they think bare knowing without due Meditating is an undervaluing of spiritual things CHAP. XXVII Of the third Ground of this Meditation as to several ends and uses THE third great ground of this necessary Duty is from the Ends and the great concernments of them as to all sorts of persons 1. For a sinners first conversion to God 1. Meditation is a Duty incumbent on and highly necessary for persons yet strangers to God to bring them home Ezek. 18.28 Because he considereth and turneth 1 King 8.47 If they bethink themselves and turn returning of the sinners is upon considering and self bethinking thus the Prodigal Luke 15. No man ever truly converts to God without some consideration of his Misery with his absolute need of Christ and his Grace and flying to him Although the efficacious drawing of a sinner be Gods work he awakens convinces humbles and he changes the heart yet not without the sinners considering minding mourning seeking and striving God converts men as reasonable Creatures and conversion is founded on the deepest set reasons and the strongest working and prevailing arguments in the world God he awakens and the sinner looks about and considers he reasons with himself as the Prodigal and out-reasons himself but by Gods mighty working keeping down the hearts corruption and by its quickning the soul with a new living principle and so he resolves and returns to God If more would muse and consider did do it duly more God enabling would return When the one is to be done the other shall be done men shall come to consider and ponder 2. For all renewed repenting There 's great necessity of consideration for our renewing our returning continually for holding up an evenness and constancy of renewed repentance Psal 119.59 I considered my ways and turned my feet to thy Testimonies Fresh godly sorrow self-loathings serious returnings must have new fresh considerings of the sinfulness of sin and laying loads of aggravations on particular new warpings and miscarriages Especially greater Repentings require a deeper and larger foundation in consideration as David did in Psal 51. that evidences great and deep thoughts of heart 3. For a vigorous acting of Grace For vigorous acting any Grace Faith Love Hope Fear Humility Patience and others as is frequently seen in the Saints in Scriptures what reasons and perswasions they drew out of the depths of considerations Job David others All the heart Graces are stirr'd and acted in some measure by consideration either of the command enjoyning the Promise encouraging threatning awing examples exciting arguments in some sort or other inducing and helping It is something that works and weighs is first pondered before the soul acts or is rightly moved A Christian acts not as Water or Fire which move by their own inclination But as men act in things as men which is by choice and free election but upon preceding instigation of Reason and consideration Grace though it be a spring of living water it is not that which runs over of it self That 's for Heaven where the heart will be full and run alone It is not like the spring-head of Jordan that ran of it self but like Jacob's well that had always water but must always be drawn It must be drawn out by consideration Christians mistake and complain oft of their hearts and would have them like a running Spring to run to act alone when here in the best though there be water as in Jacob's Well yet the well is deep there must be drawing for every drop or none will come Therefore to make it come the Bucket of Consideration must be letting down and pulling up and so pouring forth What the Apostle said to Timothy 2 Tim. 1.6 Stir up the gift that is in thee must be said to all and done by all that would do any thing Some Horses we say go on meer Metal without out provocation of switch or spur others will go well with some stirring up So our hearts if good will go on in godliness but not on meer Metal but with provokings of considerations There should be endeavoured the best and strongest mindings and reasonings if we would act Graces vigorously and strongly There 's a necessity that strong purposes and resolutions for believing trusting loving hoping all acting all enduring strongly be bottom'd in strong mindings and considerings The fuller the consideration the better the actings of Graces the stronger the spring in the Watch the better all the Wheels move CHAP. XXVIII Of other ends of this Meditation 4. FOR all Duties and holy performances there is great necessity of Meditation in some due measure for a due wise warm lively and spiritual acting them acting from the right principle of Grace within by the right rule eying the Word and to the right mark and end salvation Real and vigorous performing in this sort must have some good allowance of pondering what we are to perform This is very conspicuous in holy David so great a performer of holy Duties Praying confessing and praising his prayings and all things in that way he calls his Meditation Certainly those so excellent Psalms of prayings and praisings were no flashes of a meerly raised phansie or some hasty runnings over of a hot Brain not an uttering what came next but the passages so rare spiritual and heavenly and so strongly rational as they had a touch from Heaven in the Spirits guidance and assistance so they had a tincture from a wise holy heart within laying them asteep in consideration and acting them with it in highest heeds and mindings concurring with their utterings Things so well spoken must be well weighed especially when they also were to be Scripture Records For holy Prophets and Scripture Pen-men were to use their own natural gifts and their graces in their writings though the Spirit of God infallibly guided sometimes raised and elevated them above themselves Duties of Religion ebb and flow are more lively spiritual and heavenly or more dead carnal and such as run lower according to their fomentings and feedings from the warm spring of Meditation thus in our praying and other duties we may daily experience Christians complain they are dead-hearted and cold slight and perfunctory in performances confessions are not accompanied with heart-meltings shame and self-loathings Petitions not with fervency strong cryings and earnest wrestlings Thanksgivings not with that flame of love and joy and high admirings of the so great goodness and rich free Grace of God in his ways and dispensations toward us commonly the cause is the spring of Meditation is stopt the soul runs not in such a current of considerations and quickning reasons as it ought and used to do When any part or member of the body fails in heat sense or motion where there is actio laesa as the Physicians say there 's principium laesum that is where is an action or acting hurt or hindred from its natural and usual way there the principle and feeder of that action hurt and
failing is hurt and failing it self As when failing of sence or motion in an Hand or Leg it 's num or cannot stir this is from the cold clammy humors lying at and obstructing the heads of those Nerves that did convey motive or sensitive spirits to that part is num or motionless Now Meditation is a head or rise of motions spiritual Reasons and Arguments are as the Nerves that convey and stir up heat spirit and motion into holy performances This is one very great cause holy Duties are no more lively and warm the cure must be in removing the obstructions opening the spring-head of Meditation making that run fresh and full in such considerations as may warm and quicken The wisdom of Christians therefore is to take as we said that great Artists way the holy Psalmist that acted godliness so eminently and among others upon this eminent acting still of Meditation he tells how he prayed day and night and how he still praised and highly rendred his thanksgivings and blessings and he tells you how he meditated day and night And he tells you his Meditation assisted and contributed as Psal 5. He tells you his Prayer was his Meditation because assisted quickened and prepared by Meditation If Christians would use to Meditate more carefully and constantly it would help to keep up better the vigour of Prayer so would it likewise keep life and warmth in all other holy duties No Christians are warmer at the heart and livelier in holy services than those who meditate most but never expect the one without the other Keep this Fountain open and still running this is the water to drive the Mill the Wind that moves the sails the spring in the Watch that carries all the Wheels and keeps them going I speak as to that is to be done on our part otherwise God does all in all 5. Meditation is necessary to be an exclusive and keeper out of evil and vain thoughts and to dislodge them naturally all the imaginations of the heart are evil and only evil continually Gen. 6.5 Vain thoughts lodge and repose as in a Bed in a carnal heart Jer. 4.14 How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee Ephes 4.17 Walking in the vanity of your minds The way and walk is in the vanity of the mind To dislodge these lodgers and shut them out is by accustoming and exercising the mind to good thoughts to be the excluders of bad thoughts The Learned Sir Francis Bacon observes as the cures of bodily diseases are by applying things contrary to them so the defects of the mind are helpt by contrary studies Poetry makes men witty History wise the Mathematicks subtil Natural Philosophy deep Moral Philosophy grave Logick and Rhetorick able to contend these Arts help the defects of Nature by working contrary habits proper for the cure of those defects So in spiritual distempers and defects there are sutable cures and remedies by applyings and actings of the contraries So Rom. 8.13 If ye mortifie the deeds of the body by the spirit All sins particular sins are mortifi'd by those Graces are contrary to those sins so distrust is mortified by holy trusting passion and wrath by godly meekness Pride by Humility worldly affections by heavenly affections still acted and so evil thoughts by good roving wandring and wild imaginations by Godly Consideration and Meditation which accustoming our selves unto will work off customary vain and wandring thoughts a holy principle of Meditation the sinful principle of evil thinkings It is not so much the striving and tugging against corruptions to keep them down though we must both watch and war against them but the acting of the contrary Grace that best relieves us to strive after a bare suppressing of sin and of evil thoughts in particular comes to little This is a kind of being only upon the defensive for an observing and marking the risings and stirrings of corruption and sins it may be with a good measure of grief and reluctancy but this is rather a telling and reckoning the evil thoughts and stirrings and lying expos'd still to fresh assaults leaving corruptions opportunity to return so oft as they will than to abate and suppress them It can do little unless we go this way to work The best and nearest way to dislodge and exclude evil thoughts is by lodging and acting good thoughts in this way this ordinance of Meditation which will keep us God keeps us when we keep his and our way The way when they come as we should against evil thoughts act detestation but withal act diversion act not detestation alone but diversion Let thy heart both turn inwardly against them and turn also from them by turning upon something is both spiritual and seasonable So soon as the Poyson of evil thoughts would infect take the antidote the best preservative of diversion to and acting of good and holy thoughts the art of diversion is better than meer acting still of striving and opposition Yea Secondly Meditation is to be exercised not only as an exclusive of bad thoughts but for an introductive of good thoughts good thoughts in a way for an arriving at habitual heavenly mindedness for an introductive of heavenly mindedness where there was formerly a walking in the vanity of the mind Gen. 6.5 All the thoughts of the heart evil continually customarily habitually evil for I say an introductive to heavenly mindedness and likewise for an improver of heavenly mindedness daily In handling the Explication of the description of Meditation when the ends of it were mentioned among other ends this was one Meditation must be performed to be a moulder and framer of habitual heavenly wisdom making the spirit of a Christian habitually wise so I adde now Meditation is to be performed to introduce and after that improve an habitual heavenly mindedness It is not only incumbent on thee to shut out evil thoughts and endeavour good thoughts to take up the old lodgings of the evil and so thrust and keep them out but thou must by Meditation by constant using it endeavour habitual heavenly mindedness In all truly gracious hearts a principle that inclines that introduces a bent and tendency of soul heaven-ward but this at the first is a tender bud it is but weak and inclines weakly acts feebly in comparison of after time when it 's grown and strengthened by exercise when we exercise and use to meditate this dips and dyes the spirit into the tincture and Grain Colour of habitual heavenly mindedness Though the first fundamental inclination and bent of spirit heaven-ward must be sought till it be found the carnal earthly mindedness changed into heavenly yet this if we were never so assured of it must not satisfie here no Christian must set up But to the now first principle and the fundamental habit obtained this superadded acquired habit should be this second grand endeavour and intension first to have the spiritual habit the new fundamental heart-tendency then to have this inclination
that my soul could Meditate still better flye farther mount higher be more upon the wing make sweeter and more happy discoveries and prove a greater proficient in this Heavenly way Meditate with desires and breakings of Soul to dart up the highest you can to Heaven and stay there CHAP. XV. Of the next Affection Love 2. THe next Affection which sends a Great Artery of vivifical Heat a glowing Heat into this Meditation is that of Heavenly Love Love to the Duty and the Excellent things to be Meditated upon Love is the great Heart Fire made to warm every holy service Ps 119.97 O how Love I thy Law it is my Meditation all the day Love led him into this pleasant soul walk of sweet Meditation and Love kept him company kept his heart warm in it The fulfilling of the Commandment is Love Rom. 13.10 and Love is the fulfilling of this Commandment of Meditating It is performed in Love This Heart vital Heat of Love must move to and in Meditation must glow through the whole work all the time of it Meditation is either of the infinite beauties of the most blessed God the infinite perfections and surpassing glories of his Essence and Attributes and of the Three Persons in that Essence or else of the precious Word or Works of God his general Providence and Government or his peculiar Governing of the reasonable Creatures especially that so stupendious work of Redemption by Christ and all those things which are reducible to his praise which must needs being so beauteous have their surpassing loveliness And therefore there is great reason to act love abundantly towards them To have Meditation still richly perfum'd with actings of burning love all over it O let Love ever come in and act its part in Meditation wherein the Souls Eye is not only glancing but wishly viewing the surpassing beauteous things of Heaven or such things as may lead up to Heaven Ah if I cannot ascend in a Flame of love yet let me in Meditation flye up in some sparks of Love If my heart cannot burn in the flame of Love let it keep warm upon the Embers of Love Let Love give it a spirit vigour and liveliness As Solomons Temple was inwardly all overlaid with Gold let this rare work of Contemplation be overlaid and inlaid with Love Cant. 3.10 as Solomons Chariot in the Canticles the midst of it paved with love so let this Chariot of Contemplation the midst of it be paved with Love This is the Second Affection Love CHAP. XVI Of the last Affection Delight 3. THE last Affection to make a threefold cord to draw up the heart in Meditation and that winds the work up higher and that is a great superadded Beauty and Glory is the Affection of Delight Joy and Pleasure Meditation must not be a dull sad and dispirited thing Not a driving like the Chariots of the Egyptians when their Wheels were taken off but like the Chariots of Aminadab Cant. 6.12 Make me like the Chariots of Aminadab that ran swiftly So let us pray Lord in Meditation make me like the Chariots of Aminadab that my swift running may evidence my Delight in Meditating Holy David makes Delight such an Ingredient or Assistant here that sometimes he calls this Exercise of Meditation by the Name of Delight Psal 119.16 speaking in the foregoing Verse of this Meditation I will Meditate in thy Precepts in the 16. verse I will Delight my self in thy Statutes which is the same with Meditation only with superadding the excellent qualification due Meditation should have This Name is given from this noble concomitant As Wisdoms ways are all paths of pleasantness so this path it hath its pleasantness and sweetness Contemplation hath its rare and most pleasant walks No Habitation hath such Rooms such Galleries within of pleasure Nor Gardens without with such Walks and Curiosities No Situation or Stand such Prospects and varieties of delightful Eye-Objects as Meditation enjoys All Objects that Nature or Art can present to the Eye are meer Shadows and Nothings in respect of the rich and rare Furniture the Eye of Meditation is provided with The Traveller whose fect and helps have carried him the farthest whose Eye and Observation hath viewed and taken in never so much variety and Curiosity that hath recreated ravisht and satiated it self never so largely with any of the most taking things the whole Worlds fullness comprises hath not cannot come neer to and compare with the transcendencies of purest highest Soul-refreshing ravishing Delights this high Operation and more sublime acting conveighs and gives in where the Object is spiritual the Eye Spiritual the heart holy and spiritual and the way of acting upon this Spiritual Object is Spiritual as every way or Ordinance of Christ is Or where the Object is excellent the faculty exercised on it is excellent the Medium or way of Applying the Faculty to the Object is Excellent There the Delight and Pleasure is most rare and excellent There are sundry sorts of pleasures There are sensitive pleasures of the external Senses as of Hearing Seeing Tasting and the like These are very various and very great too often too bewitching and besotting There are Phansie Imagination-pleasures I say the pleasures of Phansie which are rare and higher than those of the outward Senses Imagination and Phansie which is a quick sudden short and shallow apprehension of things it is not judgment that ponders but a sudden slight taking in and acting this is especially in some sorts of persons a very high Spring and strong Feeder of Delight or Pleasure of Pleasures that come like things fresh quick and spirited to the Body and Senses Phansies O how they perfume like richest scents please like briskest and most racy Wine Phansies though often very fond and vain yet are great insets of Delight 3. There are Intellectual Pleasures Rational Joys and Delights These are more high sublime and refined and therefore more sweet such as the Pleasures of understanding new rare Notions excellent Speculations and apprehensions of solid and precious Truths and the Minds Musings on them Tasting feeding on them this in it self is a more transcending Delight than the two former though Phansies weigh more with some yea though sensual Pleasures take most with abundance 4. But there are beyond the former namely those that are spiritual Pleasures Delights found and felt in a holy and spiritual Heart in one that hath a Principle far above Sense and Phansie and Natural Reason that a renewed Mind a Spiritual Understanding a Wisdom from above only reaches and relishes and these are best and sweetest when they are not only taken into the Soul by an act of apprehension and conceiving of them but when they pass into the more inward Room or Office of the Mind into the Judgment when they are there detained in Consideration and by Meditation give down their delicious sweetness like Grapes in the Wine-Press Meditation is such a Soul Engine such an instrument of such
1. Let me first begin with the meritorious cause of it That which Heathens knew not Nature saw not Philosophy and Learning could not find out nor reach only holy Scripture tells me and shews it to be that most black inlet sin Rom. 5.12 Death entred into the world by sin and v. 17. By one mans offence death reigned not only entred but reigned hath mastered and will master all sinners Sin that greatest evil in the world sin the only contrariety to the living God that gave life to man at first and ever since sin that only injury to the blessed God bred and brought death the greatest misery to man here sin that provoked God to pass the sentence sin occasioning the vindictive cause the Justice of God to let in death death with the consequences of it that would follow without a Mediator that Adam knew not of Death so considered is the way of the very deepest revenge a God can take But then this black part of it bodily death without that blacker Train of Hell and Eternity in it is that which must challenge a very great proportion of ponderings 2. Let me look at not only the rise of it and the bare wrath occasioning the inflicting it but that so fixt and irreversible sentence that like the Law of the Medes and Persians cannot be broken Heb. 9.27 It 's appointed for all the universality of sin hath given death an universal sting and the Statute of Heaven hath impowered Death's Extensiveness over all and set a seal of irrevocableness to it as to all men Therefore it is appointed I must think particularly for me whatever I am or do or can in utmost possibility do I must not once think of making an escape from it Yea let me consider as I must die so the very Year Moneth Day Hour and Moment is immutably fixt and can never be altered Job 14.5 the place also where the means whereby the manner how all circumstances about it are unchangeably determined 3. But how material is that particular of the uncertainty of the time and manner to me that 's a reservation and secret kept in the Lord 's own breast not possibly to be exactly known before without it be revealed as Christ of the Great Day of Judgment saith Mat. 24.36 Of that day and hour knoweth no man And Verse 42. Ye know not what hour your Lord will come And 44. In such an hour you think not your Lord comes so the two latter may be applyed to this of death when he calls for an accompt of our Stewardships and Talents and passes particular and personal Judgment 3. Let me pass next to the Meditation serious pondering of the nature of it and that great dreadfulness of that most terrible of terribles that King of terrours Job 18.14 Here that I may duly look on it let me look up for a God to teach me as to number my days Ps 90. so to be wise to consider my latter end to do that hard work overcome that difficulty of looking Death-watd Nature abhors the thinking of it Corruption all it can opposes it but Grace must bring and fix earnestly and often the Eye upon it familiarize death to me let me then Eye my dissolution the parting of the two nearest dearest friends the Soul 's taking its sad farewel of its former dwelling it s going going in an instant out of the Body and then that which Death doth as an Enemy to all former Life concerns and as an entrance upon an Eternal Condition 1. As an Enemy to all enjoyments how sweet soever Pleasures all now quenched Honours now all dasht Riches and Estate now all lost Power now utterly ceast 2. An Enemy to all Relations Friends Acquaintance now must I shake hands with all nearest and dearest the sweetest and most helpful Relations 3. An Enemy to all Imployments necessary or pleasurable no Work no Business no Invention after it 4. An Enemy to all Opportunities and Means of Grace never to read the Bible more never to hear one Sermon more never to receive the Lords Supper more never to make one Prayer the shortest of one of the fewest words more and then also when thou art just launching into the length of vast Eternity But now must be Prayerless and totally helpless yea now thy Souls condition becomes becalmed and thou canst not obtain one gale of the Holy Spirit to blow upon thee and help move thee in any measure 5. It s an Enemy quickly to the curious frame and so exquisite building of thy body with all its parts and members made with such adaptations and sutableness whatever with all the Tempers Qualities Offices Abilities and Actings of it An Enemy likewise to all the senses seeing hearing the two disciplinary with feeling tasting smelling the so likewise necessary 6. It is an Enemy and Destroyer of all comliness and beauty form and shape And all these former by being the Enemy and Destroyer of that thy so sweet and precious life by making that Jewel drop out of the Cabinet of the Body or rather driving forth thy immortal and invaluable soul bringing with it a Writ of forcible entrance coming with an Execution to turn out that old inhabitant of the body securing it from regaining possession making it stand empty and thence exposing the body to rot ruine turn to dust and expose it to Oblivion as if it had never been But then upon thy Souls thus leaving thy Body immediately and instantly it is cast upon a state of Eternity of Misery if thou wert not in Christ or felicity if found and dying in him When Life ends Eternity begins O this all amazing Eternity this so vast and inconceivable Eternity no way to be exprest or set forth no way to be understood or known a Glass that is ever running a Chain that is ever lengthening who can number the Sands of this Glass who can reckon the links of this Chain of Eternity without stop or period bound or end O let me be ever musing of this Ever have it so full in my Eye while I have time this moment of time here that it may wind up and leave me in possession of most happy Eternity But to affect my spirit aright and be wise in the due managing of this Meditation of dreadful Death let me look to and ponder the Scripture Commands for remembring and considering my latter end and the Arguments strongly inducing to it How frequently and earnestly is it urged upon all O let me lay the weight and stress of them close to my heart not suffering it to put by the thoughts of death how awk and averse soever my carnal spirit is towards it Let me therefore not only muse on the sentence the peremptory and irrevocable sentence passed upon all in general and so upon my self in particular but on it as ready to be executed this hour yea this moment for ought I or any in the world can tell Ah let me say to my self the
Warrant for my death at this very instant may be sealing and immediately in a moment put in Execution Ah therefore should I not still daily represent and realize to my heart my own particular coming Death represent it by those frequent Examples the hand of Death brings and sets full before my face to force my Observation The deaths of both strangers to me and familiars with me of near Neighbours dear Friends sweetest Relations bereaving me it may be of the Father that begat me the Mother that bare me the Children of my bowels the Wife of my bosom or the Husband that was my guide and stay or some other very comfortable Relation and so the comfort of any such Relation ceases All Relations are broken by this Bond-breaker this Tie-dissolver Death When I see these thus called away and must be my Relations no more should not I hear my self call'd upon to come away shortly it may be after them O but with these near warnings without me let me take those nearer warnings upon me and within me inevitably still seizing me Let me take those many successive summons given for my own personal change Ah how many are those joggings the hand of Death daily gives me for my awakening into that serious pondering of that death I either seldom or slightly mind How many strokes may I observe Death daily gives at the Root of the Tree making as it were the Chips flye in my face making me smart by Pains Aches Weakness Craziness Failings and Fallings of the spirits and strength and increase of Infirmities by all declaring he is making at me And how many pieces of my house of Clay may I see crumbling and mouldring away now one and then another After the morning of my Age my Sun soon gets up higher soon it is noon afternoon and night with me How soon is the Sun at the height with any in the bright and warm beams of bodily beauty and strength but how impossible is it for to say effectually to it Sun stand thou still and go not down for the least moment How soon appear one way or other the tendencies to death in and upon us Decay in Beauty and Comliness Sometimes yea ordinarily when we are in the Flower presently the Beauty and Comliness begins to blast The best and fairest Face as to the pure White and Red soon either becomes paler or higher coloured after grows darker and deader still one way or other worse As to the feature and curious shape of Face and whole Body soon that likewise changes either by a contraction in leanness and thinness or by an extension in corpulency and grossness Both the curious and rare Colours and Features change warning us of tendency to the last great coming change Or sometimes an intimation is given by the Grinders of our food whereby we live by the decayings still of the Teeth the Teeth which are absolutely the hardest and strongest things about us these so soon decaying as it is in most plainly it demonstrates that the softer and weaker things in and about us and so the whole frame will go at last By this the soon decaying of the bardest pieces Death seems to set his black mark on us we have his mark in the mouth and by their decayings and rottings we touch as it were these his warnings continually with our Tongues thence to mind us of what change is coming For when the Teeth fail the Grinders and Meat Preparers made to fit meat for the stomach this causes the stomach to act less perfectly and on its failing in degree all the dependencies must needs fail in their Offices But if these-Deaths Marks begin not so in some yet how do we find generally some other marks of decay set upon us If Death come not early yet how soon upon most doth he set his mark most observably on the very top of our Houses of Clay bringing forth gray Hairs on the highest part the Head and turning them whiter every day Making the Almond Tree to flourish as Solomon elegantly in Eccl. 12. And in how many Elegancies doth there the Wise man discover and represent rarely the decays of the Body in old age all as demonstrations of Deaths being continually busie about us both to prepare and reduce us to his possession What varieties of warnings are given us in the impairings of this or that Member or of several parts of the Body by sometimes Sores Imposthumes Fistulas Gangrens and parts corrupting shewing a coming dissolution How many mortal Diseases besides others shaking the Houses of our frail Bodies I say incurable Diseases whereby we are told that Death hath us now fast in his hand If not so yet what warnings otherwise are given in the senses beginning to fail as our Sight growing dimmer Hearing duller and in the rest And as in the parts more common so in the noble and principal parts in the Liver Heart Head and others these not performing so perfectly their Offices whence the spirits strength and motion are impaired the Flesh wastes the Skin wrinkles Memory and Vnderstanding likewise decay and appearances of death come all the Body over what are all the forementioned and concurrent decays but a being Death-smitten a coming out full of the Tokens of Death What are all these successions of decays but so many added links of that great Chain Death holds in his hand and draws us to him by All Messengers that have the sound of their Masters feet Death behind them O how exceeding gracious is God in his Multiplications and Connexions of warnings who might smite every Sinner without any notice of death given Therefore as a piece of highest wisdom let me strive to represent the possible suddenness of Deaths sad coming upon me and this by all the ways and inducements I can apply The Examples such as are in Scripture of Abels death Lot's Wife Nadab and Abihu Vzzah Amnon Abner Ananias and Sapphira Herod and others And in History and Experience of so many and so various ways suddenly snatcht away Not a Year or some small portion of time but it furnishes with fresh Examples What hath befallen others may befall me I have no security against sudden death but wheresoever and in whatever time death may seize me If I Travel a Thief may kill me my Horse may throw and kill me the Coach or Carriage I pass in may ruine me on the Water I may there be drowned on the Land and when I am passing in the Streets some casualty may dispatch me at home by some mischance or sudden distemper something at the Table Fire Bed or other place within or without doors some Imposthume Palsey Apoplexy kills or some venomous inward vapour may strike me to the heart Multitudes of Experiences we continually have If not suddenly Death seizes but is a stroke with warning either shorter or longer yet it comes at last in the way and at a time or hour I just know not My best way therefore
when he would have those come right and return that have gone wrong and such to go on that have well begun he calls them to consideration and minding their ways Hag. 1.5 Consider your own ways in your hearts and again verse 7. Isa 46.8 Bring it to mind Put your hearts upon your ways in the former here they must bring their doings upon their hearts by considering Ezek. 18.28 He considereth and turneth Consideration is the rise of returning Luke 15.17 The Prodigals returning was upon his considering common wisdom acting in consideration is the souls helm and spiritual wisdom acting in Meditation is the Christians Helm as the Word is his compass and the Gales of the holy Spirit fill his sails and make him move We cannot look for a Ship to sail well without the Helms steering well Meditations Helm must steer our course our course to the Harbour of true happiness must have its rise in due consideration as the Scripture every where shews O let me Lord keep up ever this right order and method in my walkings let Meditation be the spring that carries all the Wheels of my spirit right and even that still pondering all my paths my ways may be established This then I propound as a principal ground of the necessity of Meditation that dependance of the Will Affections and actings spiritual on the understanding sanctifi'd and furnisht with light and wisdom for salvation which wisdom and light is the guide to and stirrer up of the will affections and endeavours by the means of Divine Meditation This I have the more now insisted on in that the great failings of all sorts rise from neglect of this consideration and Meditation because this consideration is no more considered All Christians that would have the Will purpose the Affections move the executing power endeavour well must use the grace of spiritual wisdom that is the first wheel in the heavenly frame of spirit and wisdom by the way of Meditation to set on going all the wheels of other graces disperst through the heart The Graces planted as principles of spiritual life strength and motion and given to animate all operation CHAP. XXVI Of the second ground of this so necessary Duty of Meditation HEavenly things should have not only a meer seeing and knowing but a minding and meditating from their obliging and challenging excellencies Prov. 8.6 and 22.20 Excellent things have I not written to thee excellent things saith Solomon Phil. 3.8 For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ c. their so far transcending excellencies their rare objective excellencies give me leave to call them so that is they are not only excellent things in themselves though never known or shewn to us but they are made to be excellent objects for our observation and minding All made to be minded but some of them more peculiarly made and prepared made great made high deep and large fil'd brim full yea running over with both native excellency and likewise sutableness for us sutableness for our spirits to act and make their chief abode of seriousest thoughts upon for a spiritual and holy eye to fix upon and be pleased in As in Philosophy they reason if there be objectum sensibile an object of the outward sense and that which especially is excellent if there be Odours and rich Scents if sounds excellent sounds or if there be rare Colour Feature Motion and that so excellent object Light especially such glorious Lights as the several Stars the Moon and the most glorious Sun there must be those Senses of smelling hearing seeing which may perceive their objects and receive the pleasure and benefit of them otherwise they must be all in vain If there were no Creatures with any Senses to perceive these Objects of Colour Light and the rest to what end were any of them What use would Colour or Light be of without any eye to behold it The omniscient God he cannot need it The Angels and Spirits being without bodies they do not need it Creatures blind and Creatures made without sense Elements as Earth Water and the other Elementaries such as Stones Metals Trees and such like insensitive things they need it not neither need any smells sounds or tastes only the sense is suted to the Object and the Object to the sense The Object is made or manifested and shewn for the sense So if there be spiritual Objects and no spiritual eye fitted for them and if spiritual Objects be held forth and shewn and there were never any eying of them they then in that respect as to their holding forth would be in vain And the spiritual eye would be in vain as if the eye had no Object to behold it would be in vain and as no eye at all Therefore doth God in Scripture call so oft for a beholding of the things of Heaven because of their excellencies purposely shewn for that end Joh Behold the Lamb of God 1 Joh. 3.1 Behold what love the c. Therefore when there are such abundance of spiritual and heavenly things set out in such rare Colours and proportions shining in such high splendour and glory When so many most bright and beauteous when so great and extensive rarities and excellencies beam forth and shine so gloriously in heavenly and spiritual things there then needs must be an Eye a spiritual Eye for these so excellent Objects to behold them and be exercised about them Yea when there is such a height depth latitude and length and vastness every way of dimensions of excellency shining in them and this purposely that they may be viewed and admired and also improved therefore there must be an answerable eying and considering 1. A real sincere acting of minding and meditating to answer their most real worth 2. A deep searching of thoughts to answer their height and depth of excellency 3. An abode and dwelling and enlarging of thoughts to answer the latitude and extensiveness of excellency in them that all their glory and excellency so near as can be may be known and tasted The excellencies therefore of spiritual things are for eying and pondering the greatness of their excellencies for great eying and earnest Meditating Therefore we find that great Artist in Meditation the holy Psalmist so busying his thoughts and meditating in several things as about God and his Glory Greatness Holiness Righteousness Truth Mercy Severity and Power Psal 104. Psal 12.6 About the Word of God in those shining rays of its infallible Truth Purity Perfection mighty efficacy and glorious excellencies Psal 19.7 8. Psal 119. And so about the works and ways of God 2 Tim. 3.16 The blessed Apostle Paul was so acted in his thoughts about the Word of God and the Gospel Christ and Free Grace the fullness of Christ Ephes 2.4 7. the workings of his Spirit and the whole mystery of godliness 1 Tim. 3.16 Thus other Saints in Scripture Prophets Apostles and divers else The wise hearted will have their eyes thus exercised
can do little but bungle because they study and muse no more to know their own way Many Christians are but bunglers to what they might be make a large disproportion between their profession and their proficiency their practice and their profit because they meditate no more to understand their way 2. The great not only ignorance but dead-heartedness and spiritual chilness with the brokenness and unevenness of Christians in their walkings arises much from a negligence in this Meditation either negligence of not doing it but ceasing sometimes or negligence of slackness and slothfulness in ceasing fervency and industry for the manner Davids manner of meditation in the fervency and the constancy of it will keep up Davids affections fervent and flaming affections and Davids constancy and evenness of conversation 3. Little meditating makes lean Christians of little life little strength little growth and of little usefulness to others Heb. 12.12 There 's mention of feeble knees which also occasions the going with no steadiness and the not making of straight steps As it is oft in the body thus from a failing in the head obstructions of the Fountain and feeder of sense and motion so this among others this failing in Meditation is a great occasion though there be divers other causes a great ground of Christians weak feet and going no stronger and steadier Meditation that should influence stir up strength and motion is obstructed disused and neglected Meditation must still lend a hand of help to every spiritual undertaking first ponder then proceed We can perform nothing well in worldly affairs without well considering so in spiritual matters what duties can be well performed what graces rightly exercised what in all Religion that can be named can be rightly ordered if you mind not seriously consider not before the doing it as well as mind and attend it in the doing Serious thinking is fundamental to all right doing O what are the innumerable advantages that thy constancy in this course would still bring in and what have been thy losses by neglect and will daily increase upon thee by it Ah therefore consider be awakened and strive to be humbled for all thy failings and neglects especially thy fallings off from and disusings of this so necessary and excellent Duty look to thy first beginning in it and thy making no better entrance into it First undertakings if not so well and through prove great inconveniences and if not lookt after and amended may occasion a less seriousness and care ever after but however they require a making up and bettering that which serves a young weak and unexperienced Christian must not serve a grown Christian one old in his way O but be humbled for thy improving no more in this Art of Meditation for being no better Artist for having so little of this heavenly habit and heart-readiness from thy frequencies and constancies of not only acting but earnest and vigorous strivings which intend and strengthen improve and increase the habit Be humbled for no higher attainments in this happy way which we should be most perfect in ready for in which we should still have an increasing and heightening complacency and pleasure to perform with a striving to do it better as to heart-readiness better as to heart-power and purpose resolvedness against oppositions and hindrances Ah then look mournfully look we and with shame and self-abasings on all and for all our failings and for all our guilt contracted for this Duty neglected 1. That our progress and improvement hath been so small 2. Our inequalities and unevennesses so many 3. Our fallings off and desistings and lyings so long or any space of time before returning and recovering and by our dis-using contracting an unwillingness a spiritual lothness a doing with more difficulty or by refusals and denying of doing this Duty to thereby aggravate our sin Therefore I say for all these admitted and added let us be deeply humbled before God and mourn over so many and great neglects he hath observed in us Ah therefore say I have sinned greatly in what I have done 2 Sam. 24.10 say I will do so no more Job 34.32 Ah so to slight to forget the concerns of God and my soul to let my eyes be in the corners of the earth to let my soul lose so its lookings by eying vanity to imbezel my precious thoughts upon the by and overlook the main May not my God come and challenge me for great unkindness unworthiness and folly What thou my child to be so vain and unwise when thou hast to contemplate thy God in his infinite all-sufficiency thy Saviour in all his matchless beauty and fullness thy Sanctifier in all his operations and consolations thy perfect rule the Scriptures with all the treasures of heavenly truths in them and when thou hast all the excellent and admired works and ways of a God the condition of his Church and people thy own souls state and eternal salvation together with all such things that continually stand full in thy view Ah to have so many paths for the feet of thy spirit to walk in by Meditation so many rare Objects for thy Eyes entertainment and employment and to thy sweetest solace largest satisfaction and yet in any degree to miscarry the golden seasons of this so heart-enriching Meditation Ah may not my grieved God and his grieved spirit grieve and sadden my herein so sinning spirit may not my neglects of Meditation not seriously and frequently thinking of him and such things that nearly highly concern him justly occasion my Gods neglecting of me Neglecting me by withdrawing his hand from his blessed impulses infusings of heavenly thoughts judging it not meet to give down good and holy thoughts into a spirit distemper'd diverted by too usual admittance of earthly evil and carnal thoughts and disuse of holy Meditation Who will plant the most precious flowers among heaps of poisonous weeds Who will mix their richest purest Wine with puddle dirty Water or their Gold and Diamonds among dirt and dung Ah this is the way for my God not only to withdraw himself but to let Satan the foul Spirit loose upon me to trouble me to haunt me to follow me with all manner of disquieting and discouraging thoughts with temptations of injury and stealing revenge and cruelty uncleanness and filthiness and sinful sensualities and such like evil thoughts against others Ah may not this neglect of good thoughts and due Meditation be justly met with and expose me to the blackest and most horrid thoughts and temptations such as those of Blasphemy thoughts as thick as Hail and that daily haunt me darting horrour and Hell into my spirit making my heart to tremble and my hair to stand upright on my head Ah may I not if I amend not the sooner not come to that so sad and dreadful temptation so contrary to Nature the temptation of self-destroying thinking it may be best to be rid of my trouble though it be so