Ralph Venning was co-pastor of a London Non-conformist (non-Anglican) church and an editor of the first English lexicon of New Testament Greek. In this passage from his book The Plague of Plagues, he, in effect, argues that “the idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” But he also lifts up the positive – that a mind occupied with God’s calling is safe and fruitful. The message and contemporary application are quite clear.

[T]hey who follow their calling have no leisure to sin; their thoughts are too intent to be diverted. Time lies heavy on some men’s hands for want of employment, and therefore they become busybodies, gadding and wandering about as their fancy or the Devil, like the wind, drives them… They know that their time is passing away and will pass away, but they do not know how to pass it away, so that whatever temptation comes, they seem to be ready. The wink of an eye or the holding up of a finger prevails with them. They follow the Devil’s whistle, and dance to his tune. They spend their days like vagrants, and their life is a mere diversion from that which is the business of it. They cannot endure to be with themselves, and therefore trifle away their precious time, and adventure the loss of their precious souls, by becoming sinners for company.

Our thoughts are so active and restless that they will be doing something or other, and like unruly soldiers, if others do not employ them well, they will employ themselves ill. God has therefore in mercy appointed us callings to take up our thoughts, that they may be not only innocent but profitable to ourselves and others. Paradise had employment, and Heaven also will not be without it. Idleness is an hour of temptation; and we can have no excuse to stand idle in the market place when God himself offers to employ us… the best way to free our hearts from evil thoughts is by good employment.1

Footnotes:
1
Ralph Venning, The Plague of Plagues (1669; repr., London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965), 234-235.

article adapted from Kairos Journal

First Baptist Church of Perryville is located across from the Principio Health Center on Rt. 40.