners have entail- ed upon themselves, they have also given hereby such a fatal handle to the temptations of the devil, and furnished such a pleasing habitation for unclean spirits, that lewd and blasphemous thoughts have been continually im- posed upon them with ease, by the sport and malice of the tempter; these have given them many grievous days and restless nights, constant fatigue and combat, and sorrow of heart ; nor could they ever free these inward recesses of the brain, these secret chambers of the fancy, from the impure pictures which they themselves have hung up there, till the whole mortal tabernacle.has been demolished. Those wicked images having been graven so deep, and lasted so long, that all their pious labours, and tears have never been able to blot thenrout, till the flesh itself has been destroyed in death. 5
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