Page:The works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., late fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (IA worksofrevjohnwe3wesl).pdf/225

 Christians also?" And thus my mind runs off, before I am aware, from one circumstance to another. Now all these are in some sense wandering thoughts. For altho' they do not wander from God, much less fight against him, yet they do wander from the particular point I had in view.

II. Such is the nature, such are the sorts (to speak rather usefully, than philosophically) of wandering thoughts. But what are the general occasions of them? This we are, in the second place to consider.

1. And it is easy to observe, that the occasion of the former sort of thoughts which oppose or wander from God, are in general, sinful tempers. For instance. Why is not God in all the thoughts, in any of the thoughts of a natural man? For a plain reason: be he rich or poor, learned or unlearned, he is an athiest; (tho' not vulgarly so called) he neither knows nor loves God. Why are his thoughts continually wandering after the world? Because he is an idolater. He does not indeed worship an image, or bow down to the stock of a tree: yet is he sunk into equally damnable idolatry: he loves, that is, worships the world. He seeks happiness in the things that are seen, in the pleasures that perish in the using. Why is it that his thoughts are perpetually wandering from the very end of his being, the knowledge of God in Christ? Because he is an