-- Tit. 2. Directions to furnish the Mind with Good Thoughts.
an ignominious foe? Indeed there is no true cure for sinful, vain, unprofitable thoughts, but by the contrary: by calling up the thoughts unto their proper work, and finding them more profitable employment: and this is by consecrating the heart and them entirely to the love and service of him, that hath by the wonders of his love, and by the strange design of his purchase and merits, so well deserved them. Let Christ come in, and deliver him the key, and pray him to keep thy heart as his own, and he will cast out buyers and sellers from his temple, and will not suffer his house of prayer to be a den of thieves. But if you receive Christ with reserves, and keep up designs for the world and flesh, marvel not if Christ will be no partners with them, but leave all to those guests, which you would not leave for him.
Tit. 2. Directions to furnish the Mind with Good Thoughts To have the mind well furnished with matter for holy and profitable thoughts, is necessary to all that have the use of reason, though not to all alike. But I shall here present you only with such materials as are necessary to a holy life, and to be used in our daily walk with God; and not meddle with such as are proper to pastors, magistrates, or other special callings, though I may give some general Directions also for students in the end of this.
Direct.
'Understand well your own interest and great concernments, and be well resolved what you live for, and what is your true felicity and end: and then this will command your thoughts to serve it.' The end is it that the means are all chosen for, and used for. A man's estimation directeth his intention and designs: and his intention and designs command his thoughts. These will certainly have the first and chiefest, the most serious, and practical, and effectual thoughts; though some by-thoughts may run out another
way: as the miller will be sure to keep so much water as is necessary to grind his grist, though he may let that run by, which he thinks he hath no need of: as you gather in all your corn and fruit for yourselves at harvest, though perhaps you will leave some scatterings which you do not value much, for any that will to gather: so whatever a man taketh for his ultimate end and true felicity, will have the store and stream of his cogitations, though he may scatter some few upon other things, when he thinks he may do it, without any detriment to his main design. As a traveller's face is ordinarily towards his journey's end, though so far as he thinks it doth not stop him, he may look behind him, or on each side: so our main end will in the main carry on our thoughts. And therefore unholy souls, that know not practically any higher end than the prosperity and pleasure of the flesh, and the plenty and honour of the world, cannot possibly exercise any holy government over their thoughts; but their minds and consoiences are defiled, and their thoughts made carnal as is their end. Nor is there any possibility of curing their vicious, wicked thoughts, and of ordering them acceptably to God, but by curing their worldly, carnal minds, and causing them to change their designs and ends. And this must be by understanding what is their interest. Know well but what it is that is most necessary for you, and best for you, and it will change your hearts, and save your souls.
Know this, and your thoughts will never want matter to he employed on: nor will they be suffered to wander much abroad. Therefore it is that the expeotation of death, and the thought of coming presently to judgment, do use more effectually to supply the mind with the wisest and most useful thoughts, than the most learned book or ordinary means can. That which tells a man best, what he hath to do, doth best tell him what he hath to think on. But the approach of death, and the appearance of eternity, doth best tell a dull and fleshly sinner, what he hath to do: this tells, and tells him roundly, that he must presently search his heart and life, and judge himself as one
that is going to the final judgment; and that it is high time for him to look out for the remedy of his sin and misery, &c.: and therefore it will command his thoughts this way. Ask any lawyer, physician, or tradesman, what commands his thoughts; and you will find that his interest, and his ends, and work command them. Know what it is to have an immortal soul, that must live in joy or woe for ever, and what it is to be always so near to the irreversible, determining sentence, and what it is to have this short uncertain time and no more, to make our preparation in, and then it is easy to foretel which way your thoughts will go. A man that knoweth his house is on fire, will be thinking how to quench it: a man that knoweth he is entering into a mortal sickness, will be thinking how to cure it. There is no better way to have your thoughts both furnished and acted aright, than to know your interest, and right end.
Direct. II. 'Know God aright, and behold him by the eye of an effectual faith, and you shall never want matter for holy thoughts.'
His greatness and continual presence with you may command your thoughts, and awe them, and keep them from masterless vagaries.
His wisdom will find them continual employment, upon the various, excellent, and delectable subjects, of his natural and supernatural revelation; but no where so much as upon himself. In God thou mayst find matter for thy cogitations and affections, most high and excellent, delighting the mind with a continual suavity, affording still fresh delights, though thou meditate on him a thousand years, or to all eternity. Thou mayst better say, that the ocean hath not water enough for thee to swim in, or that the earth hath not room enough for thee to tread upon; than that there is not matter enough in God, for thy longest meditations, and most delighting, satisfying thoughts.
The blessed angels and saints in heaven, will find enough in God alone to employ their minds to all eternity. O horrid darkness and atheism that yet remaineth on our hearts! that we should want
matter for our thoughts, to keep them from feeding upon air and filth! or want matter for our delight, to keep our minds from begging it at the creature's door, or hungering for the husks that feed the swine! when we have the infinite God, omnipotent, omniscient, most good and bountiful, our life, and hope, and happiness to think on with delight.
Direct. III. 'If you have but an eye of faith, to see the things of the unseen world, as revealed in the sacred Word, you cannot want matter to employ your thoughts.' Scripture is the glass in which you may see the other world: There you may see the Ancient of Days, the Eternal Majesty shining in his glory, for the felicitating of holy, glorified spirits. There you may see the human nature advanced above angels, and enjoying the highest glory next to the uncreated
Majesty; and Christ reigning as the king of all the world, and all the angels of God obeying, honouring, and worshipping him. You may see him sending his angels on his gracious messages, to the lowest members of his body, the little ones of his flock on earth: you may see him interceding for all his saints, and procuring their peace and entertainment with the Father; and preparing for their reception when they pass into those mansions, and welcoming them one by one as they pass hence. There you may see the glorious, celestial society attending, admiring, extolling, worshipping, the Great
Creator, the Gracious Redeemer, and the Eternal Spirit, with incessant, glorious, and harmonious praise: you may see them burning in the delicious flames of holy love, drawn out by the vision of the face of God, and by the streams of love which he continually poureth out upon them: you may see the magnetic attraction of the uncreated love, and felicitating closure of the attracted love of holy spirits, thus united unto God by Christ, and feasting everlastingly upon him: you may see the ravishments of joy, and the unspeakable pleasures, which all these blessed spirits have in this transporting
sight, and love, and praise. You may see the ecstacies of joy which possess the souls of those that are newly passed from the body, and escaped the sins and miseries of this world, and find there such sudden ravishing entertainment, unspeakable beyond their former expectations, conceivings, or belief. You may see there with what wonder, what pity, what loathing and detestation, those holy, glorified souls look down upon earth, on the negligence, contempt, sensuality, and profaneness of the dreaming and distracted world!
You may see there what you shall be for ever, if you be the holy ones of Christ, and where you must dwell, and what you must do, and what you shall enjoy. All this you may so know by sound believing, as to be carried to it as sincerely as if your eyes had seen it. And yet can your thoughts be idle, or carnal, or worldly and sinful for want of work? Are your meditations dry and barren for want of matter to employ them? Doth the fire of love or other holy affections go out for want of fuel to feed it? Are not heaven and eternity spacious enough for your minds to expatiate in? Is not such a world as that sufficient for you to study, with fresh and delectable variety of discoveries from day to day? or that which is more delightful than variety? Would you have more matter, or higher and more excellent matter, or sweeter and more pleasant matter, or matter which doth more nearly concern yourselves? Get that faith which all that shall be saved, live by, which makes things absent as operative (in some measure) as if they were present, and that which will be, as if it now were, and that which is unseen, as if it were now open to your eyes; and then your thoughts will want neither matter to work upon, nor altogether an actuating excitation.
If this were not enough, I might tell you what faith can see also in hell, which is not unworthy of your serious thoughts! What Work is there! what direful complaints and lamentations! what selftormentings, and what sense of God's displeasure, and for what? But
I will wholly pass this by, that you may see, there is delightful work enough for your thoughts, and that I set you no unpleasant task.
Direct. IV. 'Get but the love of God well kindled in your heart, and it will find employment, even the most high and sweet employment, for your thoughts.' Yourselves shall be the judges, whether your love doth not for the most part rule your thoughts, assigning them their work, and directing them when, and how long to think on it. See but how a lustful lover is carried after a beloved, silly piece of flesh! Their thoughts will so easily and so constantly run after it, that they need no spur! Mark in what a stream it carrieth them! how it feedeth and quickeneth their invention, and elevateth an ordinary fancy into a poetical and passionate strain! What abundance of matter can a lover find, in the narrow compass of a dirty corpse, for his thoughts to work on night and day! And will not the love of God then much more fill and feast your thoughts? How easily can the love of money find matter for the thoughts of the worldling from one year to another? It is easy to think of any thing which you love. O what a happy spring of meditation, is a rooted, predominant love of God! Love him strongly, and you cannot forget him. You will then see him in every thing that meets you; and hear him in every one that speaketh to you: if you miss him, or have offended him, you will think on him with grief: if you taste of his love, you will think of him with delight: if you have but hope, you will think of him with desire, and your minds will be taken up in seeking him, and in understanding and using the means by which you may come to enjoy him. Love is ingenious, and full, and quick, and active, and resolute: it is valiant, and patient, and exceeding industrious, and delighteth to encounter difficulties, and to appear in labours, and to shew itself in advantageous sufferings; and therefore it maketh the mind in which it weigneth, exceeding busy; and findeth the thoughts a world of work. If God be not in all the thoughts of the ungodly, it is because he is not in his heart. He
may be "nigh their months," but he is "far from their reinsr." Do those men believe themselves, or would they be believed by any one that is wise, who say they love God above all, and yet neither think of him, nor love to think of him; but are unwearied in thinking of their wealth, and honours, and the pleasures of their flesh? "Consider this ye that forget God, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you."
Direct. V. 'Soundly understand the wonderful mystery of man's redemption, and know Jesus Christ, and you need not want employment for your thoughts.' For "in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." "He is the power of God, and the wisdom of Godu." If the study of Aristotle, Plato, Plotinas, and their numerous followers and commentators, can find work for the thoughts of men that would know the works of God, or would be accounted good philosophers, even for many years together, or a great part of their lives, what work then may a Christian find for his thoughts in Jesus Christ, "who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." "For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwelly." And therefore in him there is fulness of matter for our meditations. As Paul
"determined to know nothing" (or make ostentation of no other knowledge) "but Christ crucified:" so if your thoughts had nothing to work upon many years together, but Christ crucified, they need not stand still a moment for want of most suitable and delightful matter.
The mystery of the incarnation alone, may find you work to search and admire many ages! But if thence you proceed to that world of wonderful matter which you may find in his doctrine, miracles, example, sufferings, temptations, victories, resurrection, ascension; and in his kingly, prophetical, and priestly offices; and in all the benefits which he hath purchased for his flock. O what full and pleasant work is here for the daily thoughts of a believer! The soul
may dwell here with continual delight, till it say with Paul, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Therefore daily
"bow your knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of Godb."
Direct. VI. 'Search the holy Scriptures, and acquaint yourselves well with the oracles of God, which are able to make you wise unto salvation, and you will find abundant matter for your thoughts.' If you cannot find work enough for your minds, among all those heights and depths, those excellencies and difficulties, it is because you never understood them, or never set your hearts to search them.
What mysterious doctrines! how sublime and heavenly, are there for you to meditate on as long as you live. What a perfect law: a system of precepts most spiritual and pure! What terrible threatenings against offenders, are there to be matter of your meditations. What wonderful histories of love and mercy! What holy examples! What a treasury of precious promises, on which lieth our hope of life eternal!
What full and free expressions of grace! What a joyful act of pardon and oblivion to penitent, believing sinners! In a word, the character of our inheritance, and the law which we must be governed and judged by, are there before us for our daily meditation! David, that had much less of it than we, saith, "O how I love thy law: it is my meditation all the day!" And God said to Joshua, "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate
therein day and night, that thou mayst observe to do according to all that is written therein." And Moses commanded the Israelites, that "these words should be in their hearts, and that they teach them diligently to their children, and talk of them when they sat in their houses, and when they walked by the way, and when they lay down, and when they rose up, and to write them on the posts of their houses, and on their gates," &c. that they might be sure to remember theme.
Direct. VII. 'Know thyself well as thou art the work of God, and in thyself thou wilt find abundant matter for thy meditations.' There thou hast the natural image of God to meditate on and admire; even the noble faculties of thy understanding and free will, and executive power. And thou hast his moral or spiritual image to meditate on, if thou be not unregenerate: even thy holy wisdom, will and power, or thy holy light, and love, and power with promptitude for holy practice; and all in the unity of holy life. And there thou hast his relative image to meditate on; even thy being 1. The lord or owner. 2.
The ruler. 3. The benefactor to the inferior creatures, and their end.
O the world of mysteries which thou carriest continually about thee in that little room. What abundance of wonders are in thy body; which is fearfully and wonderfully made! And the greater wonders in thy soul. Thou art thyself the clearest glass that God is to be seen in under heaven: as thou art a man and a saint! And therefore the worthiest matter for thy own meditations (except that holy Word, which is thy rule, and the holy church which is but a coalition of many such). What a shame is it, that almost all men do live and die such strangers to themselves, as to be utterly unacquainted with the innumerable excellencies and mysteries, which God hath laid up in them; and yet to let their thoughts run out upon vanities and toys, and complain of their barrenness, and want of matter, to feed their better meditations.
Direct. VIII. 'Be not a stranger to the many sins, and wants, and weaknesses of thy soul, and thou never needest to be empty of matter for thy meditations.' And though these thoughts be not the sweetest, yet thy own folly hath made them necessary. If thou be dangerously sick, or but painfully sore, thou canst scarce forget it: if poverty afflict thee with pinching wants, thy thoughts are taken up with cares and trouble day and night. If another wrong thee, thou canst easily think on it. And hast thou so often wronged thy God and Saviour, and so unkindly vilified his mercy, and so unthankfully set light by saving grace, and so presumptuously and securely ventured on his wrath, and yet dost thou find a scarcity of matter for thy meditations? Hast thou all the sins of thy youth and ignorance to think on, and all the sins of thy rashness and sensuality, and of thy negligence and sloth, and of thy worldliness and selfishness, ambition and pride, thy passions and thy omissions; and all thy sinful thoughts and words, and yet art thou 'scanted of matter for thy thoughts? Dost thou carry about thee such a body of death? so much selfishness, pride, worldliness, and carnality; so much ignorance, unbelief, averseness to God, and backwardness to all that is spiritual and holy; so much passion, and readiness to sin; and yet dost thou not find enough to think on? Look over the sins of all thy life: see them in all their aggravations: as they have been committed against knowledge, or means and helps, against mercies, and judgments and thy own vows or promises; in prosperity and under affliction itself; in secret and with others; in thy general and particular calling, and in all thy relations; in every place, and time, and condition that thou hast lived in; thy sins against God directly, and thy injuries or neglects of man: sins against holy duties, and sins in holy duties: in prayer, hearing, reading, sacraments, meditation, conference, reproofs, and receiving of reproofs from others: thy negligent preparations for death and judgment; the strangeness of thy soul to God and heaven.—Is not here work enough for thy meditations? certainly if thou think so, it is
because thy heart never felt the bitterness of sin, nor was ever yet acquainted with true repentance, but the time is yet to come, that light must shew thee what sin is, and what thou art, and what thou hast done, and how full thy heart is of the serpent's brood, and that thy sin must find thee out! Dost thou not know that thy sins are as the sands of the shore, or as the hairs upon thy head for number? and that every sin hath deadly poison in it, and malignant enmity to God and holiness; and yet are they not enough, to keep thy thoughts from being idle? Judge by their language whether it be so with penitents? "Wash me throughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin: for I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." "For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up: they are more than the hairs of my head: therefore my heart faileth meh." "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies." True repentance is thus described: "Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your own iniquities, and for your abominationsk." Yea, God's forgiving and forgetting your sins, must not make you forget them. "I will establish to thee an everlasting covenant; then shalt thou remember thy ways and be ashamed. And I will establish my covenant with thee; that thou mayst be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame, when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God of hosts."
Direct. IX. 'Be not a stranger to the methods, and subtleties and diligence of satan, in his temptations to undo thy soul, and thou wilt find matter enough to keep thy thoughts from idleness.' He is thinking how to deceive thee and destroy thee; and doth it not concern thee to think how to defeat him and escape and save thyself?
If the hare run not as fast as the dog, he is like to die for it. O that thy
eyes were but opened to see the snares that are laid for thee in thy nature, in thy temperature and passions, in thy interests, thy relations, thy friends and acquaintance, and ordinary company; in thy businesses, and possessions, thy house, and goods, and lands, and cattle, and tenants, and servants, and all that thou tradest with, or hast to do with: in thine apparel and recreations; in thy meat and drink, and sleep, and ease, in prosperity and adversity; in men's good thoughts, or bad thoughts of thee; in their praise and dispraise; in their benefits and their wrongs; their favour and their falling out; in their pleasing or displeasing thee: in thy thinking and in thy speaking, and in every thing thou hast to do with! Didst thou but see all these temptations, and also see to what they tend, and whither they would bring thee, thou wouldst find matter to cure the idleness or impertinences of thy thoughts.
Direct. X. 'The world and every creature in it, which thou daily seest, and which revealeth to thee the great Creator, might be enough to keep thy thoughts from idleness.' If sun, and moon, and stars; if heaven and earth, and all therein, be not enough to employ thy thoughts, let thy idleness have some excuse. I know thou wilt say, that it is upon some of these things that thou dost employ them: yea; but dost thou not first destroy, and mortify, and make nonsense of that on which thou meditatest? Dost thou not first separate it from God, who is the life, and glory, and end, and meaning of every creature? Thou killest it, and turnest out the soul, and thinkest only of the corpse: or on the creature made another thing as food for thy sensual desires! As the kite thinketh on the birds and chickens, to devour them to satisfy her greedy appetite; thus you can think of all
God's works, so far as they accommodate your flesh. But the world is God's book, which he set man at first to read; and every creature is a letter or syllable, or word, or sentence, more or less, declaring the name and will of God. There you may behold his wonderful
almightiness, his unsearchable wisdom, his unmeasurable goodness, mercy and compassions; and his singular regard of the sona of men!
Though the ungodly, proud and carnal wits do but play with, and study the shape, and comeliness, and order of the letters, syllables and words, without understanding the sense and end; yet those that with holy and illuminated minds come thither to behold the footsteps of the great, and wise, and bountiful Creator, may find not only matter to employ, but to profit and delight their thoughts; they may be wrapt up by the things that are seen, into the sacred admirations, reverence, love and praise, of the glorious Maker of all who is unseen; and thus to the sanctified all things will be sanctified; and the study of common things will be to them divine and holy.
Direct. XI. 'Be not a stranger to, or neglectful disregarder of, the wonders of providence in God's administrations in the world, and thou wilt find store of matter for thy thoughts.' The dreadfulness of judgments, the delightfulness of mercies, the mysteriousness of all, will be matter of daily search and admiration to thee. Think of the strange preservation of the church; of a people hated by all the world! how such a flock of lambs is kept in safety, among so many ravenous wolves. Think of God's sharp afflictions of his offending people; of his severe consuming judgments exercised sometimes upon the wicked, when he means to set up here and there a monument of his justice, for the warning of presumptuous sinners.
Go see how the wicked are deceived by befooling pleasures, and how the prosperity of fools destroyeth them; how they flourish to-day as a green bay-tree, or as the flower of the field; and then go into their sanctuary and see their end, how tomorrow they are cut down and withered, and the place of their abode doth know them no more. Go see how God delighteth to abase the proud, and to "scatter them in the imagination of their hearts; to put down the mighty from their seats, and to exalt them of low degree; to fill the hungry with good
things; and to send the rich empty away." "How great are his signs: and how mighty are his wonders? His kingdom is an everlasting kingdomn." "He ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." "For wisdom and might are his; and he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding. He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in darkness, and the light dwelleth with himp."
"The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth; the wicked is snared in the work of his own hand." Mark how the upright are afflicted daily, and how the feet of violence trample on them; and yet how they rejoice, and adhere to that God who doth afflict them, and pity and pray for their miserable persecutors and oppressors; and how "all things do work together for their good." "Wonderful are all the works of God, sought out of them that have pleasure thereins."
The histories of former ages, and the observation of the present, may shew thee a world of matter for thy thoughts.
Direct. XII. 'Understand all the lineaments, and beauty of God's image upon a holy soul, the excellency and use of every grace, and the harmony of all; and thou wilt have store of profitable matter for thy thoughts.' Know the nature of every grace, and the place and order of it, and the office, use, and exercise of it; and the means and motives, the opposites, dangers and preservatives of it: know it as God's image, and see and love thy Maker and Redeemer and Regenerator in it: know how God loveth it, and how useful it is to our serving and honouring him in the world; and how deformed and vile a thing the soul is, that is without it: know well what faith is; what wisdom and prudence are; what repentance and humility, and mortification are; what hope, and fear, and desire, and obedience, and meekness, and temperance, and sobriety, and chastity, and contentation, and justice, and self-denial are; especially know the
nature and force of love to God, and to his servants, and to neighbours, and to enemies; know what a holy resignation and devotedness to God are: and what are watchfulness, diligence, zeal, fortitude, and perseverance, patience, submission, and peace; know what the worth, and use, the helps and hindrances of all these are, and then your thoughts will not be idle.
Direct. XIII. 'If thou be not a stranger to the Spirit of Grace, or a neglecter of his daily motions, and persuasions, and operations on thy heart, the attendance and improvement of them will keep thy thoughts from rusty idleness and a vagrant course.' It is not a small matter to be daily entertaining so noble a guest, and daily observing the offers and motions of so great a benefactor; and daily receiving the gifts of so bountiful a Lord, and daily accepting his necessary helps; and daily obeying the saving precepts of so great and beneficent a God. If you know how insufficient you are without him, to will or to do, to perform or to think, or purpose any good, and that all your sufficiency is of him. If you knew that it is the great skill and diligence requisite in all that will sail successfully to the desired land of rest, to know the winds of the Spirit's helps, and to set all your sails to the right improvement of them, and to bestir you while such gales continue, you would find greater work than wandering for your thoughts.
Direct. XIV. 'Be not ignorant or neglective of that frame and course of holy duty to God and man, in which all your lives should be employed, and you cannot want matter to employ your thoughts upon.' Your pulse, and breath, and natural motions, will hold on whether you think of them or not; but so will not moral, holy motion, for that must be rational and voluntary. You have all the powers of soul and body, to exercise either upon God or for God. You must know him, fear him, love him, obey him, trust him, worship him,
pray to him, praise him, give thanks to him hewail your sins, and hear his Word, and reverently use his name and day. And is not the understanding and learning how to do all this, and the seasonable, serious practice of it all, sufficient to keep the thoughts idleness? O what a deal of work doth a serious Christian find for his thoughts, about some one of these! About praying aright, or hearing, or receiving the sacrament of Christ's body and blood aright! But besides all these, what a deal of duty have you to perform, to magistrates, pastors, parents, masters, and other superiors; to subjects, people, children, servants, and other inferiors; to every neighbour, for his soul, his body, his estate, and name; and to do to all as you would be done by. And besides all this, how much have you to do directly for yourselves; for your souls, and bodies, and families, and estates! Against your ignorance, infidelity, pride, selfishness, sensuality, worldliness, passion, aloth, intemperance, cowardise, lust, uncharitableness, &c. Is not here matter for your thoughts?.
Direct. XV. 'Overlook not that life full of particular mercies, which God hath bestowed on yourselves, and you will find pleasant and profitable matter for your thoughts,' To spare me the labour of repeating them, look back to Chap. iii. Direct. 14. Think of that mercy which brought you into the world, and chose your parents, your place, and your condition; which brought you up, and bore with you patiently in all your sins, and closely warned you of every danger: which seasonably afflicted you, and seasonably delivered you, and heard your prayers in many a distress; which hath yet kept the worst of you from death and hell; and hath regenerated, justified, adopted, and sanctified those that he hath fitted for eternal life. How many sins he hath forgiven! How many he hath in part subdued! How many and suitable helps he hath vouchsafed you! From how many enemies he hath saved you! How oft he hath delighted you by his
Word and grace! What comforts you have had in his servants and
ordinances, in your relations and callings! His mercies are innumerable, and yet do your meditations want matter to supply them? If I should but recite the words of David in many thankful psalms, you would think mercy found his thoughts employment.
Direct. XVI. 'Foresee that exact and righteous judgment, which shortly you have to undergo; and it will do much to find you employment for your thoughts.' A man that must give an account to God of all that he hath done, both good and evil, and knoweth not how soon, for ought he knows before to-morrow, methinks should find him something better than vanity to think on! Is it nothing to be ready for so great a day? To have your justification ready? your accounts made up? your consciences cleansed and quieted on good grounds? To know what answer to make for yourselves against the accuser? To be clear and sure that you are indeed regenerate, and have a part in Christ, and are washed in his blood, and reconciled to God, and shall not prove hypocrites and self-deceivers in that trying day! when it is a sentence that must finally decide the question, whether we shall be saved or damned: and must determine us to heaven or hell for ever: and you have ae short and uncertain a time for your preparation: will not this administer matter to your thoughts? If you were going to a judgment for your lives, or all your estates, you would think it sufficient to provide you matter for your thoughts by the way! How much more this final, dreadful judgment!
Direct. XVII. 'If all this will not serve the turn, it is strange if God call not home your thoughts, by sharp afflictions: and methinks the improvement of them, and the removal of them should find some employment for your thoughts.' It is time then to "search and try your ways, and turn again unto the Lord." To find out the Achan that troubleth your peace, and know the voice of the rod, and what God is angry at, and what it is that he calleth you to mind! To know what
root it is that beareth these bitter fruits: and how they may be sanctified to make you conformable to Christ, and "partakers of his holinessu." Besides the exercise of holy patience and submission, there is a great deal of work to be done in sufferings; to exercise faith, to honour God, and the good cause of our suffering, and to humble ourselves for the evil cause, and to get the benefit. And if you will not meditate of the duty, you shall meditate of the pain, whether you will or not; and say as Lam. 3:17–20. "I forgat prosperity: and I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord: remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall: my soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me." Put not God to remember you by this spur, and help your meditations by so sharp a means! "Therefore did he consume their days in vanity, and their years in trouble: when he slew them, then they sought him, and they returned and inquired early after God: and they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their Redeemer."
Direct. XVIII. 'Be diligent in your callings, and spend no time in idleness, and perform your labours with holy minds, to the glory of God, and in obedience to his commands, and then your thoughts will have the less leisure and liberty for vanity or idleness.' Employments of the body will employ the thoughts: they that have much to do have much to think on; for they must do it prudently, and skilfully, and carefully, that they may do it successfully; and therefore must think how to do it. And the urgency and necessity of business will almost necessitate the thoughts, and so carry them on and find them work,
(though some employments more than others.) And let none think that these thoughts are bad or vain because they are about worldly things; for if our labours themselves be not bad or vain, then neither are those thoughts which are needful to the welldoing of our work.
Nor let any worldling please himself with this, and say, 'My thoughts are taken up about my calling:' for his calling itself is perverted by
him, and made a carnal work to carnal ends, when it should be sanctified. That the thoughts about your labours may be good, 1.
Your labours themselves must be good, performed in obedience to God, and for the good of others, and to his glory. 2. Your labours and thoughts must keep their bounds, and the higher things must be still preferred, and sought, and thought on in the first place. And your labours must so far employ your thoughts as is needful to the welldoing of them: but better things must be thought on, in such labours as leave a vacancy to the thoughts. But diligence in your calling is a very great help to keep out sinful thoughts, and to furnish us with thoughts which in their place are good.
Direct. XIX. 'You have all God's spiritual helps and holy ordinances to feed your meditations, and to quicken them, which should be used when your minds grow dull or barren.' When your minds are empty, and you cannot pump up plentiful matter for holy thoughts, the reading of a seasonable book, or conference with a full 'experienced
Christian, will furnish you with matter: so will the hearing of a profitable sermon: and sometimes prayer will do more than meditation. And weak-headed persons, of small knowledge and shallow memories, must fetch the matter of their meditations thus more frequently from reading and conference than others need to do: as they can hold but little at a time, so they must go the oftener: as he that goeth to the water with a spoon or a dish, must go oftener than they that go with a more capacious vessel. Others can carry a storehouse of meditation still about them; but persons of very small knowledge and memory, must have their meditations fed by others, as infants by the spoon. Therefore a little and often is the best way, both for their reading or hearing, and for their holy thoughts. How great a mercy is it, that weak Christians have such store of helps: that when their heads are empty, they have books and friends that are not empty, from whence they may fetch help as they want it.: and that
their hearts are not empty of the love of God, which inclineth them to do more, than their parts enable them to do.
Direct. XX. 'If all these do not sufficiently furnish your meditations, look through the world, and see what a multitude of miserable souls do call for your compassion and daily prayers for their relief.' Think on the many nations that lie in the darkness of idolatry and infidelity! It is not past the sixth part of the world that are Christians of any sort. The other five parts are heathens, and Mahometans, and some few Jews. And of this sixth part, it is but a small part that are reformed from popery, and such corruptions as the Eastern and Southern Christians also are too much defiled with. And in the reformed churches, how common are profaneness and worldliness, and how few are acquainted with the power of godliness! What abundance of ignorant and ungodly persons are there, who hate the power and practice of that religion, which they profess themselves they hope to be saved by, (as if they hoped to be saved for hating, persecuting, and disobeying it). And among those that seem more serious and obedient, how many are hypocrites? And how many are possessed with pride and self-conceitedness, which break forth into unfuliness, contentions, and uncharitableness, factions, and divisions in the church! How many Christians are ignorant, passionate, weak, unprofitable, and too many scandalous! And how few are judicious, prudent, heavenly, charitable, peaceable, humble, meek, laborious, and fruitful, who set themselves wholly to be good and to do good! And of these few, how few are there that are not exercised under heavy afflictions from God, or cruel persecutions from ungodly men! What tyranny is exercised by the Turk without, and the Pope within, upon the sincerest followers of Christ! Set all this together, and tell me, whether thy compassionate thoughts or thy prayers do need to go out for want of fuel or matter to feed upon from day to day?