26. The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the LORD: but the words of the pure are pleasant words. {pleasant...: Heb. words of pleasantness}
How lightly do most men think of the responsibility of their thoughts! as if they were their own, and they might indulge them without restraint or evil. One substantial sin appals men, who quietly sleep under the mighty mass of thinking without God for months and years, without any apprehension of guilt. But thoughts are the seminal principles of sin.† And as the cause virtually includes its effects; so do they contain, like the seed in its little body, all the after fruit. They are also the index of character. Watch their infinite variety; not so much those that are under the control of circumstances, or thrown up by the occasion, as the voluntary flow, following the habitual train of our associations. “For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Chapter 23:7.) Let the Christian yield himself up to the clear radiance of “the word, as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart:”† and what a mass of vanity does only one day, one hour, bring to account! As to the wicked? “Evil thoughts” are the first bubbling of the corrupt fountain. (Matthew 15:19.) The tide of evil rolls on unceasingly in “thoughts of iniquity” (Isaiah 59:7), in order to give effect to the malevolent temper; dwelling on wickedness with complacency; pursuing it with determined purpose. What can such thoughts be, but an abomination to the LORD?
Very different is his mind towards his own people. The words of the pure, as the expression of their thoughts (Matthew 12:34. Psalm 37:30, 31), are pleasant words. How pleasant, is manifest from his inviting call to their intercourse with him (Verse 8. Song of Solomon 2:14); yet more from the open reward prepared for them before the assembled world. “They that spake often one to another — and thought upon his name — they shall be mine, saith the LORD, in that day when I make up my jewels.” (Malachi 3:16, 17.)
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