He makes the control of thought essential. Internal
purity with him is everything. Now I contend that this is the only
discipline which can succeed; in other words, that a moral system which
prohibits actions, but leaves the thoughts at liberty, will be
ineffectual, and is therefore unwise. I know not how to go about the
proof of a point which depends upon experience, and upon a knowledge of
the human constitution, better than by citing the judgment of persons
who appear to have given great attention to the subject, and to be well
qualified to form a true opinion about it. Boerhaave, speaking of this
very declaration of our Saviour, "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust
after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart," and
understanding it, as we do, to contain an injunction to lay the check
upon the thoughts, was wont to say that "our Saviour knew mankind better
than Socrates." Hailer, who has recorded this saying of Boerhaave, adds
to it the following remarks of his own:--(Letters to his Daughter.) "It
did not escape the observation of our Saviour that the rejection of
any evil thoughts was the best defence against vice: for when a
debauched person fills his imagination with impure pictures, the
licentious ideas which he recalls fail not to stimulate his desires with
a degree of violence which he cannot resist.
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