TRAINING OUR THOUGHTS

 Think Well and Do Well (Psalm 26:3)

for thy loving kindness is before mine eyes and I have walked in thy truth.~ Psalm 26:3.

 Think well and do well.

 Throughout this Psalm, David is labouring under the fear that he should be judged and condemned with the ungodly world. He feels in his own heart that he is not one with the enemies of God. And he shudders lest having hated their society on Earth he should be shut up in their company forever. 

His agonizing prayer is "Gather not my soul with sinners nor my life with bloody men," in urging reasons before the throne of grace. Why he should not be reckoned in the same condemnation as the ungodly. He urges not self-righteously but truthfully and confidently that there was a difference made by grace between himself and them. 

I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers. I have hated the congregation of evildoers ;   and I will not sit with the wicked. Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house and the place where thine honour dwelleth. There was a difference he declares between himself and the wicked, even in the current of his thoughts. 

 While their thoughts ran upon the world vanity, sin, rebellion, hypocrisy, and violence.

 His meditations were upon all the marvelous works of God and especially upon His loving kindness. Thy loving kindness is before mine eyes. It is an encouraging fact when we can honestly feel as before God that our thoughts are habitually exercised upon himself and upon Divine truth. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. We may form a better judgment of ourselves, probably from the tenor of our thoughts than from any other evidence. If our thoughts all go downward, downward we ourselves are going. But if there be some breathings towards the Heavenly some aspirations of our spirit towards the pure and perfect Father of Lights, then may we have hope that we also are ascending towards the Heavenly places and shall dwell in them here, after David could urge besides the secret evidence of his devout thoughts. 

 The public proof of his holy acts, I have walked in thy truth. It would be vanity for a man to find evidence of a renewed heart in his private meditations if those thoughts were not sufficiently deep to lead him to practical  godliness.  The thoughts become a valuable evidence because of their influence upon the life. But if they were so powerlessly superficial that our daily life was in no degree affected by them, they would be as salt that is lost its savour. If our actions are evil, it is vain to take comfort from our thoughts. If actions speak louder than words, they may well speak louder than thoughts. We must display outward holiness or else our inward experience of grace exists only in pretense. Say thou thinkest of what thou wilt But if thy whole conversation is according to the will of the flesh and not after the will of God, thy thoughts are not, thou hast deceived thyself as to their tenor they cannot be as thou sayest they are thoughts truthful, holy, devout and divine. Put the two together holy thoughts and holy living  and you have two sure evidences of a renewed nature. And if God has given you both of these though you will probably confess that you have them not in the measure in which you would desire to have them, yet bless the grace that is so worked upon you and rejoice this morning. And go on in holy confidence to ask for a greater measure of the same Divine working. Would to God our thoughts may become uniformly gracious and our lives perfectly consistent with our thoughts and with the Divine Word. 

I mean this morning to take the two parts of the text separately and then to consider the  link which unites them.

 First, then we shall have to consider the mind occupied with a fruitful subject.

 Secondly, the life ordered by a right rule. 

And thirdly, the link which connects the two.

 First, then may every Christian know by experience to a yet fuller degree, what it is to have a mind occupied with a   fruitful subject; Thy loving kindness is before mine eyes.

 It is exceedingly profitable to the Christian to have always some subject of thought upon his/her mind, for the mind that is vacant frivolous unoccupied will be sure to issue in a barren and unprofitable life. I fear to a very large extent in this age, the minds even of good people are empty and void and waste.

 Years ago when the influence of the Puritan age yet lingered among us, the female members of Christian churches were generally women of very considerable education whose range of reading was very different from that of their sisters in these days and whose theological knowledge was profound. While the men who were members of our non-conformist churches were as a rule persons of very clear doctrinal knowledge perhaps rather too much given to controversy and to pushing their own views without sufficient tolerance for the views of others. But on the whole nonconformist Christianity was highly intelligent, thoughtful and meditative men and women. Then when they joined the church, knew what they believed and believed what they knew. Then they were prepared to be counted singular for their belief but were equally prepared to justify themselves for taking up so separated a position. They were students of the Word of God and of such books as opened up to them the word of God so that our armies of Believers if they were fewer than now were nevertheless very strong because the Warriors handled their weapons well were well drilled and at home in the Holy War. I fear a great many Christian people do not think much about their religion. They give their guinea   subscription, they occupy their seat at the meeting house, they attend the prayer meetings but they are little given to thinking out a system of doctrines or to ransacking the meaning of Scripture. Contemplative pursuits are not so general among Christian professors as I could wish not that I desire to see an increase of a certain dilettante class of    people who are always expounding prophecy or spelling out types and leaving ragged people to perish in ignorance. And the masses of our city to remain unevangelized the sooner we bury the last of our prophetic pretenders, the  better they expose truth to ridicule. And rather hinder than promote the cause of faith. Louis Napoleon was to be the 7 Antichrist and to conquer all Europe. I wonder how they will play their cards. Now of late they have grown so impudent as to foretell the future with all the brass of a Sidell a lily or a Dr D.  I hope their failures will open the of the public to their folly. I so reverence the inspired prophecies that I wish a race of students would succeed these charlatans. We need devoutly meditative people who will think about the precious things of God in a practical gracious way, such as the Holy Ghost inspires men who are not forever occupying themselves with theories and speculations but with the solidities and with the practical parts of theology. A band of such men strong in the Lord and in the power of His might would have a great influence for good and if all professors were such the church would be rich indeed observe that when the mind does not receive holy matters to feed upon as a rule, it prays upon itself like certain of our bodily organs which if not supplied with nutritive matter will soon begin to devour their own tissues and then all sorts of aches and pains and ultimately   and then all sorts of aches and pains and ultimately diseases will set in the mind when it eats into itself forms doubts fears suspicions complaints and nine out of 10 of the doubts and fears of God's people come from two things walking at a distance from God  and want of spiritual nutriment for the soul. If you believer do not meditate upon some scriptural subject your minds will probably turned to vanity or to some evil within yourselves and you wil not long think of the corruption within without becoming the subjects of a despondency which will turn you into a mistress despond is or a mist of feeble Minds whereas by musing on the Promises of the Holy Spirit you would grow into good soldiers and happy pilgrims of some who do not feed their souls constantly with spiritual nourishment Satan takes an advantage and fills them with Unholy thoughts it is a very frequent complaint with persons who desire to be in the fear of God all the day long that they are molested with horrible insinuations Dreadful suggestions and revolting ideas and they fly to the pastor sometimes to know whether they can be the children of God at all or if the children of God what remedy they can use by which they shall be able to escape from this horrible torment I suggested yesterday to a friend labouring under this serious complaint that he should take care never to go out in the morning without placing under his tongue a text of scripture like a wafer made with honey and I exalted him at all times to occupy his mind with Heavenly subjects so that there should be the less likelihood of the thoughts running after that which is evil the best way to prevent a bushel measure from being filled with chaff is to fill it first with wheat if the channel of the Soul be filled with a strong stream of devout thought there cannot be much mud and filth lying at the bottom a powerful stream of holy contemplation will scour the thoughts and bear away the foul deposits of Unholy thought there is nothing like keeping the mind occupied for Satan find some evil still for idle brains to think  upon it is true that weeds and nettles choke The Good Seed but it is equally true that when The Good Seed gets strong  above ground it will choke the weeds where Jesus is, the buyers and sellers are driven out of the temple, day gone Falls where the ark comes, when Israel comes in the Canaanite must go out fill the cage of your heart with the  bird of paradise and the foul birds will not have it all to themselves if our souls shall become so full of thoughts of God and things Divine that vain thought shall be banished it will be a fine growing time for the plants of the Lord's right planting learn from the text the usefulness of having some sacred topic  before the mind's eye. David in selecting the topic of divine loving kindness did well for let us remark upon that subject that it is first of all a rightful subject of meditation I mean it is our bound and duty to think much upon it some things we may not think of certain other topics we are barely allowed to think of but other themes we must think of. Now the loving kindness of God is one of the things which is not left to our choice we are bound to meditate much upon that as David says oh bless the Lord my soul nor let his mercies lie forgotten in unthankfulness and without Praises die shall God day after day send such store of Mercy to such unworthy ones as we are and shall we treat this continuous generosity as a matter of course and not even think of it base in gratitude let us scorn such mean if we ought to think of our duty to God and of our violation of that Duty yet much more of the loving kindness which  makes our duty pleasure and which covers over with a mantle of love the transgressions of Our Lives infinite goodness is a rightful subject of meditation and it deserves a large share of our thoughts it is besides a good subject it is good in it self and it will do us good the loving kindness of God by no possibility can any harm come to us from retaining that subject too long in our minds a man who has but one idea will sometimes become an unbalanced inharmonious man often times he will fall into obstinacy, bigotry or rashness through the excessive indulgence of that one thought just as one feature exaggerates out of proportion with the rest will make an ugly countenance but you cannot think too much upon the Divine loving kindness. You may make this if you will the one sole topic of your thought and yet escape narrow-mindedness or one-sidedness it has so many links of union with all other subjects that when you consider this it will bring up as it were compendiously a whole circle of profitable meditation think of the Divine loving kindness and it shall be good only good and that continually as you muse upon it your  thoughts will humble you why such goodness to me to me who am less than the least of all thy saints the same theme will be equally sure to comfort you is the Lord so good to me then amid every adversity my spirit shall rejoice in the Lord and glory in the God of my salvation to think of this will stimulate you to be full of loving kindness to others who may have acted unjustly or ungenerously towards you as God hath loved you so bounteously you will be bound to pity and assist the poor and needy this subject will benefit you in all respects    and harm you in none ring this silver bell again and again it is good for the hearing moreover dear Brethren it is a wide subject to set His loving kindness before our eyes is not to select a narrow theme which we can soon exhaust it is a boundless topic the loving kindness of the Lord hath no beginning you may fly backward to the ages past in meditation deep and long Divine loving kindness shall have no end you may look into the ages yet to come with joyful musings loving kindness is high as heaven to which it shall lift you it is deep as hell from which it has redeemed you it is wide as the East is from the West for so far had he removed all your transgressions from you here is a subject in which you may expatiate without limit or fear of repetition if hitherto you have bathed in this stream up to the ankles proceed in meditation deeper still for you shall find it a river to swim in a very Broad River that cannot be passed over the width of the subject is one thing which leads me to commend it to you as a theme for the most expanded intellect in time and in eternity and it is a pleasing subject thy loving kindness is before mine eyes nobody need grow weary of this it is like traversing a country in which every single inch of the road opens up a new Prospect here you see the loving kindness of God in the land in which you were born in the times in which your life is cast in the mercies with which your life is surrounded you may see the loving kindness of God in your temporal mercies you cannot go to your house or bed chamber without seeing it there you see that loving kindness even more clearly in spirituals what a blessing to to be interested in the Covenant of  Grace how many a Holy hymn awakens memories of The Tender Mercies past how this very house and the seat you sit on refresh your Recollections as to what God has done for you in days gone by The Loving kindness of the Lord I never knew a man grow heavy in spirit from meditating upon this, never knew a man become weary of the cares and burdens of life through thinking of God's loving kindness but he has grown stronger to bear his burden or to fight his way through times conflict when the loving kindness of the Great Preserver of men has come visibly before his mind and you may add it is a very plain and simple subject and one that is suitable to us all the loving kindness of the Lord is a topic that can be reached by The Babe in Grace and yet will not be Superfluous to the most advanced there are topics in scripture so profound and surrounded with such metaphysical difficulties and rendered so much more perplexing by the wisdom or the unwisdom of divines that one might almost say to the Christian thinker you may pass those by for you will never get much out of them the quartz is too hard there is too little gold to pay for breaking up but when you come to this subject the unskilled convert may sit down and meditate on the