“A man will no more consent to the misery of being without an object because that object is a trifle, or of being without a pursuit because that pursuit terminates in some frivolous or fugitive acquirement, than he will voluntarily submit himself to the torture because that torture is to be of short duration. If to be without desire and without exertion altogether is a state of violence and discomfort, then the present desire, with its correspondent train of exertion, is to not to be got rid of simply by destroying it. It must be by substituting another desire and another line or habit of exertion in its place—and the most effectual way of withdrawing the mind from one object is not by turning it away upon desolate and unpeopled vacancy, but by presenting to its regards another object still more alluring.”
—Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 33-34. Chalmers said this while preaching on 1 John 2:15.
S.W.F. Knecht 