Page:The works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., late fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (IA worksofrevjohnwe3wesl).pdf/234

 2. With regard to the latter sort of wandering thoughts, the case is widely different. 'Till the cause is removed, we cannot in reason expect the effect should cease. But the causes or occasions of these will remain, as long as we remain in the body. So long therefore we have all reason to believe, the effects will remain also.

3. * To be more particular. Suppose a soul, however holy, to dwell in a distempered body. Suppose the brain be so throughly disordered, as that raging madness follows: will not all the thoughts be wild and unconnected, as long as that disorder continues? Suppose a fever occasions that temporary madness, which we term a delirium, can there be any just connection of thought, 'till that delirium is removed? Yea, suppose what is called a nervous disorder, to rise to so high a degree, as to occasion at least a ''partial madness'', will there not be a thousand wandering thoughts? And must not these irregular thoughts continue, as long as the disorder which occasions them?

4. Will not the case be the same, with regard to those thoughts that necessarily arise from violent pain? They will, more or less, continue while that pain continues, by the inviolable order of nature. This order likewise will obtain, where the thoughts are disturbed, broken or interrupted, by any defect of the apprehension, judgment or imagination, flowing from the natural constitution of the body. And how many