-- Tit. 3. Directions to make Good Thoughts Effectual
Tit. 3. Directions how to make good Thoughts effectual: or, General Directions for Meditation Here some Directions are preparatory, and some about the work itself.
Direct. I. 'Be sure that reason maintain its authority in the command and government of your thoughts; and that they be not left masterless to fancy, and passion, and objects, to carry them which way they please.' Diseased, melancholy, and crazed persons have almost no power over their own thoughts. They cannot command them to what they would have them exercised about, nor call them off from any thing that they run out upon; but they are like an unruly horse, that hath a weak rider, or hath cast the rider: or like a masterless dog, that will not go or come at your command. Whereas our thoughts should be at the direction of our reason, and the command of the will, to go and come off as soon as they are bid. As you see a student can rule his thoughts all day; he can appoint them what they shall meditate on, and in what order, and how long: so can a lawyer, a physician, and all sorts of men about the matters of their arts and callings. And so it should be with a Christian about the matters of his soul. All rules of direction are to little purpose with them, whose reason hath lost its power in governing their thoughts.
If I tell a man that is deeply melancholy, 'Thus and thus you must order your thoughts,' he will tell me that he cannot; his thoughts are not in his power. If you would give never so much he is not able to forbear thinking of that which is his disturbance, nor to command his thoughts to that which you direct him, nor to think, but as he doth, even as his disease and trouble moveth him. And what good will precepts do to such? Grace, and doctrine, and exhortation work by reason and the commanding will. If a holy person could manage his practical, heart-raising meditations, but as orderly, and
constantly, and easily as a carnal, covetous preacher can manage his thoughts in studying the same things, for carnal ends, (to make a gain of them or to win applause) how happily would our work go on!
And is it not sad to think that carnal ends should do so much more than spiritual, about the same things?
Direct. II. 'Carefully avoid the disease of melancholy: for that dethroneth reason, and disableth it to rule the thoughts.' Distraction wholly disableth; but melancholy disableth only in part, according to the measure of its prevalency: and therefore leaveth some room for advice.
Direct. III. 'Take heed of sloth and negligence of the will, whereby the directions of reason will be unexecuted, for want of resolution and command; and so every temptation will carry away the thoughts.' A lazy coachman will let the horses go which way they list, because he will not strive with them; and will break his neck to save his labour.
If, when you feel unclean or worldly thoughts invade your minds, you will not give your wills the alarm, and rise up against them, and resolutely command them out; you will be like a lazy person that lieth in bed while he seeth thieves robbing his house, and will let all go rather than he will rise and make resistance, (a sign that he hath no great riches to lose, or else he would stir for it). And if you see your duty, on what your thoughts should be employed, and will not resolutely call them up, and command them to their work, you will be like a sluggard that will let all his servants lie in bed, as well as he, because he will not speak to call them. You see by daily experience, that a man's thoughts are much in the power of his will, and made to obey it. If money and honour, or the delight of knowing, can cause a wicked preacher to command his own thoughts on good things, as aforesaid; you may command yours to the same things, if you will but as resolutely exercise your authority over them.
Direct. IV. 'Use not your thoughts to take their liberty and be ungoverned: for use will make them headstrong and not regard the voice of reason; and it will make reason careless and remiss.' Use and custom have great power on our minds: where we use to go, our path is plain; but where there is no use, there is no way. Where the water useth to run there is a channel. It is hard ruling those that are used to be unruly. If use will do so much with the tongue, (as we find in some that use to curse, and swear, and speak vainly, and in others that use to speak soberly and religiously; in some that by use can speak well in conference, preaching or praying many hours together, when others that use it not can do almost nothing that way;) why may it not much prevail with the thoughts?
Direct. V. 'Take heed lest the senses and appetite grow too strong, and master reason; for if they do, they will at once dispossess it of the government of the thoughts, and will brutishly usurp the power themselves.' As, when a rebellious army deposeth a king, they do not only cast off the yoke of subjection themselves, but dissolve the government as to all other subjects, and usually usurp it themselves, and make themselves governors. If once you be servants to your fleshly appetites and sense, your thoughts will have other work to do, and another way to go, when you call them to holy and necessary things: especially when the enticing objects are at hand. You may as well expect a clod to ascend like fire, or a swine to delight in temperance, as a glutton, or drunkard, or fornicator to delight in holy contemplation. Reason and flesh cannot both be the governors.
Direct. VI. 'Keep under passions, that they depose not reason from the government of your thoughts.' I told you before how they cause evil thoughts: and as much will they hinder good. Four passions are especial enemies to meditation: 1. Anger. 2. Perplexing grief. 3.
Disturbing fear. 4. But above all, excess of pleasure in any worldly,
fleshly thing. Who can think that the mind is fit for holy contemplation, when it flames with wrath, or is distracted with grief and care, or trembleth with fear, or is drunk with pleasure? Grief and fear are the most harmless of the four; yet all hinder reason from governing the thoughts.
Direct. VII. 'Evil habits are another great hindrance of reason's command over our thoughts: labour therefore diligently for the cure of this disease.' Though habits do not necessitate, they strongly incline: and when every good thought must go against a strong and constant inclination, it will weary reason to drive on the soul, and you can expect but small success.
Direct. VIII. 'Urgent and oppressing business doth almost necessitate the thoughts: therefore avoid as much as you can such urgencies, when you would be free for meditation.' Let your thoughts have as little diverting matter as may be, at those times when you would have them entire and free for God.
Direct. IX. 'Crowds and ill company are no friends to meditation: choose therefore the quietness of solitude when you would do much in this.' As it is ill studying in a crowd, and unseasonable before a multitude to be at secret prayer (except some short ejaculations); so is it as unmeet a season for holy meditation. The mind that is fixedly employed with God, or about things spiritual, had need of all possible freedom and peace, to retire into itself, and abstract itself from alien things, and seriously intend its greater work.
Direct. X. 'Above all, take heed of sinful interests and designs; for these are the garrison of satan, and must be battered down before any holy cogitations can take place.' He that is set upon a design of rising, or of growing rich, hath something else to do than to entertain
those sober thoughts of things eternal, which are destructive of his carnal design.
Direct. XI. 'The impediments of reason's authority being thus removed, distinguish between your occasional and your stated, ordinary course of thoughts. And as your hands have their ordinary stated course of labour, and every day hath its employment which you fore-expect, so let your thoughts know where is their proper channel, and their every day's work: and let holy prudence appoint out proportionable time and service for them.' What a life will that man live, that hath no known course of labour, but only such as accidentally he is called to? His work must needs be uncertain, various, unprofitable, and uncomfortable, and next to none. And he that hath not a stated course of employment for his thoughts, will have them do him little service. Consider first how much of the day is usually to be spent in common business: and then consider, whether it be such as taketh up your thoughts as well as your hands, or such as leaveth your thoughts at liberty: as a lawyer, a physician, a merchant, and most tradesmen, must employ their thoughts to the welldoing of their work: and these must be the more desirous of a seasonable, vacant hour for meditation, because their thoughts must be otherwise employed all the rest of the day. But a weaver, a tailor, and some other tradesmen, and day-labourers, may do their work well, and yet have their thoughts tree for better things a great part of the day: these must contrive an ordinary way of employment for their thoughts, when their work doth not require them: and they need no other time for meditation. The rest must entertain some short, occasional meditations, intermixed with their business; but they cannot then have time for more solemn meditation (which differeth from the other, as a set prayer from a short ejaculation; or a sermon from an occasional short discourse). They that have more time for their thoughts, must beforehand prudently consider, how
much time it is best to spend in meditation, for the increase of knowledge, and how much for the exercise of holy affections, and on what subject, and in what order; and so to know their ordinary work.
Direct. XII. 'Lay yourselves under the urgency of necessity, and the power of those motives which should most effectually engage your thoughts.' In the foresaid instance, what is it that makes a wicked preacher that he can study divine things orderly from year to year, but that he is still under the power of his carnal motives, profit and honour, and some delight? And if you will put yourselves habitually and statedly also under the sense and power of your far greater motives, as always perceiving how much it doth concern you, for yourselves, and others, and the honour of God; this would be a constant poise and spring, which being duly wound up, would keep the wheels in equal motion.
Direct. XIII. 'Thus you must make the service of your master, and the saving of yourselves and others, your business in the world, which you follow daily as your ordinary calling, and then it will carry on your thoughts.' Whereas he that serveth God but on the by, with some occasional service, will think on him or his work but on the by, with some occasional thoughts. A close and diligent course of holy living, is the best help to a constant, profitable course of holy thinking.
Direct. XIV. 'The chief point of skill and holy wisdom, for this and other religious duties, is, to take that course which tends to make religion pleasant, and to draw your souls to delight in God, and to take heed of that which would make all grievous to you.' It will be easy and sweet to think of that which you take pleasure in. But if satan can make all irksome and unpleasant to you, your thoughts will avoid it, as you do a carrion when you stop your nose and haste away.
Psal. 104:34., saith the Psalmist, "My meditation of him shall be sweet; I will be glad in the Lord."
Directions about the work itself Direct. I. 'As you must never be unfurnished of holy store, so you must prudently make choice of your particular subject.' As the choice of a fit text is half a good sermon; so the choice of the fittest matter for you, is much of a good meditation. Which requireth some good acquaintance both with the truth, and with yourselves.
Direct. II. 'To this end you must know in their several degrees, what subjects are in themselves most excellent to be meditated on.' As the first and highest is the most blessed God himself, and the glorious person of our Redeemer, and the New Jerusalem or heaven of glory, where he is revealed to his saints. And then, the blessed society which there enjoyeth him, and the holy vision, love, and joy, by which he is enjoyed. And next is the wonderful work of man's redemption, and the covenant of grace, and the sanctifying operations of the Holy Ghost, and all the graces that make up God's image on the soul. And then is the state and privileges of the church, which is the body of Christ, for whom all this is done and prepared.
And next is the work of the Gospel, by which this church is gathered, edified, and saved. And then, the matter of our own salvation, and our state of grace, and way to life. And then, the salvation of others.
And then, the common, public good, in temporal respects. And then, our personal, bodily welfare. And next, the bodily welfare of our neighbours. And lastly, those things that do but remotely tend to these. This is the order of desirableness and worth, which will tell you what should have estimative precedency in your thoughts and prayers.
Direct. III. 'You must also know what subject is then most seasonable for your thoughts, and refuse even an unseasonable good.' For good may be used by unseasonableness to do hurt. It may be thrust in by the tempter, on purpose to divert you from some greater good, or to mar some other duty in hand: so he will oft put in some good meditation to turn you from a better, or in the midst of sermon or prayer: or if he see you out of temper to perform a duty of meditation, or that you have no leisure, without neglecting your more proper work, he will then drive you on, that by the issue he may discourage and hurt you, and make the duty unprofitable and grievous to you, and make you more averse to it afterwards.
Untimely duty may be no duty, but a sin, which is covered with the material good. As the Pharisees' sabbath-rest was, when mercy called them to violate it.
Direct. IV. 'Examine well, and determine of the end and use of your meditations, before you set upon them, and then labour to fit them to that special end.' The end is first in the intention, and from the love of it the means are chosen and used. If it be knowledge that you are to increase, it is evidence of truth, with the matter to be known, in a convincing, scientifical way, that you must meditate on. If it be divine belief that is to be increased or exercised, it is divine revelations, both matter, and evidence of credibility which you have to meditate on. If you would excite the fear of God, you have his greatness, and terribleness, his justice, and threatenings to meditate on. If you would excite the love of God, you have his goodness, mercy, Christ, and promises to meditate on. If you would prepare for death and judgment, you have your hearts to try, your lives to repent of, your graces to discover, and revive, and exercise, and your soul's diseases to feel, and the remedies to apply: so whenever you mean to make any thing of a set meditation, determine first of the end, and by it of the means.
Direct. V. 'Clear up the truth of things to your minds as you can, before you take much pains to work them on your affections, lest you find after that you did but misinform yourselves, and bestow all your labour in vain, to make deluding images on your minds, and bring your affections to bow before them.' As many have done by espousing errors, who have laid out their zeal upon them many years together, and made them the reason of hatred, and contention, and bitter censurings of opposing brethren; and have made parties, and divisions, and disturbances in the church for them, and after so many years zealous sinning, have found them to be but like Michal's image, a man of straw instead of David; and that they made all this filthy pudder but in a dream.
Direct. VI. 'Next labour to perceive the weight of every thing you think on, be it good or evil: and to that end be sure, that God and eternity be taken in, in every meditation, and all things judged of as they stand related to God, and to your eternal state; which only can give you the true estimate and sense of good and evil: there will still the life and soul, and power be wanting in your most excellent meditations, further than God is in them, and they are divine.' When you meditate on any Scripture-truth, think of it as a beam from the Eternal Light; indited by the Holy Ghost, to lead men by obedience to felicity. Behold it with reverence as a letter or message sent from heaven; and as a thing of grand importance to your souls. When you meditate of any grace, think on it as a part of the image of God, implanted and actuated by the Holy Ghost, to advance the soul into communion with God, and prepare it for him. When you meditate on any duty, remember who commandeth it, and whom you are chiefly to respect in your obedience; and what will be the end of obeying or disobeying. When you meditate on any sin, remember that it is the defacing or privation of God's image, and the rebel that riseth up against him in all his attributes, to depose him from the government
of the soul and of the world; and foresee the end to which it tendeth.
Take in God, if you would feel life and power in all that you meditate on.
Direct. VII. 'Let your ordinary meditations be on the great and necessary things; and think less frequently on the less necessary matters.' Meditation is but a means to a further end; it is to work some good upon the soul: use therefore those subjects which are most powerful and fit to work it. Great truths will do great works upon the heart. They are usually the surest and most past controversy and doubt: there is more weight, and substance, and power in one article of the creed, or one petition of the Lord's Prayer, or one commandment of the decalogue, to benefit the soul, than in abundance of the controverted opinions which men have troubled themselves and others with in all ages. As one purse of gold, will buy more than a great quantity of farthings. Meditating on great and weighty truths, makes great and weighty Christians. And meditating inordinately on light and controverted opinions, makes light, opinionative, contentious professors. Little things may have their time and place, but it must be but little time and the last place; except when God maketh any little thing to be the matter of our lawful calling and employment (as all the common matters of the world are little). And then they may have a larger proportion of our time, though still they must have the lowest place in our estimation and in our hearts.
Direct. VIII. 'Whenever you are called to meditate on any smaller truth or thing, see that you take it not as separated from the greater, but still behold it as connexed to them, and planted and growing in them, and receiving their life and beauty from them; so that you may still preserve the life and interest of the greatest matters in your hearts, and may not mortify the least, and turn it into a deceit or
idol.' We are to climb upwards, and not to descend downwards: and therefore we begin at the body of the tree, and so pass up to the few and greatest boughs; and thence to the smaller numerous branches, which as they are hard to be discerned, numbered and remembered, so are they not all strong enough to bear us; but are fitted rather to be looked on, than trodden and rested on. But if you take them not as growing from the greater boughs, but cut them off, they lose their life, and beauty, and fruitfulness. If all the controversies in the church had been managed, with due honour and preservation of holiness, charity, unity, peace, and greater truths; and if all the circumstantials in religion had been ordered with a salvo, and due regard, and just subserviency to the power and spirituality of holy worship, the Christian world would have had more life, and strength, and fruitfulness, and less imagery, unholy, ludicrous compliment, and hypocrisy.
Direct. IX. 'Let the end and order of your meditations be first for the settling of your judgments, and next for the resolving and settling of your wills, and thirdly for the reforming and bettering of your lives; and but in the fourth place, after all these, for the raising of your holy passions or lively feeling; which must have but its proper room and place.' But indeed where some of these are done already, they may be supposed, and we may proceed to that which is yet to do. As if you know what is sin and duty but to do it not, your meditation must be, not to make you know what you knew not, but first to consider well of what you know, and set the powerful truth before you; and then labour hereby to bring your wills to a fixed resolution of obedience.
But if it be a truth whose principal use is on the will and affections (as to draw up the heart to the love of God, by the meditating on his attractive excellencies), then the most pains must there be taken. Of which see Chap. iii. Direct. 11.
Direct. X. 'Turn your cogitations often into soliloquies; methodically and earnestly preaching to your own hearts, as you would do on that subject to others if it were to save their souls.' As this will keep you in order, from rambling and running out, and will also find you continual matter, (for method is a wonderful help both to invention, memory and delight) so it will bring things soonest to your affections: and earnest pleading of convincing reasons with our own hearts, is a powerful way to make the fire burn, and to kindle desire, fear, love, hatred, repentings, shame, sorrow, joy, resolution, or any good effect. Convictions, upbraidings, expostulations, reprehensions, and self-persuasions may be very powerful: when a dull way of bare thinking is but like a dull way of preaching, without any lively application, which little stirs the hearers. Learn purposely of the liveliest books you read, and of the best and liveliest preachers you hear, to preach to your hearts, and use it orderly, and you will find it a most powerful way of meditating.
Direct. XI. 'Turn your meditations often into ejaculatory prayers and addresses unto God: for that will keep you reverent, serious and awake, and make all the more powerful, because the more divine.'
When you meditate on sin, turn sometimes to God, by penitent lamentation, and say, 'Lord, what a wretch and rebel was I to entertain such an enemy of thine in my heart? and for nothing to offend thee and violate thy laws! O pardon, O cleanse me, O strengthen me! Conquer and cast out this odious enemy of thee and me.' So when you are seeking to excite or exercise any grace, send up a fervent request to God to shew his love and power upon thy dead and sluggish heart, and to be the principal agent in a work which is so much his own. Prayer is a most holy duty, in which the soul hath so nearly to do with God, that if there be any holy seriousness in the heart, it will be thus excited: a dull and wandering mind will bear some reverence to God; and therefore interests him in all.
Direct. XII. 'Let every meditation be undertaken in a humble sense of thy own insufficiency, with a believing dependence on thy Head and Saviour, to guide and quicken thee by his Holy Spirit, and to cover the infirmities of thy holiest thoughts.' Whatever good is written upon our hearts, must be "written by the Spirit of the living God:" and this "trust we must have through Christ to Godward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is of God." How heavily will all go on, or rather how certainly shall we labour in vain, and cast off all, if Christ cast us off, and leave us to ourselves! Think not that your life and strength are radically in yourselves: go to him by renewed acts of faith, by whom you must be quickened.
Direct. XIII. 'Let not your holy thoughts be so seldom as to keep you strange to the matter of your meditations, nor so short as to be gone before you have made any thing of it.' Now and then a cursory thought, will not acquaint the soul with God, nor bring it to a habit and temperament of holiness. Whereas that which you think on frequently and seriously, as your business and delight, will become the nutriment and nature of your souls: as the air which we daily breathe in, and the food which we daily live upon, do our bodies. And you will find that as use will breed skill and strength, so it will cause such acquaintance and familiarity, as will very much tend to the fruit and comfort of the work. Whereas they that only cast now and then a look at God and holiness, do lose so quickly the little which they get, that it makes no great alteration on them.
Direct. XIV. 'Yet do not overdo in point of violence or length; but carry on the work sincerely according to the abilities of your minds and bodies; lest going beyond your strength, you craze your brains, and discompose your minds, and disable yourselves, to do any thing at all.' Though we cannot estimatively love God too much, yet is it
possible to think of him with too much passion, or too long at once: because it may be more than the spirits and brain can bear: and if once they be overstrained, if they break not, like a lute-string screwed too high, they will be like a leg that is out of joint, that can pain yon but not bear you. While the soul rideth on so lame or dull a horse, as the body is, it must not go the pace which it desireth, but which the body can bear; or else it may quickly be dismounted, or like one that rideth on a tired horse. It is not the horse that goeth at first with chafing heat, and violence, which will travel best: but you must put on in the pace that you are able to hold out. You little know how lamentable and distressed a case you will be in, or how great an advantage the tempter hath, if once he do but tire you by overdoing!
Direct. XV. 'Choose not unnecessarily or ordinarily the bitterest or most unpleasant subjects for your meditation, lest you make it grow a burden to you; but dwell most on the sweet delightful thoughts of the infinite love of God revealed by Christ, and the eternal glory purchased by him, and the wonderful helps and mercies in the way.'
As it is the Gospel which Christ's ministers must preach to others, so it is the Gospel which in your meditations, you must preach most to yourselves. It is love and pleasure which you must principally endeavour to excite: and you must do it by contemplating amiableness and felicity, the objects of love and pleasure. For the thoughts of terror, and wrath, and misery, are unfit to stir up these: though to the unconverted, dull, secure, presumptuous, or sensual sinner, such thoughts are very necessary to awake him, and prepare him for the thoughts of love and peace. It is the principal part of this art, to keep off loathing and averseness, and to keep up readiness and delight.
Direct. XVI. 'When you are in company, let out the fruit of your secret meditations, in holy, edifying discourse.' Gather not for