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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
of
iniquity 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
thenr
out, till
the
flesh
itself
has been destroyed
in
death.
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