Their sinfulness
A malicious thought and a malicious deed are from the same spring, and have the same nature; only the deed is the riper serpent, and can sting another; when the thought is as the younger serpent, that hath only the venomous nature in itself. A lustful thought is from the same defiled puddle, as actual filthiness: and the thought is but the passage to the action: it is but the same sin in its minority, tending to maturity. [Baxter, 1615-1691]
By sinful thoughts our formerly committed sins that were dead are revived again, and have a resurrection by our bosom ones, but our contemplating the same with delight. As the witch of Endor called up Samuel that was dead; so a delightful thought calls up a sinful action that was dead before. Hereby our sins, that were in a manner dead before, are revived, and have a resurrection. [Ralph Erskine, 1685-1712]
Evil thoughts are often interjected by Satan
Satan slily conveys evil thoughts, and then makes a Christian believe they come from his own heart. The cup was found in Benhamin's sack, but it was of Joseph's putting in; so a child of God oft finds atheistical, blasphemous thoughts in his mind, but Satan hath cast them in. [Watson, 1696]
Evil thoughts are not as guilty as evil actions
It is a great mistake to say that sin in the heart is the very same as sin thrown into a deliberate and daring act. They are in the same line as our Lord has taught us, but the external act gives evil a power which it had not before, and which may prove fatally destructive. It is like a combustible material, which, if once exploded, may leave the man's nature a shattered and hopeless wreck. To repress sin from the actual life is something -- only let it not stop there, else it is a constant deception and danger. [Ker]
Yet evil thoughts are most powerful and disastrous in their influence
Set thy thoughts, examine thy thoughts: thy conscience must not onlly extned to deeds and words, but even to secret thoughts. They that are accustomed to evil thoughts can seldom bring forth good words, never good deeds. As the corn is, so will the flour be: if the meal be bad, the fault is not in the millstones that ground it, but in the miller that put in such bsae corn. All they senses and members are but the millstones; the heart is the miller: if thy words and works be ill meal, thank the miller, they heart, for such corrupt thoughts. As the wood is, so will the fire be: if it be wet and stinking wood, look for an unsavoury and unwholesome fire: if the wood be sweet and dry, it will perfume the room with a sweet and pleasant air. Such fuel as you lay on your thoughts; such fire shall you have in your actions. [Adams, 1653]
My works will be answerable to my thoughts; if my thoughts be wicked or fruitless, so will my actions be. My thoughts are the seed that lies in the ground out of sight; my works are the crop which is visible to others; according to the seed, whether good or bad, such will the crop be. If men are so careful to get the purest, the cleanest, and the best seed for their fields, that their harvest may be the more to their advantage; how much it concerns me that my heart be sown with pure and holy thoughts, that my crop may tend both to my credit and comfort! Lord, there is no good seed but what comes out of Thy garner. I confess, the piercing thorns of vicious thoughts, and the fruitless weeds of vain thoughts, are all the natural produce of my heart. Oh, let They good Spirit plough up the fallow ground of my soul, and scatter in it such seeds of grace and holiness, that my life may be answerable to Thy Gospel, and at my death I may be translated to Thy glory! [Swinnock, 1673]
Beware of evil in the buddings of desire! Whoever allow themselves to indulge in evil imaginations or thoughts, are preparing themselves to commit the crimes they fancy. Desires are the seed of deeds. Working in the dark, and all the more dangerous that their progress, like a miner's, is silent and unseen, they sap the walls of virtue; and thus the man of God is overthrown by temptations that otherwise had broken on him, as breaks the mountain billow on a front of rock. May not the bad thoughts and fancies, that do their work secretly and unsuspected within the recesses of the heart, account for those sudden falls and sins on the part of such good men as David, that neither they nor others would have ever dreamt of? The mischief is due less to the temptation than to what preceded it -- and prepared for it.
You are walking, for example, through a forest. Across your path and on the ground lies, stretched out in death, a mighty tree, tall and strong -- fit mass to carry a cloud of canvas and bear unbent the strain of tempests. You put your foot lightly upon it; and how great your surprise when, breaking through the bark, it sinks deep into the body of the tree -- a result much less owing to the pressure of your foot, than to the poinsonous fungi and foul crawling insects that had attacked its core. They have left the outer rind inunjured -- but hollowed out its heart. Take care your heart is not hollowed out; and nothing left you but the crust and shell of an empty profession. [Guthrie]
Yet evil thoughts are most powerful and disastrous in their influence
Set thy thoughts, examine thy thoughts: thy conscience must not onlly extned to deeds and words, but even to secret thoughts. They that are accustomed to evil thoughts can seldom bring forth good words, never good deeds. As the corn is, so will the flour be: if the meal be bad, the fault is not in the millstones that ground it, but in the miller that put in such bsae corn. All they senses and members are but the millstones; the heart is the miller: if thy words and works be ill meal, thank the miller, they heart, for such corrupt thoughts. As the wood is, so will the fire be: if it be wet and stinking wood, look for an unsavoury and unwholesome fire: if the wood be sweet and dry, it will perfume the room with a sweet and pleasant air. Such fuel as you lay on your thoughts; such fire shall you have in your actions. [Adams, 1653]
How evil thoughts are to be dealth with
The best Christian's heart here is like Solomon's ships, which brought home, not only gold and silver, but also apes and peacocks; it has not only spiritual and heavenly, but also vain and foolish thoughts. But these latter are there as a disease or poison in the body, the object of his grief and abhorrence, not of his love and complacency.
Though we cannot keep vain thoughts form knocking at the door of our hearts, nor from entertaining in sometimes, yet we may forbear bidding them welcome, or giving them entertainment. "How long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee?" It is bad to let them sit down with us, though but for an hour, but it is worse to let them lie or lodge with us. It is better to receive the greatest thieves into our homes than vain thoughts into our hearts. John Huss, seeking to reclaim a very profane wretch, was told by him, that his giving way to wicken, wanton thoughts was the original of all those hideous births of impiety which he was guilty of in his life. Huss answered him, that though he could not keep eveil thoughts from courtin him, yet he might keep them from marrying him; "as," says he, "though I cannot keep the birds from flying over my head, yet I can keep them from building their nests in my hair." [Swinnock, 1673]
Cast out vain and sinful thoughts in the beginning, before they settle themselves and make a dwelling of thy heart. They are more easily and safely resisted in the entrance. Thy heart will give them rooting and grow familiar with them, if they make any stay. Besides, it shows the greater sin, because there is the less resistance and the more consent. If the will were against them, it would not let them alone so long. Yea, and the ir continuance tendeth to our ruin: it is like the continuance of poison in your bowels, or fire in your thatch, or a spy in an army: as long as they stay they are working toward your greater mischief. If these flies stay long they will grow and multiply: they will make their nests, and breed their young, and you will quickly have a swarm of sins. [Baxter, 1615-1691]
Curing evil thoughts
It is the part of a skillful surgeon or physician, not only to take away any appearing ulcer, or to cool the heat of a burning fever with outward applications, but to look into the inward causes and malignity of the disease, and so to order the matter, that the cause being taken away the effect may necessarily follow. Now, it is well known that the seed of all sins, and the well-spring of all wickedness, so from all wicked thoughts, they being the source and originals of all unrighteousness. [Maverick, 1617]
