quaking of the members of the body The second is the shaking of the bones The third is the standing up of the hair The fourth is the paleness or wanness of the countenance The three first of these appeared upon Eliphaz at the appearance of his vision Job 4.14 15. He trembled his bones shook and the hair of his flesh stood up This natural fear we cannot justly blame because every thing by the instinct of Nature endeavours the preservation of it self and fears the contrary provided it do not degenerate into the second which is carnal fear Carnal fear now is that which is carried after the creature more then after the Creator We read of it Isai 51.12 13. Or else 't is the dread of the Creator as a Judge the apprehension of his severe wrath and punishment and not from a true hatred of sin and this we may call A servile or slavish fear Thus Felix feared Acts 24.25 he feared that judgment to come which Paul reasoned of This fear ariseth partly from a defect of faith in the power and providence of God and partly from want of holy and spiritual fear which I am to speak of in the third place Spiritual fear is a holy affection awing the whole man to obey the whole will of God it makes us loth to displease God by sin by reason of his great goodness and mercy and for the great love which we bear unto righteousness Of this we read Psal 130.4 where 't is said But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared And again Hos 3.5 and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the later days This holy and filial fear is called spiritual in three respects amongst other 1. In regard of its object which is God who is a spirit and the Father of spirits And hence 't is that God is sometimes expresly called fear Gen. 31.53 later part of the verse And Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac i.e. by that God whom his father Isaac feared And Psal 76.11 Vow and pay unto the Lord your God let all that be round about him bring presents unto him that ought to be feared In the Original it runs thus Bring presents unto fear Then 2. This holy fear is called spiritual from the principal efficient author of it which is the holy Spirit of God who is sometimes called a spirit of fear Isa 11.2 And then 3. Spiritual in respect of those spiritual effects which it produceth or worketh in the heart of man I shall name three of them very briefly First of all it doth spiritually enlarge the heart towards God Fear under a natural consideration shuts and straitens the heart and makes a man less then he was in all his abilities but spiritual fear or fear spiritualized makes a man more then he was and better then he was it doth exceedingly enlarge the heart toward God and therefore you shall finde fear and enlargement put together Isai 60.5 where the Prophet speaking of the holy fear which should follow that glory of the Church in the abundant access of the Gentiles to the Gospel he saith Then thoushalt see and flow together and thine heart shall sear and be enlarged because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee Secondly this spiritual fear is a bridle to restrain us from sin An example of it you have in Joseph Gen. 39.9 And then thirdly as 't is a bridle to restrain us from sin so 't is a bond to hold us to duty it will constrain us unto well-doing Jer. 32.40 I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me q. d. The more you fear me the closer will you keep to me None live so near God none obey God so much as they who fear him in this manner And thus have I given you the sorts and kinds of fear Now the question will be Which of these three fears we are to understand in the Doctrine when we say That every true and faithful servant of God is a fearer of God why Beloved we are to understand the later hath his heart seasoned and possessed with the holy spiritual filial and reverential fear of God And thus much for the Explication of the Point I come in the next place to the Confirmation of it This Point shall be made good unto you three ways 1. In that the Scripture doth decipher or characterize the true servants of God under the notion of the fearers of God and that not onely here in my text Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another c. but elsewhere Take two or three texts more Prov. 4.2 He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the Lord but he that is perverse in his ways despiseth him i.e. He that is sincere and upright in the service of God he that serves him truly and with a perfect heart is such a one as feareth the Lord the fear of the Lord is upon him nay he is in the fear of the Lord all the day long So again Mal. 4.2 But unto you that fear my Name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall You that fear my Name is opposed to the proud and wicked in the first verse of the chapter For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven and the proud yea and all that do wickedly shall be stubble and the day that cometh shall burn them up that it shall leave them neither root nor branch Unto you i. e. who are my servants And Acts 13.16 Then Paul stood up and beckening with his hand said Men of Israel and ye that fear God give audience Many other Scriptures might be alleadged unto the same purpose where to fear God is set down as a circumlocution or periphrasis of them that truly serve God When the holy Ghost would express a true servant of God he expresseth him in this variation He is one that feareth God But then secondly That every true and faithful servant of God is a fearer of God may be proved thus in that the service of God and the fear of God are in Scripture conjoyned as two inseparable or individual companions the Spirit of God doth often make them go hand in hand together Josh 24.14 Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the floud and in Egypt serve ye the Lord. Mark it well fear the Lord and serve him intimating that where there is not the fear of God there is there can be no true service performed unto God Reade Psal 2.11 Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce with trembling Fear and service are here coupled together A fearless heart is always a graceless heart Fear is that affection with which we must worship and serve God
with this holy fear you I should exhort to grow up more and more in this grace and lay before you likewise to this end some motives and some means But I shall put these things over unto the next opportunity I proceed unto the second Duty and that shall be prest and inculcated upon you whose hearts are already seasoned with this holy fear of God And you I do earnestly exhort to abound and to grow up in this grace more and more It is not enough for you to get this fear planted into you but you must increase therein with the increase of God you must go on perfecting holiness in the fear of God And here by way of Motive and Inducement I shall refer four or five particulars unto your most serious consideration Pray attend them diligently The first shall be taken from the nature of this holy fear The true fear of God is of a growing of an increasing nature He that grows not and goes not forward in this grace had never yet this grace in truth Pro. 4.18 The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more more unto the perfect day A man truly fearing God sets forth betimes in the morning and travels to meet the day he proceeds from vertue to vertue from knowledge to knowledge from grace to grace until he become a perfect man in Christ Jesus Being once possest with this grace he â—â—ill waxeth brighter and brighter until at length he come to shine as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars in heaven for ever and ever It may be as the fairest sun may sometimes be overcast and darkned with clouds so the piety and holiness of a man truly fearing God may upon occasion be over-clouded through violence of outward temptation and strength of inward corruption but yet through mercy these mists are dispelled and he shines afterward far more brightly and runs a more swift and setled course in the practise of sanctification Job 17.9 The righteous also shall hold on his way and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger The words are a circumlocution describing the same person who was before called fearing God upright innocent holy now saith Job he shall hold on his way he continues his course both in the holy motions of his Spirit towards God and in the holy actings of his life towards man And as a man fearing God is in a good estate so shall he go on in a good way The goodness indeed of hypocrites is as the morning cloud and goeth away as the early dew Hos 6.4 the wind scatters the morning cloud and the rising sun exhales the early dews thus the goodness of the hypocrite is gone but the goodness of the righteous and of the man truly fearing God like the goodness of God of whom it is endureth in its proportion continually nay such a man holds on not onely in fair way and good weather but in stormy weather and ragged ways when his way lies among sharp stones ragged rocks thorow briers and thorns yea I may say when his way lies among bears and lions he will on The righteous shall hold on his way and then it follows And he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger The words are a circumlocution ut prius he shall saith Job be stronger and stronger in the Hebrew it is he shall adde strength he shall proceed from one degree or step unto another What strength why spiritual strength answerable to that Psal 84.7 They go from strength to strength or from company to company i.e. from one good company to another still gathering goodness and they go as the best go from Duty to Duty from Ordinance to Ordinance from Praying to Hearing to gather grace and strength every grace hath strength and the more grace the more strength till we come to that which is more strictly called strength of grace Nay as it was said of the Israelites that the more the Egyptians afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew Exod. 4.12 they multiplied in number they grew in strength and stature their oppression was their addition in temporals 't is even so Beloved with all true Israelites in spirituals the more they are afflicted and troubled the more they increase And then as this is the nature and quality of men and women truly fearing God so 't is the nature of the true fear of God where ever this is put into the heart it will grow and therefore in Scripture you shall finde it compared to things of a growing and increasing nature as 1. to waters issuing out from the sanctuary Ezek. 47.1 2 3 4 5. Now this saith Mr. Deodate in his Annotations represents the progress and increases of grace and true fear of God in believers of small beginnings 2. It is compared to a grain of Mustard-seed which proves a great tree Mat. 31.31 32. They likewise resemble it to the Stone that smote the Image which became a great mountain and filled the whole earth Dan. 2.34 35. So then this is the first Incentive to the Duty in hand grow up in this grace of the fear of God because if true 't is growing By this you may come to know whether you fear God with a true and lively fear the true fear of God lives and therefore it must needs grow But then in the second place this is that which God requires and commands yea that which he expecteth and looketh for from our hands namely that we should grow up more and more in this grace Hitherto I may refer all those Scriptures wherein we are exhorted to grow in grace in general or in any particular or individual grace whatsoever because as I have often told you in the former part of this Discourse the fear of God is an extensive or comprehensive word including all and every grace For texts referring to our growth in grace or in the fear of God in general reade 1 Cor. 14.12 Even so ye forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so 't is in the Greek 'T is a metaphor taken from rivers of water which the further they run the broader they are Seek that ye may excel in spiritual gifts and graces i. e. that ye may abound in them So 1602. 15.58 Always abounding in the work of the Lord In the work of the Lord i. e. in all actions belonging to your heavenly vocation and to the true service of God See how the Apostle prays for the Ephesians Eph. 3.18 19. that they may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that they might be filled with all the fulness of God Many Wits run riot in Geometrical notions about these Moral dimensions and whereas Naturalists give us but three dimensions of a Body Longitude
Latitude and Profundity the love and wisdom of God have Altitude added which is a fourth All these dimensions serve onely to shew the immensity both of the love and wisdom of God Take this onely in passage and so we might that expression too To know the love of God which passeth knowledge the meaning is to know so much of it as is knowable the love of God is past the knowledge not onely of Nature but of Grace because 't is infinite But this is not the thing that I urge this text for the passage which is to my purpose and which I would insist on a little is that in verse 19. the later part of it That ye might be filled with the fulness of God Divines distinguish of a twofold fulness There is say they an universal fulness and there is a modified or qualified fulness For a creature to be universally so full as God is is impossible as he is infinite so his fulness is infinite and a finite creature is not capable or receptive of any such fulness But now take this in a qualified or modified sense so we may and 't is ordinary to be filled with the fulness of God i. e. with all fulness accomplishable or attainable by us thus we ought to be filled with the fulness of God We are not onely enjoyned to get some grace or some fear of God but 't is our bounden duty to aspire to and endeavour after the perfection of it and after augmentation and growth in it And to this end too is that 2 Pet. 3.18 Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This shall suffice to be spoken of those texts which conduce to the growth in grace or in the fear of God in general I shall likewise briefly touch some texts which require an abounding in the several branches of this holy fear as 1. We are commanded to abound in saving knowledge in true spiritual wisdom Col. 1.10 2. We should grow in faith that which is lacking to our faith must be supplied and made up 1 Thess 3.10 2 Thess 1.15 We should labour to grow both in the assurance of faith and in the exercise of it in the full assurance of it using all diligence that we might get and keep the full assurance of faith and hope unto the end labouring to be established rooted and soundly grounded in our particular assurance of Gods favour in Jesus Christ and of our own eternal salvation Col. 2.6 7. Heb. 10.22 And then for the exercise and improvement of faith we should learn every day to live by faith let faith be upon the wing in all the occasions and occurrences of our life holding fast our confidence and striving to be examples one to another in our faith in God according to that 1 Tim. 4.12 3. We must abound in love Phil. 1.10 bearing with and forbearing one another seeking to enlarge our acquaintance with such as fear God and to do them good 4. We must grow in mercy and the fruits of mercy 2 Cor. 8.7 Therefore as ye abound in every thing in saith in utterance in knowledge and in all diligence and in your love to us see that ye abound in this grace also he means tender heartedness or bowels of compassion 5. We should grow in patience meekness and lowliness of minde Jam. 1.4 I might instance contentation heavenly mindedness contempt of the world and several other parts of this fear of God but by these few links you may guess at the whole chain or series of this grace So then the strength of this second Motive lies thus God requires and expects that we should grow up more and more in the fear of his Name he calls for it at our hands In the third place this is the end of our union with and implantation into Jesus Christ namely that we should in all things grow up into him who is the head To which purpose reade Eph. 4.15 16. But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of it self in love The importance of which words is this namely that we are joyned and united unto the Lord Jesus Christ that so of his fulness we might all receive grace for grace that look as an infant groweth not in one but in every member so we should grow every way in every member and in every particular grace appertaining unto the new creature We must not walk by halfs or obey God with reservation but grow up unto full holiness As from the natural head sense and motion floweth into the body so there is internal influence of grace from Christ the Head into the whole mystical body every true believer receives a vital and quickning power or virtue from Christ even as a graff set into a stock partaketh with it in the sap and life of it Unless we walk in Christ we can never assure our selves that we have received Christ If we shall sit down and rest in a mediocrity and scanty measure of grace and of the fear of God except we are still on the growing hand labouring to arrive to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ we cannot say that we are yet put into Christ A soul as one notes very well that hath union with Christ will not be like Hezekiahs sun which went backward or like Joshua's sun that stood still but like David's sun that great and glorious gyant of the heavens that like a bridegroom comes out of his chamber and as a champion that rejoyceth to run a race If he be joyned to Christ he will joyn grace to grace according to that of the Apostle Peter 2 Pet. 1.5 6 7. And thus briefly of the third Motive In the fourth place as God hath given us his Son to the end we should grow up in his fear so hath be to the same end given us the Spirit of his Son he hath sent forth his Spirit into our hearts not onely for the conveying of grace to us but for the strengthening and increasing of grace in us Observe how the Apostle prays for the Ephesians Chap. 3.16 That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his Spirit in the inner man This is the very office of the Spirit he is sent of God to this purpose not onely to give us a being in grace but to strengthen us in grace he doth not onely make us new men but living men in Jesus Christ As the soul is to the body so is the spirit to the soul the Spirit furnisheth and enableth every faculty it enlightens the Understanding it rectifies the Will it sanctifieth the Affections it filleth a man
with joy fear love and all spiritual graces which give strength to the inner man it enables us to command the winds and storms of our sinful lusts and irregular passions By the power of this Spirit we may eject and cast out all Satans temptations quench all his firy darts In a word by the mighty energie and efficacie of this Spirit we are enabled to every good word and work And hence 't is that sometimes the Spirit of God is called The power of the most High Luk. 1.35 36. the Spirit of power too 2 Tim 1.7 But why the power of the most High why a spirit of power Because of that effectual power which the Spirit puts forth into the hearts of the elect not onely for their conversion from sin to grace but for their confirmation and growth up in grace and in this fear of God So that now Beloved unless we do grow up in the fear of God more and more we do as much as in us lies to frustrate Gods end in sending to us his Spirit nay we cannot conclude that we have as yet received the Spirit And then in the fifth and last place 't is to this end likewise that God hath given to us and continued to us his holy Ordinances Look as the sun and rain are given to make plants to grow so the Ordinances are given to make our souls to grow in grace and in this holy fear of God more particularly for this purpose it is that God hath 1. given us his Word and 2. his Sacraments 1. His Word is given us to make us fruitful Isa 55.10 11. Hence is it that the people of God are compared to grass and tender herbs which grow and flourish which are fed and bring forth fruit when watered with the rain 't is Deut. 32.2 A godly man saith the Psalmist is like a tree planted by the rivers of water Psal 1.3 he is planted and placed where Gods Ordinances are and what then he bringeth forth his fruit in his season 1 Pet. 2.2 saith the Apostle there As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby They are ignorant of the intent and end of the Word that do not grow by the Word The Word is appointed not onely to beget us but also to make the Saints perfect For this you have an excellent text Eph. 4.11 12 13. The end of the Ministery is not onely to plant grace but to strengthen grace and therefore you shall finde that when the Apostles had established Churches they returned to confirm the disciples hearts Acts 4.21 22. And then secondly as to this end God hath appointed his Word so to this end likewise hath he instituted and ordained the Sacraments as they signifie seal and exhibit unto those that are within the Covenant of grace the benefits of Christs mediation so do they confirm and strengthen grace this doth the Sacrament of Baptism and this doth the Sacrament of the Lords Supper this is the very use and end of them Though indeed the Papists tie the grace of God inseparably to them and make the opus operatum matter of sufficient virtue and ascribe Divine power to the very outward signs or elements yet 't is most clear and certain that Jesus Christ set them up in his Church to the end that through the co-operation of his Spirit they might be effectual unto our spiritual growth as I could shew you at large were it needful And thus have you heard what Reasons there are why you whose hearts are already seasoned with the holy fear of God should grow up and abound in this grace more and more I come in the last place to the means whereby we may be assisted and enabled to and in the performance of this weighty but yet incumbent duty And here I might in the first place urge upon you a careful conscionable and faithful improvement of the foregoing Ordinances the Word and Sacraments which as I told you but now were ordained to this very end and purpose Did you but holily employ your selves in the Word and Sacraments you that have this holy fear of God already put into your hearts would grow up and abound in the same yet dayly more and more But I shall enlarge no further upon them There is one Ordinance of God more which is very conducible unto this great end A Word or two of that and so I shall conclude this second Point If you that already fear God would thrive and proceed in this grace why then make a constant and an assiduous use of faithful and fervent-prayer desire God who is able to make all grace to abound who is the finisher as well as the author of grace that he would cause this great and comprehensive grace to abound in you Jam 1.5 saith the Apostle there If any of you lack wisdom let him ask it of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him This if doth not argue doubt but onely inferreth a supposition But why doth the Apostle speak with a supposition is there any man that doth not lack wisdom I answer such expressions do more strongly aver and affirm a thing such suppositions imply a concession as Mal. 1.6 A son honoureth his father and a servant his master If I then be a father where is mine honour and if I be a master where is my fear q.d. you will grant I am a father and a master So here If any of you lack wisdom let him ask it of God you will grant you all lack wisdom The Apostle I confess if you look upon the circumstances of the text by wisdom intendeth wisdom or skill to bear affliction but yet we may also take it generally for every grace If any of you lack wisdom i. e. if he come short of or be defective in any grace let him ask it of God God will have every thing to be fetched out by prayer He is the sountain yea an unexhausted fountain of all grace and therefore saith the same Apostle in the same Chapter verse 17. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning Pray mark Every good and every perfect gift all spiritual blessings 'T is true all common gifts come from divine bounty but the Apostle here intendeth special blessings as appeareth by the attributes of them in that he calls them good and perfect as also because these best suit with the context as every good so every perfect gift i. e. such as do any way conduce to our perfection not onely initial and first grace but all the progresses in grace not onely the beginnings but the gradual accesses of them All these now are from God from above from heaven and if perfection and growth in every grace is from above why then likewise in this grace wherein I am now perswading of you to grow
by his holy Spirit who is their domestick Monitor and sweet inhabitant 'T is true what the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 3.5 Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God The meaning of it is that all our strength and help lies in him we daily finde a want in our selves and God as it pleaseth him le ts out from his sufficiency unto us now a little and then a little we are ever receiving from him and enabled by his Grace and Spirit to do what is done I say the Spirit disposeth the heart to this holy meditation and that two ways 1. By enlightning the heart 2. By enlarging the heart But the time being past I shall refer what remains to some further opportunity 1. I say the Spirit enlightens their hearts The first and primary work of the Spirit is to beat out as it were new windows in the dark souls of men and to put in a principle of new light thereby giving the soul some signs of God some sense of his sweetness some glimpse of his glory And hence 't is that the holy Ghost in Scripture is sometimes called a spirit of wisdom and understanding a spirit of counsel and of knowledge Isa 11.2 sometimes a spirit of wisdom and revelation Eph. 1.17 sometimes a spirit of illumination Heb. 6.4 Now the Spirit is so called from this effect which it hath upon the heart because the Spirit causeth a spiritual and heavenly light to shine about our mindes by which spiritual things are made manifest to the eye of our understanding as by the light of the Sun bodily things are made manifest to the eye of our body The Spirit saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 2.10 searcheth the deep things of God and reveals them to us and shews us the back parts of God though somewhat obscurely as through a grate onely or darkly as through a glass In this life we know but in part And then 2. The spirit having possessed the heart he enlargeth or wideneth the heart towards God and the things of God it enables us to captivate our thoughts to the obedience of Christ to conform them to the severaignty of his grace to the rules of his Word and the remembrance of his Name Nay 3. The Spirit sanctifieth the heart and so puts it upon a continual fresh succession of holy thoughts The whole spirit soul and body of a Christian is sanctified thorowout God writes his Law in their hearts stamps his image upon the spirit of their mindes makes them partakers of the divine nature erecteth a new nature a blessed frame of grace And hence have they an ability given them of holy thoughts and meditations for as the man is so will his thoughts dispositions meditations and affections be Hence is that of the Prophet Isa 32.8 But the liberal deviseth liberal things and by liberal things shall he stand A man of a noble liberal and generous spirit will carry his heart out after worthy and noble things Nay hence is that of our Saviour Matth. 12.35 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things As from the old and unregenerated heart proceed evil thoughts so from the new and sanctified heart proceed holy and sanctified thoughts gracious considerations of and holy reverend respects to God and to his Name That is the third Reason of the Point It is and should be the practice of all them that truly fear God to meditate diligently upon God and upon the things of God because the Spirit doth to this purpose enlighten their understandings and possesseth and sanctifieth their hearts 4. But then last of all it is and should be the practice of all them that truly fear God to meditate diligently upon God and the things of God because all that truly fear God stand in a marvellous neer and dear relation unto God Neer relations you know will minde one another God and his servants are neerly related he is their friend and father their God and guide their Prince and portion their shield and their exceeding great reward Nay Beloved he is their all in all the stay and the strength of their hearts for ever and therefore it cannot be but their hearts must run much upon God and upon the things of his kingdom Nay a little further every faithful servant of God every true believer hath resigned and given up his name to God he hath devoted himself to his fear Mark what holy David saith Psal 119.38 Stablish thy word unto thy servant who is devoted to thy fear Believers have as it were sworn themselves to the service of God I am thy servant I am thy servant saith the same holy David oftentimes in the Psalms they love the Lord with all their soul with all their heart and with all their strength and as for the Name of God they flie unto it in any difficulty and distress as unto a Garison and strong Fort or Tower Prov. 18.10 The righteous know that the Name of God is so deep that no Pyoner can undetmine it so thick that no Cannon can pierce it so high that no Ladder can scale it and hither they run for refuge Nay they walk in this Name as in a Garden or Gallery Mic. 4 5. We will walk in the Name of the Lord our God for ever and ever they resolve to walk in the Name i. e. By the Laws and under the view of the Lord their God who is God of gods and Lord of lords they rejoyce and delight in it as in all treasure Psal 119.14 Now brethren sum up all together in a word and then you shall finde the force of this Argument Can the fearers of God rejoyce in his Name run unto it upon all occasions walk in it and yet not minde it and yet not have their hearts set upon it This is impossible Can they I say vouch him for their God set him up for their Soveraign converse with him as a friend and yet not think upon his Name this cannot be well conceived And thus you hear what the grounds of the Point are Let us now make some Use of it I shall improve it four ways 1. For Insormation 2. For Increpation 3. For Examination 4. For Exhortation In which Uses I shall proceed so far this day as time will permit I begin with the first the Use of Information 1. Is it so That it is and should be the practice of all them that truly fear God to meditate diligently upon God and upon the things of God Take we then hence notice That those who do not habitually daily and diligently think upon God that make not his Attributes Ways Ordinances Worship and Honour the matter of their meditation these I say are excluded out of the number and society of the true fearers of God Yea the want of this holy and heavenly meditation is laid down in holy Writ as the Badge Cognizance or Character of