Chapter VI (2)

_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.[307] If you knew that it is the great skill and diligence requisite in all that will sail successively 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.

[Sidenote: All our duty to God and man.]

_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, bewail 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 from idleness? Oh 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, sloth, intemperance, cowardice, lust, uncharitableness, &c. Is not here matter for your thoughts?

[Sidenote: All our particular mercies.]

_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. xiv. 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.

[Sidenote: The account at judgment.]

_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 aught he knows before to-morrow, methinks should find himself 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 so 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!

[Sidenote: Our afflictions.]

_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," Lam. iii. 4. 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 holiness," Heb. xii. 10. 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. iii. 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 his 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," Psal. lxxviii. 33-35.

[Sidenote: The business of your callings.]

_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 well-doing 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 well-doing 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.

[Sidenote: All ordinances and means of grace.]

_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 ofter; as he that goeth to the water with a spoon or a dish, must go ofter 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.

[Sidenote: The miserable sinful world.]

_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 unruliness, 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?

_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 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 hinderance 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 he is accidentally 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 to 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 well-doing 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 free 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 aforesaid 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 keep 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. civ. 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.

[Sidenote: The order of subjects to be meditated on, as to their excellency.]

_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 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. xi.

_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.[308] 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 show 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 sold 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 interest 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 God-ward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God," 2 Cor. iii. 3-5. 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 to 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, or are seldom and short in holy thoughts, 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 you, 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 yourselves only, but that you may communicate to others. The "good scribe instructed to the kingdom of God," must "bring forth out of his treasure things new and old," Matt. xiii. 52. That is good which doth good. God is communicative; and the best men are likest to him: nay, a fluent discourse sometimes is a great instructor to ourselves, and bringeth those things into our minds with clearness, which long meditation would not have done. For one thing leadeth in another; and in a warm discourse the spirits are excited, and the understanding and memory are engaged to a close attention; so that just in the speaking, we have oftentimes such a sudden appearance of some truth, which before we took no notice of, that we find it is no small addition to our knowledge, which comes in this way. As some find that vocal prayer doth more excite them, and keep the mind from wandering, than mere mental prayer doth; so free discourse is but a vocal meditation. And what man's thoughts are not more guilty of disorder, vagaries, and interruptions, than his discourse is?

_Direct._ XVII. Obey all that God revealeth to you in your meditations, and turn them all into faithful practice; and make not thinking the end of thinking. Else you will but do as the ungodly and disobedient in their prayers, who offer to God the "sacrifice of fools, and consider not that they do evil," Eccl. v. 1, 2. Away with the sin, and do the duty, on which you think.

_Direct._ XVIII. Think not that the same measure of contemplation and striving with their own affections, is necessary to all; but that an obediential, active life may be as acceptable to God, when he calleth men to it, as a more contemplative life. This leadeth me necessarily to give you some directions about the difference of these ways.

_Tit._ 4. _The Difference between a contemplative Life,
and an obedient, active Life, with Directions concerning
them._

This task will be best performed by answering those questions which here need a solution.

[Sidenote: What is a contemplative life.]

_Quest._ 1. What is a contemplative life? and what is an active, obediential life?

_Answ._ Every active christian is bound to somewhat of contemplation; and all contemplative persons are bound to obedience to God, and to so much of action as may answer their abilities and opportunities. But yet some are much more called to the one, and some to the other; and we denominate from that which is most eminent and the chief. We call that a contemplative life, when a man's state and calling alloweth and requireth him to make the exercises of his mind on things sublime and holy, and the affecting of his heart with them to be his principal business, which taketh up the most of his time. And we call that an active, obediential life, when a man's state and calling requireth him to spend the chief part of his time in some external labour or vocation, tending to the good of ourselves and others. As artificers, tradesmen, husbandmen, labourers, physicians, lawyers, pastors and preachers of the gospel, soldiers and magistrates, all live an active life, which should be a life of obedience to God. Though among these, some have much more time for contemplation than others. And some few there are that are exempt from both these, and are called to live a passive, obediential life; that is, such a life in which their obedient bearing of the cross, and patient suffering, and submission to the chastising or trying will of God, is the most eminent and principal service they can do him, above contemplation or action.

_Quest._ II. Must every man do his best to cast off all worldly and external labours, and to retire himself to a contemplative life as the most excellent?

_Answ._ No: no man should do so without a special necessity or call; for there are general precepts on all that are able, that we live to the benefit of others, and prefer the common good, and as we have opportunity do good to all men, and love our neighbours as ourselves, and do as we would be done by, (which will put us upon much action), and that we labour before we eat.[309] And for a man unnecessarily to cast off all the service of his life, in which he may be profitable to others, is a burying or hiding his master's talents, and a neglect of charity, and a sinning greatly against the law of love. As we have bodies, so they must have their work, as well as our souls.

[Sidenote: Who are called to a contemplative life.]

_Quest._ III. Is a life of contemplation then lawful to any man? and to whom?

_Answ._ It is lawful, and a duty, and a great mercy to some, to live almost wholly, yea altogether, in contemplation and prayer, and such holy exercises. And that in these cases following: 1. In case that age hath disabled a man to be serviceable to others by an active life: and when a man hath already spent his days and strength in doing all the good he can; and being now disabled, hath special reason to improve the rest of his (decrepid) age, in more than ordinary preparations for his death, and in holy communion with God. 2. So also when we are disabled by sickness. 3. And when imprisonment restraineth us from an active life, or profiting others. 4. And when persecution forceth christians to retire into solitudes and deserts, to reserve themselves for better times and places; or when prudence telleth them, that their prayers in solitude may do more good, than at that time their martyrdom were like to do. 5. When a student is preparing himself for the ministry, or other active life, to which a contemplative life is the way. 6. When poverty, or wars, or the rage of enemies disableth a man from all public converse, and driveth him into solitude by unavoidable necessity. 7. When the number of those that are fit for action is so sufficient, and the parts of the person are so insufficient, and so the need and use of them in an active life so small, that, all things considered, holy, impartial prudence telleth him, that the good which he could do to others, by an active life, is not like to countervail the losses which he should himself receive, and the good which his very example of a holy and heavenly life might do, and his occasional counsels, and precepts, and resolutions, to those who come to him for advice, being drawn by the estimation of his holy life: in this case, it is lawful to give up oneself to a contemplative life; for that which maketh most to his own good and to others, is past doubt lawful and a duty. "Anna departed not from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayer night and day," Luke ii. 36, 37.[310] Whether the meaning be, that she strictly kept the hours of prayer in the temple, and the fasting twice a week, or frequently, or whether she took up her habitation in the houses of some of the officers of the temple, devoting herself to the service of the temple; it is plain that either way she did something besides praying and fasting; even as the widows under the gospel who were also to "continue in prayer and supplication night and day," 1 Tim. v. 5, and yet were employed in the service of the church, in overseeing the younger, and teaching them to be sober, &c. Tit. ii. 4, which is an active life. But however Anna's practice be expounded, if this much that I have granted would please the monastics, we would not differ with them.

_Quest._ IV. How far are those in an active life to use contemplation?

[Sidenote: How far contemplation is necessary.]

_Answ._ With very great difference. 1. According to the difference of their callings in the world, and the offices in which they are ordinarily to serve God. 2. And according to the difference of their abilities and fitness for contemplation or for action. 3. According to the difference of their particular opportunities. 4. According to the difference of the necessities of others which may require their help. 5. And of their own necessities of action or contemplation. Which I shall more particularly determine in certain rules.

1. Every christian must use so much contemplation, as is necessary to the loving of God above all, and to the worshipping of him in spirit and in truth, and to a heavenly mind and conversation, and to his due preparation for death and judgment, and to the referring all his common works to the glory and pleasing of God, that "Holiness to the Lord" may be written upon all, and all that he hath may be sanctified, or devoted with himself to God.

2. The calling of a minister of the gospel, is so perfectly mixed of contemplation and action, (though action denominate it, as being the end and chief,) yet he must be excellent in both. If they be not excellent in contemplation, they will not be meet to stand so much nearer to God than the people do; and to sanctify him when they draw near him, and glorify him before all the people: nor will they be fit for the opening of the heavenly mysteries, and working that on the people's hearts which never was on their own. And if they be not excellent in an active life, they will betray the people's souls, and never go through that painful diligence, and preaching in season, and out of season, publicly, and from house to house, day and night with tears, which Paul commandeth them, Acts xx.; and Epist. Tim.

3. The work of a magistrate, a lawyer, a physician, and such like, is principally in doing good in their several callings, which must not be neglected for contemplation. Yet so, that all these, and all others, must allow God's service and holy thoughts their due place, in the beginning, and middle, and end of all their actions. As magistrates must read and meditate, day and night, in the word of God, John i. 8, 10. So the eunuch, Cornelius, &c. Acts viii. and x.

4. Some persons in the same calling, whose callings are not so urgent on them, by any necessities of themselves or others, and who may have more vacant time, must gladly take it for the good of their souls, in the use of contemplation, and other holy duties. And others that are under greater necessities, urgencies, obligations, or cannot be spared from the service of others, (as physicians, lawyers, &c.) must be less in contemplation, and prefer the greatest good.