The Gate of the Heart: Richard Sibbes on the Imagination
The following is Chapter 13 of Richard Sibbes’ The Soul’s Conflict with Itself. The chapter is entitled “Of imagination, sin of it, and remedies for it.” Before your reading of it, however, a few housekeeping items are in order. Particularly, why Sibbes and what we can learn from him in the following chapter.
So, why Richard Sibbes? At birdhouse, we will be exploring the many ways that imagination, fantasy, fancy, etc. have been spoken of throughout church history. We begin with Sibbes because, according to Kaufmann, “It is not really until the work of Sibbes that we find overt recognition of what heavenly-minded meditation implied for the imagination.”¹ If this seems like an overstatement, it is; yet while we agree with Beeke that it is, we also agree with him that Kaufmann’s assessment “has grains of truth” to it.² The grain of truth is that Sibbes really does have a lot of good to say about the imagination, and for the most part, that was rare in his day and before it. Kaufmann’s assessment that the following chapter eventually lead John Bunyan to write The Pilgrim’s Progress may be well-grounded.³ If it is, what you are soon to read might be the most important piece of Christian literature exploring a theory of the imagination ever written outside of Jesus’ “consider the birds” found in Matthew 6:25-34. For that reason, and simply because we love the Heavenly Doctor’s work, we begin with this piece by Sibbes.
Finally, what can we learn? First, we can learn, while also believing that he overstates some of his case, that there is a great danger in an unbridled imagination. As Herman Bavinck wrote, “The freedom with which imagination brings these creations into existence is, however, no lawlessness. Unbridled fantasy produces nothing but monstrosities. Just as fantasy is objectively bound to the elements of the visible world, so too must it be subjectively under the control of understanding, and above all be guided by moral ideas.”⁴ We could ponder for days the harm it might do for a Christian to imagine they are not right before God, or to imagine that this suffering is because of their sin, but for now, we will let Sibbes take the reigns. Secondly, Sibbes is also clear to not conflate the imagination with faith. While imagination and faith must be kept in relation to one another (what else does it mean to picture what is not seen than to act on faith), they must be kept separate. Another Puritan, John Owen, writing on being spiritually minded, noted that “Imagination creates its own object; faith finds it prepared beforehand.”⁵ Finally, and surprisingly for many, Sibbes is also very positive on what good the imagination can do—having first laid down its boundaries. Sibbes goes so far as to picture the imagination as the Gate to the Heart. In the same way, Bavinck concluded his remarks on restricting the imagination by making clear that “within these boundaries, fantasy is of the greatest significance . . . [It] plays a highly significant role in thinking and action, in science and art, in religion and morality, in health and well-being.”⁶
Now that the (bird)housekeeping is finished, let us attend to the Heavenly Doctor as he seeks to enlighten us to the dangers of misusing the imagination, and the wonders of it properly applied.
The Misuse of Imagination
Amongst all the faculties of the soul, most of the disquiet and unnecessary trouble of our lives arises from the vanity and ill government of that power of the soul which we call imagination and opinion, bordering between the senses and our understanding; which is nothing else but a shallow apprehension of good or evil taken from the senses. Now because outward good or evil things agree or disagree to the senses, and the life of sense is in us before the use of reason, and the delights of sense are present, and pleasing and suitable to our natures, thereupon the imagination setteth a great price upon sensible good things; and the judgment itself since the fall, until it hath a higher light and strength, yieldeth to our imagination. Hence it comes to pass that the best things, if they be attended with sensible inconveniences, as want, disgrace in the world, and such like, are misjudged for evil things; and the very worst things, if they be attended with respect in the world, and sensible contentments, are imagined to be the greatest good; which appears not so much in men's words (because they are ashamed to discover their hidden folly and atheism), but the lives of people speak as much, in that particular choice which they make. Many there are who think it not only a vain but a dangerous thing to serve God, and a base thing to be awed with religious respect; they count the ways that God's people take no better than madness, and that course which God takes in bringing men to heaven by a plain publishing of heavenly truths, to be nothing but foolishness; and those people that regard it, are esteemed, as the Pharisees esteemed them that heard Christ, ignorant, base, and despicable persons. Hence arise all those false prejudices against the ways of holiness, as they in the Acts were shy in entertaining the truth, because it was “a way everywhere spoken against” (Acts 28:22). The doctrine of the cross hath the cross always following it, which imagination counteth the most odious and bitter thing in the world.
This imagination of ours is become the seat of vanity, and thereupon of vexation to us, because it apprehends a greater happiness in outward good things than there is, and a greater misery in outward evil things than indeed there is; and when experience shews us that there is not that good in those things which we imagine to be, but, contrarily, we find much evil in them which we never expected, hereupon the soul cannot but be troubled. The life of many men, and those not the meanest, is almost nothing else but a fancy; that which chiefly sets their wits awork and takes up most of their time is how to please their own imagination, which setteth up an excellency, within itself, in comparison of which it despiseth all true excellency and those things that are of most necessary consequence indeed. Hence springs ambition and the vein of being great in the world; hence comes an unmeasurable desire of abounding in those things which the world esteems highly of. There is in us naturally a competition and desire of being equal or above others in that which is generally thought to make us happy and esteemed amongst men. If we be not the only men, yet we will be somebody in the world; something we will have to be highly esteemed for, wherein if we be crossed, we count it the greatest misery that can befall us.
And, which is worse, a corrupt desire of being great in the opinion of others creeps into the profession of religion, if we live in those places wherein it brings credit or gain. Men will sacrifice their very lives for vainglory. It is an evidence a man lives more to opinion and reputation of others than to conscience, when his grief is more for being disappointed of that approbation which he expects from men, than for his miscarriage towards God. It mars all in religion when we go about heavenly things with earthly affections, and seek not Christ in Christ, but the world. What is popery but an artificial frame of man's brain to please men's imaginations by outward state and pomp of ceremonies, like that golden image of Nebuchadnezzar, wherein he pleased himself so, that, to have uniformity in worshipping the same, he compelled all, under pain of death, to fall down before it (Dan. 3:6). This makes superstitious persons always cruel, because superstitious devices are the brats of our own imagination, which we strive for more than for the purity of God's worship. Hence it is, likewise, that superstitious persons are restless (as the woman of Samaria) in their own spirits, as having no bottom, but fancy instead of faith.
How Imagination Works
Now, the reason why imagination works so upon the soul is, because it stirs up the affections answerable to the good or ill which it apprehends, and our affections stir the humours of the body, so that oftentimes both our souls and bodies are troubled hereby.
Things work upon the soul in this order:
Some object is presented.
Then it is apprehended by imagination as good and pleasing, or as evil and hurtful.
If good, the desire is carried to it with delight; if evil, it is rejected with distaste, and so our affections are stirred up suitably to our apprehension of the object.
Affections stir up the spirits.
The Spirits raise the humours, and so the whole man becomes moved, and oftentimes distempered; this falleth out by reason of the sympathy between the soul and body, whereby what offendeth one redoundeth to the hurt of the other.
And we see conceived troubles have the same effect upon us as true. Jacob was as much troubled with the imagination of his son's death as if he had been dead indeed. Imagination, though it be an empty, windy thing, yet it hath real effects. Superstitious persons are as much troubled for neglecting any voluntary service of man's invention, as if they had offended against the direct commandment of God. Thus superstition breeds false fears, and false fear brings true vexation. It transforms God to an idol, imagining him to be pleased with whatsoever pleases ourselves, whenas we take it ill that those who are under us should take direction from themselves and not from us in that which may content us. Superstition is very busy, but all in vain: “In vain they worship me,” saith God (Matt. 15:9). And how can it choose but vex and disquiet men, when they shall take a great deal of pains in vain, and, which is worse, to displease most in that wherein they think to please most. God blasteth all devised service with one demand, 'Who required these things at your hands?' (Isa. 1:12). It were better for us to ask ourselves this question beforehand, “Who required this?” “Why do we trouble ourselves about that which we shall have no thank for?” We should not bring God down to our own imaginations, but raise our imaginations up to God.
Now, imagination hurteth us:
By false representations.
By preventing reason, and so usurping a censure of things before our judgments try them, whereas the office of imagination is to minister matter to our understanding to work upon, and not to lead it, much less mislead it, in anything.
By forging matter out of itself without ground; the imaginary grievances of our lives are more than the real.
As it is an ill instrument of the understanding to devise vanity and mischief.
How To Cure the Misuse of Imagination
The way to cure this malady in us is:
Govern the Imagination
To labour to bring these risings of our souls into the obedience of God's truth and Spirit (2 Cor. 10:5). For imagination, of itself, if ungoverned, is a wild and a ranging thing; it wrongs not only the frame of God's work in us, setting the baser part of a man above the higher, but it wrongs likewise the work of God in the creatures and everything else, for it shapes things as itself pleaseth; it maketh evil good if it pleaseth the senses, and good evil if it be dangerous and distasteful to the outward man, which cannot but breed an unquiet and an unsettled soul. As if it were a god, it can tell good and evil at its pleasure; it sets up and pulls down the price of what it listeth. By reason of the distemper of imagination, the life of many is little else but a dream. Many good men are in a long dream of misery, and many bad men in as long a dream of happiness, till the time of awaking come, and all because they are too much led by appearances. And as in a dream men are deluded with false joys and false fears, so here; which cannot but breed an unquiet and an unsettled soul. Therefore, it is necessary that God, by his word and Spirit, should erect a government in our hearts to captivate and order this licentious faculty.
Govern the Imagination by Reality
Likewise, it is good to present real things to the soul, as the true riches and true misery of a Christian, the true honour and dishonour, true beauty and deformity, the true nobleness and debasement, of the soul. Whatever is in the world are but shadows of things in comparison of those true realities which religion affords. And why should we vex ourselves about a vain shadow (Psalm 39:6)?
The Holy Ghost, to prevent further mischief by these outward things, gives a dangerous report of them, calling them vanity, unrighteous mammon (Luke 16:9), uncertain riches, thorns, yea, nothing (Prov. 23:5); because, though they be not so in themselves, yet, our imagination overvaluing them, they prove so to us upon trial. Now, knowledge that is bought by trial is often dear bought; and therefore God would have us prevent this by a right conceit of things beforehand, lest trusting to vanity we vanish ourselves, and trusting to nothing we become nothing ourselves, and, which is worse, worse than nothing.
Govern the Imagination by Truth
Oppose serious consideration against vain imagination; and because our imagination is prone to raise false objects, and thereby false conceits and discourses in us, our best way herein is to propound true objects of the mind to work upon, as (1) To consider the greatness and goodness of Almighty God and his love to us in Christ. (2) The joys of heaven and the torments of hell. (3) The last and strict day of account. (4) The vanity of all earthly things. (5) The uncertainty of our lives, etc.
From the meditation of these truths the soul will be prepared to have right conceits of things, and discourse upon true grounds of them, and think with itself that if these things be so indeed, then I must frame my life suitable to these principles. Hence arise true affections in the soul, true fear of God, true love and desire after the best things, etc. The way to expel wind out of our bodies is to take some wholesome nourishment, and the way to expel windy fancies from the soul is to feed upon serious truths.
Govern the Imagination by Regeneration
Moreover, to the well ordering of this unruly faculty, it is necessary that our nature itself should be changed; for as men are, so they imagine; as the “treasure of the heart is” (Matt. 12:35), such is that which comes from it. Mala mens, malus animus, “An evil heart cannot think well.” Before the heart be changed, our judgment is depraved in regard of our last end; we seek our happiness where it is not to be found. “Wickedness comes from the wicked” as the proverb is (1 Sam. 24:13). If we had as large and as quick apprehensions as Satan himself, yet if the relish of our will and affections be not changed, they will set the imaginations awork, to devise satisfaction to themselves. For there is a mutual working and reflux betwixt the will and the imagination; the imagination stirs up the will, and as the will is affected, so imagination worketh.
When the law of God by the Spirit is so written in our hearts, that the law and our hearts become agreeable one to the other, then the soul is inclined and made pliable to every good thought. When the heart is once taught of God to love, it is the nature of this sweet affection, as the apostle saith, to “think no evil” (1 Cor. 13:5), either of God or man; and not only so, but it carries the bent of the whole soul with it to good, so that we love God not only with all our heart, but with all our mind (Matt. 22:37), that is, both with our understanding and imagination. Love is an affection full of inventions, and sets the wit awork to devise good things; therefore our chief care should be, that our hearts may be circumcised and purified, so as they may be filled with the love of God, and then we shall find this duty not only easy, but delightful unto us. The prophet healed the waters by casting salt into the spring (2 Kings 2:20), so the seasoning of the spring of our actions seasons all. And indeed, what can be expected from man, whilst he is vanity, but vain imaginations? What can we look for from a viper but poison? A man naturally is either weaving spiders' webs, or hatching cockatrices' eggs (Isa. 59:5), that is, his heart is exercised either in vanity or mischief; for not only the frame of the heart, but what the heart frameth, is evil continually (Gen. 6:5). A wicked man that is besotted with false conceits, will admit of no good thoughts to enter.
Govern the Imagination by Reason
Even when we are good, and devise good things, yet there is still some sickness of fancy remaining in the best of us, whereby we work trouble to ourselves; and therefore it is necessary we should labour to restrain and limit our fancy, and stop these waters at the beginning, Prov. 7:14, giving no not the least way thereunto. If it begins to grow wanton, tame the wildness of it by fastening it to the cross of Christ (whom we have pierced with our sins (Zech. 12:10) and amongst other, with these sins of our spirits), who hath redeemed us from our vain thoughts and conversations (1 Peter 1:18); set before it the consideration of the wrath of God, of death, and judgment, and the woful estate of the damned, etc., and take it not off till thy heart be taken off from straying from God. When it begins once to run out to impertinences, confine it to some certain thing and then upon examination we shall find it bring home some honey with it; otherwise it will bring us nothing but a sting from the bitter remembrance of our former misspent thoughts and time, which we should redeem and fill up with things that most belong to our peace (Luke 19:47). Idleness is the hour of temptation, wherein Satan joins with our imagination, and sets it about his own work, to grind his grease; for the soul as a mill, either grinds that which is put into it, or else works upon itself. Imagination is the first wheel of the soul, and if that move amiss, it stirs all the inferior wheels amiss with it. It stirs itself, and other powers of the soul are stirred by its motion; and therefore the well ordering of this is of the greater consequence. For as the imagination conceiveth, so usually the judgment concludeth, the will chooseth, the affections are carried, and the members execute.
If it break loose, as it will soon run riot, yet give no consent of the will to it. Though it hath defiled the memory, yet let it not defile the will. Though it be the first-born of the soul, yet let it not, as Reuben, ascend unto the father's bed—that is, our will,—and defile that which should be kept pure for the Spirit of Christ. Resolve to act nothing upon it, but cross it before it moves to the execution and practice of anything. As in sickness, many times we imagine, by reason of the corruption of our taste, physic to be ill for us, and those meats which nourish the disease to be good, yet care of health makes us cross our own conceits, and take that which fancy abhors; so if we would preserve sound spirits, we must conclude against groundless imagination, and resolve that whatsoever it suggests cannot be so, because it crosses the grounds both of religion and reason. And when we find imagination to deceive us in sensible things, as melancholy persons are subject to mistake, we may well gather that it will much more deceive us in our spiritual condition; and indeed, such is the incoherence, impertinency, and unreasonableness of imagination, that men are oft ashamed and angry with themselves afterwards, for giving the least way to such thoughts; and it is good to chastise the soul for the same, that it may be more wary for time to come. Whilst men are led with imagination, they work not according to right rules prescribed to men, but as other baser creatures, in whom phantasy is the chief ruling power; and therefore, those whose will is guided by their fancies, live more like beasts than men.
We allow a horse to prance and skip in a pasture, which if he doth when he is once backed by the rider, we count him an unruly and unbroken jade; so howsoever in other creatures we allow liberty of fancy, yet we allow it not in man to frisk and rove at its pleasure, because in him it is to be bridled with reason.
Govern the Imagination by Holiness
Especially take heed of those cursed imaginations out of which, as of mother roots, others spring forth; as questioning God's providence, and care of his children, his justice, his disregarding of what is done here below, etc.; thoughts of putting off our amendment for time to come, and so blessing ourselves in any evil way; thoughts against the necessity of exact and circumspect walking with God, etc. (Eph. 5:15). When these and such like principles of Satan's and the flesh's divinity take place in our hearts, they block up the soul against the entrance of soul-saving truths, and taint our whole conversation, which is either good or evil, as the principles are by which we are guided, and as our imagination is, which lets in all to the soul.
The Jews in Jeremiah's time were forestalled with vain imaginations against sound repentance, and therefore his counsel is, “Wash thine heart, O Jerusalem! how long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee?” (Jer. 4:14).
Use the Imagination for Love of Neighbor
Fancy will the better be kept within its due bounds, if we consider the principal use thereof. Sense and imagination is properly to judge what is comfortable or uncomfortable, what is pleasing or displeasing to the outward man, not what is morally or spiritually good or ill; and thus far by the laws of nature and civility we are bound to give fancy contentment both in ourselves and others, as not to speak or do anything uncomely, which may occasion a loathing or distaste in our converse with men; and it is a matter of conscience to make our lives as comfortable as may be. As we are bound to love, so we are bound to use all helps that may make us lovely, and endear us into the good affections of others. As we are bound to give no offence to the conscience of another, so to no power or faculty either of the outward or inward man of another. Some are taken off in their affection by a fancy, whereof they can give but little reason; and some are more careless in giving offence in this kind, than stands with that Christian circumspection and mutual respect which we owe one to another. The apostle's rule is of large extent, “Whatsoever things are not only true, and honest, and just, but whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, etc., think of these things” (Phil. 4:8). Yet our main care should be to manifest ourselves rather to men's consciences than to their imaginations.
Cultivate the Imagination
It should be our wisdom, likewise, to place ourselves in the best conveniency of all outward helps, which may have a kind working upon our fancy; and to take heed to the contrary, as time, place, and objects, etc. There be good hours and good messengers of God's sending, golden opportunities wherein God uses to give a meeting to his children, and breathes good thoughts into them. Even the wisest and holiest men, as David and Solomon, etc., had no further safety than they were careful of well-using all good advantages, and sequestering themselves from such objects as had a working power upon them. By suffering their souls to be led by their fancies, and their hearts to run after their eyes, they betrayed and robbed themselves of much grace and comfort, thereupon Solomon cries out with grief and shame from his own experience, “Vanity of vanities” (Eccles. 1:2). Fancy will take fire before we be aware. Little things are seeds of great matters. Job knew this, and therefore made a “covenant with his eyes” (Job 31:1); but a “fool's eyes are in the corners of the earth,” saith Solomon (Prov. 17:24).
Sometimes the ministering of some excellent thought—præclara cogitatio—from what we hear or see, proves a great advantage of spiritual good to the soul. Whilst St. Augustine out of curiosity delighted to hear the eloquence of St. Ambrose, he was taken with the matter itself, sweetly sliding together with the words into his heart. Of later times, whilst Galeaceus Caracciolus, an Italian marquis, and nephew to Pope Paul V., was hearing Peter Martyr reading upon 1 Corinthians, and shewing the deceivableness of man's judgment in spiritual things, and the efficacy of divine truth in those that belong unto God, and further using a similitude to this purpose: “If a man be walking afar off, and see people dancing together, and hear no noise of the music, he judges them fools and out of their wits; but when he comes nearer and hears the music, and sees that every motion is exactly done by art, now he changes his mind, and is so taken up with the sweet agreement of the gesture and the music, that he is not only delighted therewith, but desirous to join himself in the number. So it falls out, saith he, with men: whilst they look upon the outward carriage and conversation of God's people, and see it differing from others, they think them fools; but when they look more narrowly into their courses, and see a gracious harmony betwixt their lives and the word of God, then they begin to be in love with the ‘beauty of holiness,’ and join in conformity of holy obedience with those they scorned before.” This similitude wrought so with this nobleman, that he began, from that time forward, to set his mind to the study of heavenly things.
One seasonable truth falling upon a prepared heart, hath oftentimes a sweet and strong operation. Luther confesseth that having heard a grave divine, Staupicius, say that “that is kind repentance which begins from the love of God,” ever after that time the practice of repentance was sweeter to him. This speech of his likewise took well with Luther, that in doubts of predestination we should begin from the wounds of Christ, doctrina prædestinationis incipit a vulneribus Christi (from the sense of God's love to us in Christ”, we should arise to the grace given us in election before the world was (2 Tim. 1:9).
The Good Use of Imagination
The putting of lively colours upon common truths hath oft a strong working both upon the fancy and our will and affections. The spirit is refreshed with fresh things, or old truths refreshed. This made the preacher seek to find out pleasing and acceptable words (Eccl. 12:10); and our Saviour Christ's manner of teaching was by a lively representation to men's fancies, to teach them heavenly truths in an earthly, sensible manner; and indeed, what do we see or hear but will yield matter to a holy heart to raise itself higher?
We should make our fancy serviceable to us in spiritual things, and take advantage by any pleasure, or profit, or honour which it presents our thoughts withal, to think thus with ourselves, “What is this to the true honour, and to those enduring pleasures?” And seeing God hath condescended to represent heavenly things to us under earthly terms, we should follow God's dealing herein. God represents heaven to us under the term of a banquet, and of a kingdom, etc. (Luke 10:32); our union with Christ under the term of a marriage, yea, Christ himself, under the name of whatsoever is lovely or comfortable in heaven or earth. So the Lord sets out hell to us by whatsoever is terrible or tormenting. Here is a large field for our imagination to walk in, not only without hurt, but with a great deal of spiritual gain. If the wrath of a king be as the roaring of a lion (Prov. 19:12), what is the wrath of the King of kings? If fire be so terrible, what is hell fire? If a dark dungeon be so loathsome, what is that eternal dungeon of darkness? If a feast be so pleasing, what is the “continual feast of a good conscience” (Prov. 15:15)? If the meeting of friends be so comfortable, what will our meeting together in heaven be? The Scripture, by such like terms, would help our faith and fancy both at once. A sanctified fancy will make every creature a ladder to heaven. And because childhood and youth are ages of fancy, therefore it is a good way to instil into the hearts of children betimes, the loving of good and the shunning of evil, by such like representations as agree with their fancies, as to hate hell under the representation of fire and darkness, etc. Whilst the soul is joined with the body, it hath not only a necessary but a holy use of imagination, and of sensible things whereupon our imagination worketh. What is the use of the sacraments but to help our souls by our senses, and our faith by imagination? As the soul receives much hurt from imagination, so it may have much good thereby.
But yet it ought not to invent or devise what is good and true in religion. Here fancy must yield to faith, and faith to divine revelation. The things we believe are such as neither “eye hath seen, nor ear heard, neither came into the heart of man” (1 Cor. 2:9), by imagination stirred up from anything which we have seen or heard. They are above, not only imagination, but reason itself, in men and angels. But after God hath revealed spiritual truths, and faith hath apprehended them, then imagination hath use while the soul is joined with the body, to colour divine truths, and make lightsome what faith believes; for instance, it doth not devise either heaven or hell; but when God hath revealed them to us, our fancy hath a fitness of enlarging our conceits of them, even by resemblance from things in nature, and that without danger; because the joys of heaven and the torments of hell are so great that all the representations which nature affords us fall short of them.
Imagination hath likewise some use in religion, by putting cases to the soul, as when we are tempted to any unruly action we should think with ourselves, “What would I do if some holy, grave person whom I much reverence should behold me?” Whereupon the soul may easily ascend higher, “God sees me, and my own conscience is ready to witness against me.”
It helps us also in taking benefit by the example of other men. Good things are best learned by others expressing of them to our view. The very sight often, nay, the very thought of a good man doth good, as representing to our souls some good thing which we affect—est aliquid quod ex magno viro vel tacents proficias—which makes histories and the lively characters and expressions of virtues and vices useful to us. The sight, yea, the very reading of the suffering of the martyrs hath wrought such a hatred of that persecuting church as hath done marvellous good. The sight of justice executed upon malefactors works a greater hatred of sin in men than naked precepts can do. So outward pomp and state in the world doth further that awful respect due to authority, etc.
An Example: Imagine Your Heavenly End
It would much avail for the well ordering of our thoughts to set our souls in order every morning, and to strengthen and perfume our spirits with some gracious meditations, especially of the chief end and scope wherefore we live here, and how every thing we do or befalls us may be reduced and ordered to further the main. The end of a Christian is glorious, and the oft thoughts of it will raise and enlarge the soul, and set it on work to study how to make all things serviceable thereunto. It is a thing to be lamented that a Christian born for heaven, having the “prize of his high calling” (Phil. 3:14), set before him, and matters of that weight and excellency to exercise his heart upon, should be taken up with trifles, and fill both his head and heart with vanity and nothing, as all earthly things will prove ere long; and yet if many men's thoughts and discourses were distilled, they are so frothy that they would hardly yield one drop of true comfort.
Answering an Objection
Many flatter themselves, from an impossibility of ruling their imaginations, and are ready to lay all upon infirmity and natural weakness, etc.
But such must know that if we be sound Christians, the Spirit of God will enable us to do all things, evangelically, that we are called unto, if we give way without check to the motions thereof. Where the Spirit is, it is such a light as discovers not only dunghills, but motes themselves, even light and flying imaginations, and abaseth the soul for them, and by degrees purgeth them out; and if they press, as they are as busy as flies in summer, yet a good heart will not own them, nor allow himself in them, but casts them off, as hot water doth the scum, or as the stomach doth that which is noisome unto it. They find not that entertainment here which they have in carnal hearts, where the scum soaks in, which are stews of unclean thoughts, shambles of cruel and bloody thoughts, exchanges and shops of vain thoughts, a very forge and mint of false, politic, and undermining thoughts, yea often a little hell of confused and black imaginations. There is nothing that more moveth a godly man to renew his interest every day in the perfect righteousness and obedience of his Saviour, than these sinful stirrings of his soul, when he finds something in himself always enticing and drawing away his heart from God, and intermingling itself with his best performances. Even good thoughts are troublesome if they come unseasonably, and weaken our exact performance of duty.
Correcting Misconceptions
The Imagination and Religion
As we must take heed that we account not our imaginations to be religion, so we must not account true religion, and the power of godliness, to be a matter of imagination only; as if holy men troubled themselves more than needs, when they stand upon religion and conscience, seeking to approve themselves “to God in all things” (1 Thess. 5:12), and endeavouring, so far as frailty will permit, to “avoid all appearances of evil” (1 Thess. 5:22). Many men are so serious in vanities and real in trifles, that they count all which dote not upon such outward excellencies as they do, because the Spirit of God hath revealed to them things of a higher nature, to be fantastics and humorous people, and so impute the work of the Spirit to the flesh, God's work to Satan, which comes near unto blasphemy. They imagine good men to be led with vain conceits, but good men know them to be so led. Not only St. Paul (Acts 26:24) but Christ himself (John 10:20) were counted beside themselves, when they were earnest for God and the souls of his people. But there is enough in religion to bear up the soul against all imputations laid upon it: the true children of wisdom are always able to justify their mother (Matt. 11:19) and the conscionable practice of holy duties, if founded upon such solid grounds as shall hold out when heaven and earth shall vanish.
The Imagination and Righteousness
We must know that—as there is great danger in false conceits of the way to heaven, when we make it broader than it is, for by this means we are like men going over a bridge, who think it broader than it is, but being deceived by some shadow, sink down, and are suddenly drowned; so men mistaking the straight way to life, and trusting to the shadow of their own imagination, fall into the bottomless pit of hell before they are aware—in like manner the danger is great in making the way to heaven narrower than indeed it is, by weak and superstitious imaginations, making more sins than God hath made. The wise man's counsel is, that we should not make ourselves over-wicked, nor be foolisher than we are (Eccl. 7:17) by devising more sins in our imagination than we are guilty of.
It is good in this respect, to know our Christian liberty, which being one of the fruits of Christ's death, we cannot neglect the same, without much wrong not only to ourselves, but to the rich bounty and goodness of God. So that the due rules of limitation be observed, from authority, piety, sobriety, needless offence of others, etc., we may with better leave, use all those comforts which God hath given to refresh us in the way to heaven, than refuse them. The care of the outward man binds conscience so far, as that we should neglect nothing which may help us in a cheerful serving of God, in our places, and tend to the due honour of our bodies, which are the “temples of the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor. 3:16, 17) and companions with our souls in all performances, so that under this pretence we take not too much liberty to satisfy the lusts of the body. Intemperate use of the creatures is the nurse of all passions; because our spirits, which are the soul's instruments, are hereby inflamed and disturbed. It is no wonder to see an intemperate man transported into any passion.
The Imagination and Suffering
Some out of their high and airy imaginations, and out of their iron and flinty philosophy, will needs think outward good and ill, together with the affections of grief and delight stirred up thereby, to be but opinions and conceits of good and evil only, not true, and really so founded in nature, but taken up of ourselves. But though our fancy be ready to conceit a greater hurt in outward evils than indeed there is, as in poverty, pain of body, death of friends, etc., yet we must not deny them to be evils. That wormwood is bitter, it is not a conceit only, but the nature of the thing itself, yet to abstain from it altogether, for the bitterness thereof, is a hurtful conceit. That honey is sweet, it is not a conceit only, but the natural quality of it is so; yet out of a taste of the sweetness, to think we cannot take too much of it, is a misconceit paid home with loathsome bitterness. Outward good and outward evil, and the affections of delight and sorrow rising thence, are naturally so, and depend not upon our opinion. This were to offer violence to nature, and to take man out of man, as if he were not flesh but steel. Universal experience, from the sensibleness of our nature in any outward grievance, is sufficient to damn this conceit.
The way to comfort a man in grief, is not to tell him that it is only a conceit of evil, and no evil indeed that he suffers. This kind of learning will not go down with him, as being contrary to his present feeling. But the way is, to yield unto him that there is cause of grieving, though not of over-grieving, and to shew him grounds of comforts stronger than the grief he suffers. We should weigh the degrees of evil in a right balance, and not suffer fancy to make them greater than they are; so as that for obtaining the greatest outward good, or avoiding the greatest outward ill of suffering, we should give way to the least evil of sin. This is but a policy of the flesh to take away the sensibleness of evil, that so those checks of conscience and repentance for sin, which is oft occasioned thereby, might be taken away; that so men may go on enjoying a stupid happiness, never laying anything to heart, nor afflicting their souls, until their consciences awaken in the place of the damned, and then they feel that grief return upon them for ever, which they laboured to put away when it might have been seasonable to them.
Conclusion
I have stood the longer upon this, because Satan and his instruments, by bewitching the imagination with false appearances, misleadeth not only the world, but troubleth the peace of men “taken out of the world” (James 1:27; 1 John 4:5, 6), whose estate is laid up safe in Christ; who, notwithstanding, pass their few days here in an uncomfortable, wearisome, and unnecessary sadness of spirit, being kept in ignorance of their happy condition by Satan's juggling and their own mistakes, and so come to heaven before they are aware. Some again pass their days in a golden dream, and drop into hell before they think of it. But it is far better to dream of ill, and when we awake to find it but a dream, than to dream of some great good, and when we awake to find the contrary.
As the distemper of the fancy—læsa phantasia—disturbing the act of reason, oftentimes breeds madness in regard of civil conversation; so it breeds, likewise, spiritual madness, carrying men to those things, which, if they were in their right wits, they would utterly abhor. Therefore we cannot have too much care upon what we fix our thoughts. And what a glorious discovery is there of the excellencies of religion that would even ravish an angel, which may raise up, exercise, and fill our hearts! We see our fancy hath so great a force in natural conceptions, that it oft sets a mark and impression upon that which is conceived in the womb. So, likewise, strong and holy conceits of things, having a divine virtue accompanying of them, transform the soul, and breed spiritual impressions answerable to our spiritual apprehensions. It would prevent many crosses, if we would conceive of things as they are. When trouble of mind, or sickness of body, and death itself cometh, what will remain of all that greatness which filled our fancies before? Then we can judge soberly, and speak gravely of things. The best way of happiness, is not to multiply honours or riches, etc., but to cure our conceits of things, and then we cannot be very much cast down with anything that befalls us here.
Therefore, when anything is presented to our souls, which we see is ready to work upon us, we should ask of ourselves upon what ground we entertain such a conceit, whether we shall have the same judgment after we have yielded to it as now we have? and whether we will have the same judgment of it in sickness and death and at the day of reckoning as we have for the present? That which is of itself evil, is always so at one time as well as another. If the time will come when we shall think those things to be vain, which now we are so eagerly set upon, as if there were some great good in them, why should we not think so of them now, whenas the reforming of our judgment may do us good, rather than to be led on with a pleasing error until that time, wherein the sight of our error will fill our hearts with horror and shame, without hope of ever changing our condition?
Here, therefore, is a special use of these soliloquies, to awake the soul and to stir up reason cast asleep by Satan's charms, that so scattering the clouds through which things seem otherwise than they are, we may discern and judge of things according to their true and constant nature. Demand of thy soul, “Shall I always be of this mind? Will not the time come when this will prove bitterness in the end? Shall I redeem a short contentment with lasting sorrow? Is my Judge of my mind? Will not a time come when all things shall appear as they are? Is this according to the rule?”
To conclude, therefore, whereas there be divers principles of men's actions, as
Natural inclination, inclining us to some courses more than others;
Custom, which is another nature in us;
Imagination, apprehending things upon shallow grounds, from whence springs affectation, whereby we desire glory in things above our own strength and measure, and make show of that, the truth whereof is wanting in us;
True judgment, discerning the true reasons of things;
Faith, which is a spiritual principle planted in the soul, apprehending things above reason, and raising us up to conceive of all things as God hath discovered them.
Now a sound Christian should not be lightly led with those first common grounds of natural inclination, custom, opinion, etc., but by judgment enlightened, advanced, and guided by faith. And we must take heed we suffer not things to pass suddenly from imagination to affection, without asking advice of our judgment, and faith in the way, whose office is to weigh things in God's balance, and, thereupon, to accept or refuse them.
¹ U. Milo Kaufmann, The Pilgrim’s Progress and Traditions in Puritan Meditation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 139.
² Ibid.
³ Kaufmann, 150-251.
⁴ Herman Bavinck, “Foundations of Psychology,” trans. Jack Vanden Born, Nelson D. Kloosterman, and John Bolt, ed. John Bolt, The Bavinck Review 9 (2018): 144, originally published as Beginselen der Psychologie (Kampen: Kok, 1897).
⁵ John Owen, The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded: Declared and Practically Improved (New York: Whiting and Watson, 1813), 85.
⁶ Bavinck, “Foundations of Psychology,” 144.