sense in the passages, looking to God for help and direction, to reveal
be brought to a more exact conformity. It is pondering on the truth as it is in Jesus, to find its expression in our hearts; so it has the same intent as prayer, which is to bring our souls into an attitude that will in all things answer the mind and will of God. They are as the blood and spirits in the veins, that have the same life and motion. But because persons are generally at a loss in how to meditate, and because it is so effective in controlling the actions of the law of sin, I shall give two or three rules to directing believers how to rightly do it;
1. Meditate on God with God; so, when we would undertake thoughts and meditations of God, his excellencies, his attributes, his glory, his majesty, his love, his goodness, let it be done in a way of speaking to God, in deep humiliation of our souls before him. This will fix the mind, and draw it from one thing to another, to give glory to God, and affect the soul until it is brought into that holy admiration of God and delight in him which is acceptable to him. So it must be done in a way of prayer and praise, - speaking to God.
2. Meditate on the word in the word; that is, in reading it, consider the sense in the passages, looking to God for help and direction, to reveal his mind and will, and then labour to have our hearts affected with it.
3. What we come short of in constancy in our thoughts, let it be made up in frequency. Some are discouraged because their minds do not regularly supply them with thoughts to carry on their meditations, through their weakness or imperfection. Let this be remedied by frequent returns of the mind to the subject, whereby new senses will be supplied to it. But this by the way.
These duties, amongst others, oppose the very being of indwelling sin, or rather faith in them does so. They are perpetually designing its ruin. So I shall now do these two things: -
(1.) Show the usefulness of these duties to the ruining of sin.
(2.) Show how deceitfulness of sin tries to draw the mind from them.