Use of Exhortation
their spiritual evidences to seek, when they should have them to show.
4. The tradesman is for the most part meditating upon his wares; his study is how he may increase his estate, and make the ten talents into a hundred. He is "cumbered about many things;" he does not meditate in the book of God's book—but in his account-book day and night. In the long run you will see these were fruitless meditations, you will find that you are but golden beggars, and have gotten but the fool's purchase when you die, Luke 12:20.
5. There is another sort that meditate only upon mischief, "who devise iniquity," Mic. 2:1. They meditate how to defame and to defraud; Amos 8:5, "They make the ephah small, and the shekel great." The ephah was a measure used in buying, the shekel a weight used in selling. Many who should support, too often supplant one another. And how many meditate revenge? It is sweet to them as dropping honey. "Their hearts shall meditate terror," Isaiah 38:18.
The sinner is a felon to himself, and God will make him a terror to himself.
X. A Holy PERSUASIVE to Meditation.
Use 3. Of Exhortation.
I am in the next place to exhort Christians to this so necessary duty of meditation. If ever there were a duty I would press upon you with more earnestness and zeal, it would be this, because so much of the vitals and spirit of religion lies in it. The plant may as well bear fruit without watering, the food may as well nourish without digesting, as we can fructify in holiness without meditation. God provides the food, ministers can but cook and dress it for you—but it must be inwardly digested by meditation. For lack of this you may cry out with the prophet, Isaiah 24:16, "My leanness, my leanness, woe unto