same Book neither will yours Or may I doubt lest you did for want of leisure confound the several parts of my Writing And take that which I wrote of the common necessity of a Heavenly mind or of Meditation of Heaven to be written also to prove or urge the same necessity of the Length or Method No I must not be so injurious to you For though you are not obliged to read my writings till you understand them yet I know you cannot forget that you are obliged to understand them if they are intelligible before you deliberately oppose them Therefore I have no way left but to conclude that you are not intelligible to me 5. What I have said all this while of the Method I say also of the Time of Meditation which is part of your exception It is a duty to spend so much Time in Meditation as is best to Edification to attain its End But to them that have Ability and opportunity at least a quarter or half an hour if not more is best to Edification to attain the End Therefore to such it is a duty to spend so much time herein I will give you no Text of Scripture for the Conclusion nor for the Minor The nature of the thing and common experience proveth it Christs Sermons recited in Scripture seem to be very short You may call for a Text now to prove it a duty that a Sermon or Prayer should be an hour or a quarter of an hour long It is enough that I prove it from the Aptitude of the Means to its end Experience telleth us that very few words and short time serve not to inform mens understandings And after that the Will and Affections must have time to be duly excited and resolved And more time is necessary yet to drive the nail to the head and to settle the soul against the force of all objections that may be produced to the contrary And yet more time to settle it in the right way of Practice In a word If short and seldome Preaching to others be all that is any Preachers duty murmur not that you are silenced but write to Ministers to spare the Bishops the labour and odium and to silence themselves as to their long unnecessary Sermons If you say that Preaching is more of Divine Institution than Meditation I deny it There is here no magis or minus If God have instituted both it cannot be said that he hath instituted one more than the other Though it may be said that one which ever it is be of greater necessity than the other And though I confess that he that Preacheth to himself may omit and abbreviate much which must be distinctly expressed to others yet that doth but shew that Preaching must ordinarily be longer than such set meditations but not that these also must not have that Time which Method and the Ends require when it may be so done Do you not think it as presumptuous to define the Time of a mans Conference about Scripture with his Children and Servants daily as to define the time of his Meditation I suppose you will judge the case much like Suppose then that I should say to a Master of a Family Besides your little occasional reflections you that have Ability and Opportunity may do well yea must take it for your duty oft times even once a day if no greater duty hinder you to set some time apart to speak Methodically and seriously to your Families first by way of explication and then of Application to convince them and resolve them and to drive all home to Practice c. Would you call for a Text to prove this a duty I would give you then Deut. 6.7 8 9. Deut. 11.18 19 20. for the Major Ye shall teach them your Children speaking of them when thou sittest in thy house c. With Gen. 18.19 1 Cor. 14. 26 40. And the Minor I would prove by the Light of Nature and experience The case is the same in the main as to the exhorting of our selves Truly Brother if your soul be not much more Heavenly than mine it needeth a considerable time of holy exercise to habituate it to converse above and to bring it to the benefits of Meditation which we must desire As I cannot get met heat with walking no nor running neither by the violence of the motion alone unless I continue some considerable time no more can I in Prayer and Meditation though my lazy humour too oft inclineth me to sit down and content my self with a short Cogitation or wish Like the Prayers of those that wash them and button their Doublets and interpose other talk and yet pray on And the warmth which I have once got is quickly abated if I give over the duty and be short and seldome in it Short and seldome thoughts of Heaven will not serve with so bad a heart as mine to keep up the Habit much less to exercise a Heavenly mind in that degree as all true Christians must confess desirable And I suppose God hath therefore appointed us such variety of Ordinances and helpes and such long and frequent use of them in their several turnes and times which prophane men count but unnecessary preciseness that so our hearts may be habituated to a holy and Heavenly frame by the frequent and much use of holy and Heavenly exercises For surely we add nothing unto God nor do we change him by our words or hours of Religious exercise But we wait for his grace in the use of those means which tend to prepare us both for Grace and Glory And by the same reasonings as you will shift off or shuffle this Meditation into some cursory thoughts on the by the world would do so by Prayer Preaching Holy Conferences Sacraments and all Religion But that several men must allow several proportions of Time for this duty and that all cannot allow it the same Time again I say I will not suspect you to suppose and affirme me to deny 6. Another thing that you oft mention is that I say Other thoughts should not be intermixt And without giving you a Text for the Conclusion the same kind of arguing will prove this as proved the rest Adding Eccles. 9.10 and such like If a man have Ability and Opportunity will not attending wholly to the work in hand best Edifie him and further the success If not intermix other thoughts also with your greatest studies your Prayers your Preaching and do all diviso vel prae-occupato animo Let the People when you are preaching to them talk in the Church to one another Reprove them not for thinking of other things Or give them a Text of Scripture for the Conclusion saying you may not think or talk of other matters at Sermon time If you say that Meditation is not to be a set duty as Preaching is and therefore may lawfully be interrupted I answer If it be a duty commanded of the same God it must in its
THE DUTY OF HEAVENLY MEDITATION Reviewed by RICHARD BAXTER At the Invitation of Mr. GILES FIRMIN'S EXCEPTIONS In his Book Entituled The Real Christian. LONDON Printed for Nevil Simmons at the Sign of the three Crowns near Holborn Conduit 1671. Dear and much honoured Brother I Have lately perused your judicious Treatise called The Real Christian in which you seek to deliver the Church from the danger of the Errors of Mr. Daniel Rogers Mr. Hooker Mr. Shephard and Mr. Perkins And I think Mr. Shephard's Sound Believer needeth more Medication to make it sound than you have yet used Among the rest I find you have endeavoured in the End to save the Church also from the trouble and danger of my Directions for Heavenly Meditation in my Saints Rest. And though my own opinion be that seeing we have formerly had some converse by Writing it would have been better to have attempted to convince me by Letters of my Errors before you had warned the World to take heed of them that you might have heard first what I had to say for my self yet I confess those are punctilio's not to be stood upon in this age in which no great exactness of foresight prudence or justice is to be expected Nor have I a desire to abridge you of your liberty of speaking as publikely as you have a list But taking your writings as I find them I shall take the boldness to tell you I. How far my judgement doth concurr with yours which shall be answered by my endeavours II. How farr I am unsatisfied in your Writings on this point I. I am glad 1. That you are tender of the peace of troubled tender Christians and would have Ministers take heed lest they should break the bruised reed 2. I am glad that you would have Ministers accurate in their words and writings and not by heedless unwarrantable expressions wrong the Church 3. I am glad that you are sensible that extreams are to be avoided and that over-doing in doctrines of piety and pretending to go beyond the Church of God even farther than God would have us is one way of injuring truth and piety 4. I am glad that you are for keeping close to that rule of Truth and duty and against making a Religion or any part of it to our selves 5. I am glad that you are for a free and faithful opening and disowning the Errors and failings of the most esteemed Divines that weak Christians may not be injured by the reverence of their names And that you are not of the pernicious opinion of a multitude of Professours of Religiousness in this age who think that none of their faults or weaknesses should be opened lest it give matter to their Adversaries to reproach them and that all that is said against them is said against Religion and that to call them to Repentance is to disgrace Religion and to strengthen the hands of wickedness I am glad that you see the horrid blindness and wickedness of this conceit and how odious a thing it is to preferr our selfish personal reputation before the honour of Christ and true Religion or else to think that it is an honour to Christ and Religion to justifie our sins I am glad that you have the wisdome of a Christian rather to disown the Errors of the Godlyest Divines than to leave it to angry contentious Adversaries to open them in another manner and to other ends and uses And that you think not as our selfish blind ones do that we may dance naked unseen and undisgraced if we are but in the net of self-flattery and that angry Adversaries will see none of our errours or faults unless we tell them of them by our Repentance In all this you and I are of a mind 6. And in particular I am afraid as well as you of screwing weak ones too high in this duty of meditation on the Glory of Heaven And therefore lest I should injure the weak or any others 1. In the Book it self The Saints Rest I have given the Reader these warnings Pag. 703. Ed. 9. Yet be cautious in understanding this I know this will not prove every mans duty some have not themselves and their time at command and therefore cannot set their hours such are most servants and many Children of poor and carnal Parents and many are so poor that the necessities of their families will deny them this freedome I do not think it the duty of such to leave their labours for this work just at certain set times no nor for prayer or other necessary worship No such duty is a duty at all times Affirmatives bind not semper ad semper When two duties come together and cannot both be performed it were then a sin to perform the lesser Of two duties we must choose the greater i. e. consideratis considerandis though of two sins we must choose neither I think such persons were best to be watchful to redeem time as much as they can and take their vacant opportunities as they fall and especially to joyne Meditation and Prayer as much as they can with the very labours of their Callings There is no such enmity between labouring and Meditating or Praying in the Spirit but that both may conveniently be done together Yet I say as Paul in another case If thou canst be free use it rather Those that have more spare time from worldly necessâ—ries and are Masters to dispose of themselves and their time c. And pag. 704 Just how oft it should be I cannot determine because mens several conditions may vary it But in general That it be frequent the Scripture requireth when it mentioneth meditating continually or day and night Psal. 1.2 119.97 148.19 Circumstances of our conditions may much vary the circumstances of our duty It may be one mans duty to hear or pray ofter than another and so it may be in this of Meditation But for those that can conveniently omit other business I advise that it be once a day at least So also pag. 707. 709. And being afraid lest I should injure unable persons in many books since I have over and over lest it should be overlookt repeated I feared ad nauseam Lectoris these Cauâ—ions As Method for Peace of Consc. p. 12. studying and serious meditating be not duties for the deeply Melancholy You must let those alone till you are better able to perform them lest by attempting those duties which you cannot perform you utterly disable your self from all c. And I thus conclude my Treat of The Divine Life But now I have given you these few Directions for the improvement of your solitude for converse with God lest I should occasion the hurt of those that are unfit for the Lesson I have given I must conclude with this caution which I have formerly also published that it is not Melancholy or Weak headed persons who are not able to bear such exercises for whom I have written these Directions
Those that are not able to be much in serious solitary thoughtfulness without confusions and distracting suggestions and hurrying vexations thoughts must set themselves for the most part to those duties which are to be done in company by the help of others and must be very little in solitary duties For to them whose natural faculties are so diseased and weak it is no duty as being no means to do them the desired good But while they strive to do that which they are naturally unable to endure they will but confound and distract themselves and make themselves unable for those other duties which yet they are not utterly unfit for To such persons therefore instead of ordered well digested Meditations and much time spent in secret thoughtfulness it must suffice that they be brief in secret prayer and take up with such occasional abrupter Meditations as they are capable of and that they be the more in reading hearing conference Praying and praising God with others c. More such I omit I now add more particularly lest I should injure any 1. That I take it not to be the duty of a Minister to leave his necessary Study Preaching Prayer c. for this set Meditation 2. Nor for a Magistrate to leave his necessary work of Government for it 3. Nor for any man in an Active life to leave a necessary duty of his place for it 4. Nor for any weak persons to stretch their braines beyond their abilitie to do what they cannot do Greatest Duties must be preferred and men must endeavour prudently according to their capacity and power And God will have mercy and not sacrifice and would not have Religion crack our braines nor turn out our duties towards men or of our particular Callings But for all this I am of the same mind expressed in the Book which you find fault with 1. That Heavenly mindedness is essential to Holiness 2. That Heavenly thoughts or Meditations are much of the exercise of Heavenly mindedness 3. And that it is every mans duty to exercise his Thoughts or Meditations in the most clear methodical affecting practical way that his Abilities and opportunities consideratis considerandis will reach to For which useful Method I gave the best directions I could But I will not justifie my weakness nor deny that it is injurious to the Church of God nor deny the preheminence of my Brethrens understandings nor the greater usefulness of their labours And it is not unlikely that mine may have more faults that I discern which are soon discerned by more judicious men for whose correction I would not be unthankful II. And now I shâ—ll tell you wherein I differ from you 1. It seemeth to me unrighteous dealing when you undertake in Print to save Christians from my Errours to overpass all the limitations before recited which I gave them and to carry it as if I had made that Manner which you except against to be all mens or most mens duty Yea not only by your preterition of my words but by your own to perswade the Reader that so indeed it was When you say pag. 314. This I see is the Meditation strongly urged upon Christians A duty very hard I am sure And if our salvation lie upon this being performed after this manner as this learned and Reverend Author hath set down then most Christians that I meet with forty to one and those whom I esteem good Christians must never come at Heaven but must to that dark place Did you not intimate in these words that I make it as necessary to salvation as these words import If so Truth and Candor should have prevailed with you to have left out all such passages You see I make it not so much as a duty to any that have not ability and conveniency much less that the mode is of necessity to salvation But yet I must add that our Salvation is not unconcerned in any of our duties though I will not say that our salvation lyeth on it so as we must else be damned What if I had given you a scheme of the admirably accurate Method of Prayer which is found in the Lords Prayer I would have said that the observation of this Method is a Duty and that our salvation is not unconcerned in that duty I would have said that all men should do their best to come up to that accurate Method in their Prayers But so as not to crack their brains nor hinder them in the Matter nor neglect any greater duty to do this But with moderate just endeavours according to their abilities and opportunities I would not have said that their salvation so lyeth on it that none that use not this method can be saved nor would I be so rough and curst as you speak to those that cannot use this Method as to deprive them of their comfort But I would tell them what is their Rule and pattern Even so do I in this case of Meditation 2. And I like not reducing the Rule to our impotent sinful natures nor to our crooked lives when our Hearts and lives should be measured by and reduced to the Rule I grant that not one of forty doth Pray in the Method of the Lords prayer no not of Godly People no nor Ministers no not in their studied Liturgies What then Is it therefore no duty because few perform it Were it not enough to have said that methodical set Meditation is a high pitch of duty which every weak Christian cannot â—each or which few can reach or that it is not so much as a duty to all as to the circumstances of Time c As I like not the Papists making Gods Law imperfect that they may make man perfect and sin Veniall or Vnivocally no sin so I as little like it in our selves to say that Duty is no Duty and so deny the perfection of the Law because that every one cannot reach it and few good people perform it God forbid I should deny all duty which few good people perform any more than justifie all sin which most or all good People commit 3. You say If I should humbly desire a Text or two from Holy Writ to prove that is the Meditation that God requireth of Christians if the Reverend Author will answer me it is a ridiculous question as he hath said in another case I must be silent Answ. The case which I call ridiculous you vainly silence seeing any understanding Reader at least of the Book you blame will see it They were ridiculous Sectaries Seekers and such like that I then had to do with If you or your most skilful Casuist whom you mention had called for a Text of Scripture to prove that we must pray twice a day in our families its like I should have given you more Reverent language though I had thought never the better of the Question nor do I think sure that you can judge it ever the less a duty because your Father used it not
which yet I think you were not obliged to have so far told the world But why did you not candidly recite those reasonings by which in that place I manifested the question to be ridiculous Nay doth not your saying that if I do but say It is ridiculous you must be silent imply that I do but barely say so I will not injure the Reader by the tedious recitation of my words But to your self I may say I suppose you are not for Veronius new way of arguing from express Texts of Scripture containing both propositions If you are I referr you to Vedelius his Rationale Theolog. but specially to Dalleus de fidei ex Script demonst Part. 1. Cap. 10 11 12 13. 1. To prove Meditation or frequent Meditation day and night a duty is needless You confess it 2. To prove Methodical Meditation a duty to them that have Ability and opportunity it sufficeth to cite 1 Cor. 14.26.40 Let all things be done to edifying and in Order that is Right order not Wrong and that is Method But whether this or that Method be really true and most orderly and edifying you need not the words of Scripture to tell you That Cogitationes judicia verba rebus sunt aptanda that the Verity of Judgement and Speech lyeth in their Congruity to things are points known by the Light of Reason and you should not call for a Text to prove them The Light of nature is not contemptible The Law of Nature is Gods Law If Scripâ—ure had never spoke it yet by the Law of Nature it had been a duty to do all things in Order and to Edifying What is Orderly the Nature of the subject meditated on with the end will declare Preaching is the expressing of those thoughts to others which by meditation we exercise for our selves Therefore if it may be known what is Orderly Preaching by the agreeableness of the expressions to the matter in order to the true End then so it may be in Meditation which is a Preaching to our selves Therefore that Explication and Confirmation should go before Application that Examination should be furthered by Signes that Reproof should be furthered by Aggravations of sin that Exhortation should be furthered by Motives that Practice should be helped by Directions the nature of the thing doth prove And you may as well call for a Text of Scripture for most points in Metaphysicks or Physicks or Logick as for these Meditation should be done in Order to Edification But Order to Edification in them that have Ability and Opportunity requireth that Vnderstanding go first application after and that the application intended be furthered with convenient helps as aforesaid Therefore Meditation should be done in this order c. The Major is found in Nature and Scripture The Minor is a naturally-known truth exemplified throughout the Scripture which is written in that Method and in all Theological writings And yet must you have a Text for the Conclusion As for Family Prayer I have by me a long Disputation which I think fully proveth it to be a duty and to most Christian families twice a day But if the Law of nature must make up neither Major nor Minor but you must have the Conclusion in express Texts of Scripture its like if you saw it you would not be satisfied with it But it satisfyeth me as very full proof But so that there also I believe not that there are no exceptions Or that no family may have business so urgent as to exempt them from this as a duty or that all families are bound tâ— the same hours or the same proportion of time I will not tell you that it is ridiculous to ask what Text of Scripture maketh it a mans duty to give meat to his family twice a day with the other instances which I laid down But if those ridicula capita that then thus pleaded against family Prayer did ask me the same question again I would tell them so And I would think this argument might prove a Divine obligation God requireth us to give food to our Families if we are able and have opportunity as oft as is for the benefit or necessity of their natures But it is for the benefit and necessity of their natures to have food twice a day ordinarily and as to most persons Therefore God requireth us to give food to most families and ordinarily twice a day Or suppose I put in but once at least if you think I cannot prove the twice I am not now determining whether familâ— prayer must be as oft but whether this arguing be faulty for want of a Conclusion in the words of a Text of Scripture I think that Scripture is so admirably suited to the Nature of things that the farr greatest part of its precepts are found also in the true Law of nature And that even most of the Gospel precepts may be called supposing the History and Doctrine Lex naturae lapsae reparandae a Law suited to Natures reparation 4. But I am utterly ignorant of your meaning when you say that they that can Meditate thus ten hours c. are the happier men and have great cause to bless God for such a mercy Either you take it to be a Duty to such men to any men or no duty If you take it to be their or any mens duty then 1. You would not call for a Text of Scripture to prove it a duty 2. Nor you would not pretend to differ from me For I know your Candour abhorreth calumny And therefore notwithstanding your forementioned unhandsome intimations I suppose it is none of your purpose to perswade your Reader that I make it a duty for all men and you only for some For as your Piety and your friendship satisfie me that you have no such intent so I know you would discern it to be against the interest of your own reputation which would suffer when the contrary is seen in my writings Therefore I cannot understand whether you take it to be any mans duty And if not then you seem to hold the Popish doctrine of Evangelical Councils of perfection and of works of supererrogation or perfection which are no duties Which yet I will not believe you hold till I needs must And therefore having no third exposition of your words I must leave them all as unintelligible to me If you should say that my Limitations are not in the same Book the Saints Rest where the Duty is described I should answer 1. That is not so They are in the same 2. He that confuteth a man twenty years after his Writings are published is obliged to take notice of what he hath written since Else if a man reform or correct his own Writings it will signifie nothing but others are obliged to do it still as supposing it undone 3. And this Book of yours is not in the same Volume as my supposed Errour is Therefore if my own will not serve turn because they are not the