The Divine Life, Treatise 2 · Chapter 4
CHAP. IV.
BY this time I hope you may see reason to call your selves to a strict account, what converse you have been taken up with in the world, and upon what you have exercised your thoughts: surely you must needs be conscious, that the thoughts which have been denyed God, have brought you home but little satisfaction, and have not answered the ends of your creation, redemption or preservation! and that they are now much fitter matter for your penitential tears, then for your comfort, in the review! I do not think you dare own and stand to, those thoughts which have been spent for fleshly pleasures, or in unnecessary worldly cares, or that were wasted in impertinent vagaries upon any thing, or nothing, when you should have been seeking God! I do not think you have now any great pleasure, in the review of those thoughts, which once were taken up with pleasure, when your most pleasant thoughts should have been of God. Dare you approve of your rejecting your Creatour and the great concernments of your soul out of your thoughts, and wasting them upon things unprofitable and vain? Did not God, and Heaven deserve more of your serious thoughts then any thing else that ever they were employed on? Have you laid them out on any thing that more concerned you? or on any thing more excellent, more honourable, more durable, or that could claim precedency upon any just account? Did you not shut heaven it self out of your thoughts, when you shut out God? And is it not just that God and Heaven should shut out you? If Heaven be not the principal matter of your thoughts, its plain that you do not principally love it: And if so, judge you whether those that Love it not are fit to be made possessors of it.
O poor distracted senseless world! Is not God Great enough to command and take up your chiefest cogitations? Is not Heaven enough to find them work, and afford them satisfaction and delight? And yet is the dung and dotage of the world enough? Is your honour and wealth, and fleshly delights aed sports enough? God will shortly make you know, whether this were wise and equal dealing! Is God so low, so little, so undeserving, to be so oft and easily forgotten, and so hardly and so sleightly remembred? I tell you, ere long he will make you think of him to your sorrow, whether you will or no, if grace do not now set open your hearts, and procure him better entertainment.
But perhaps you will think that you walk with God, because you think of him sometimes ineffectually, and as on the by. But is he esteemed as your God, if he have not the Command, and if he have not the precedency of his creatures? Can you dream that indeed you walk with God, when your hearts were never grieved for offending him, nor never much solicitous how to be reconciled to him; nor much inquisitive whether your state or way be pleasing or displeasing to him? when all the business of an unspeakable importance, which you have to do with God, before you pass to judgement, is forgotten and undone, as if you knew not of any such work that you had to do! when you make no serious preparation for death, when you call not upon God in secret, or in your families, unless with a little heartless lip labour; and when you love not the spirituality of his worship, but only delude your souls with the mockage of hypocritical outside complement. Do you walk with God while you are plotting for preferment, and gaping after worldly greatness, while you are gratifying all the desires of your flesh, and making provision for the future satisfying of its lusts? Rom. 13. 13. Are you walking with God when you are hating him in his Holiness, his Justice, his Word and Waies, and hating all that seriously love and seek him? when you are doing your worst to dispatch the work of your damnation, and put your salvation past all hope, and draw as many to Hell with you as you can: If this be a walking with God, you may take further comfort that you shall also dwell with God according to the sense of such a walk: you shall dwell with him as a devouring fire, and as just, whom you thus walked with in the contempt o… his mercies, and the provocation of his Justice.
I tell you, if you walkt with God indeed, his authority would rule you, his Greatness would much take up your minds, and leave less room for little things; You would trust his promises, and fear his threatnings, and be awed by his presence, and the Idols of your hearts would fall before him▪ He would over power your lusts, and call you off from your ambitious and covetous designs, and obscure all the creatures Glory. Believing serious effectual thoughts of God, are very much different from the common, doubtful, dreaming, uneffectual cogitations of the ungodly world.
Object. But (perhaps some will say) [This seemeth to be the work of Preachers, and not of every Christian to be alwaies meditating of God: Poor people must think of other matters: They have their business to do, and their families to provide for: And ignorant people are weak-headed, and are not able either to manage or endure a contemplative life: so much thinking of God will make them melancholy and mad, as experience tells us it hath done by many: and therefore this is no exercise for them.]
To this I answer, 1. Every Christian hath a God to serve▪ and a Soul to save, and a Christ to believe in and obey, and an endless happiness to secure and enjoy, as well as Preachers: Pastors must study to instruct their flock, and to save themselves▪ and those that hear them: The people must study to understand and receive the mercy offered them, and to make their own calling and election sure. It is not said of Pastors only, but of every blessed man, that His delight is in the Law of the Lord, and therein doth he meditate day and night, Psal. 1. 2. 2. And the due meditation of the soul upon God, is so far from taking you off from your necessary business in the world, that it is the only way to your orderly and successful management of it. 3. And it is not a distracting thoughtfulness that I perswade you to, or which is included in a Christians walk with God: but it is a directing, quickening, exalting, comforting course of meditation: Many a hundred have grown melancholy and mad with careful discontentful thoughts of the world; it doth not follow therefore that no man must think of the world at all, for fear of being mad or melancholy; but only that they should think of it more regularly, and correct the errour of their thoughts and passions: so is it about God and heavenly things: Our thoughts are to be well ordered, and the errour of them cured, and not the use of them forborn. Atheism and Impiety, and forgetting God, are unhappy means to prevent melancholy: There are wiser means for avoiding madness, than by renouncing all our Reason, and living by sense like the beasts that perish, and forgetting that we have an everlasting life to live.
But yet because I am sensible that some do here mistake on the other hand, and I would not lead you into any extream, I shall fully remove the scruple contained in this Objection, by shewing you in those following Propositions, in what sense, and how far your thoughts must be taken up with God (supposing what was said in the beginning, where I described to you the duty of Walking with God.)
Prop. 1. When we tell you that your Thoughts must be on God, it is not a course of idle musing, or meer thinking, that we call you to, but it is a necessary practical thinking of that which you have to do, and of him that you must love, obey and enjoy. You will not forget your Parents, or Husband, or Wife, or Friend; and yet you will not spend your time in sitting still and thinking of them, with a musing unprofitable thoughtfulness; But you will have such thoughts of them, and so many as are necessary to the Ends, even to the Love and Service which you owe them, and to the Delight that your hearts should have in the fruition of them. You cannot love, or obey, or take pleasure in those that you will not think of: You will follow your trades, or your Masters service but unhappily, if you will not think on them. Thinking is not the work that we must take up with: It is but a subservient instrumental duty, to promote some greater higher duty: Therefore we must Think of God, that we may Love him, and do his Service, and Trust him, and Fear him, and Hope in him, and make him our Delight. And all this is it that we call you to, when we are perswading you to Think on God.
2. An hypocrite, or a wicked enemy of God, may Think of him speculatively, and perhaps be more frequent in such thoughts than many practical believers. A Learned man may study about God, as he doth about other matters, and names, and notions▪ and propositions and decisions concerning God, may be a principal part of his Learning: A Preacher may study about God and the matters of God, as a Physician or a Lawyer do about the matters of their own profession, either for the pleasure which knowledge as knowledge brings to humane nature, or for the credit of being esteemed wise and learned, or because their gain and maintenance comes in this way. They that fill many Volumes with Controversies concerning God, and fill the Church with contentions and troubles by them, and their own hearts with malice and uncharitableness against those that are not of their opinions, have many and many a thought of God, which yet will do nothing to the saving of their souls, no more than they do to the sanctifying of them. And such learned men may think more Orthodoxly and Methodically concerning God, than many an honest serious Christian, who yet thinks of him more effectually and savingly: Even as they can discourse more orderly and copiously of God, when yet they have no saving knowledge of him.
3. All men must not bestow so much time in Meditation as some must do: It is the Calling of Ministers to study so as to furnish thrir minds with all those truths concerning God, which are needful to the Edification of the Church; and so to meditate on these things as to give themselves wholly to them, 1 Tim. 4. 15, 16. It is both the work of their common and their special Calling: The study necessary to Christians as such, belongeth as well to others as to them: But other men have another special or particular Calling, which also they must think of, so far as the nature and ends of their daily labours do require. It is a hurtful errour to imagine that men must either lay by their Callings to meditate on God, or that they must do them negligently, or to be taken up in the midst of their employments with such studies of God as Ministers are that are separated to that work.
4. No man is bound to be continually taken up with actual, distinct cogitations about God: For in duty we have many many other things to think on, which must have their time: And as we have Callings to follow, and must eat our bread in the sweat of our brows, so we must manage them with prudence: A good man will guide his affairs with discretion, Psal. 112. 5. It is both necessary as duty, and necessary as a means to the preservation of our very faculties, that both body and mind have their times of employment about our lawful business in the world: The understandings of many cannot bear it, to be alwaies employed on the greatest and most serious things: Like Lute▪ strings they will break, if they be raised too high, and be not let down and relaxed when the lesson is plaid. To think of nothing else but God, is to break the Law of God, and to confound the mind, and to disable it to think aright of God, or any thing. As he that bid us pray continually, did not mean that we should do nothing else, or that actual prayer should have no interruptions, but that habitual desires should on all meet occasion be actuated and exprest; so he that would be chief in all our thoughts, did never mean that we should have no thoughts of any thing else, or that our serious meditation on him should be continual without interruption: but that the final intending of God, and our dependence on him, should be so constant as to be the spring or mover of the rest of the thoughts and actions of our lives.
5. An habitual intending God as our End, and depending on his support, and subjection to his Government, will carry on the soul in a sincere and constant course of Godliness, though the actual most observed thoughts of the soul, be fewer in number about God, than about the means that lead unto him, and the occurrences in our way: The soul of man is very active and comprehensive, and can think of several things at once: and when it is once clear and resolved in any case, it can act according to that knowledge and resolution, without any present sensible cogitation; nay while its actual most observed thoughts, are upon something else. A Musician that hath an habitual skill, can keep time and tune while he is thinking of some other matter: A Weaver can cast his shuttle right, and work truly, while he is thinking or talking of other things. A man can eat and drink with discretion while he talks of other things. Some men can dictate to two or three Scribes at once, upon divers subjects: A Traveller can keep on his way, though he seldome think distinctly of his Journies end, but be thinking or discoursing most of the way, upon other matters: For before he undertook his Journey he thought both of the end and way, and resolved then which way to go, and that he would go through all both fair and foul, and not turn back, till he saw the place: And this habitual understanding and resolution, may be secretly and unobservedly active, so as to keep a man from erring, and from turning back, though at the same time the Travellers most sensible thoughts and his discourse may be upon something else. When a man is once resolved of his End, and hath laid his design, he is past deliberating of that, and therefore hath less use of his cogitations thereabout: but is readier to lay them out upon the means, which may be still uncertain, or may require his frequent deliberation. We have usually more thoughts and speeches by the way, about our company, or our Horses, or Innes, or other accommodations, or the fairness or foulness of the way, and other such occurrences, than we have about the place that we are going to: And yet this secret intention of our end, will bring us thither. So when a soul hath cast up his accounts, and hath renounced a worldly and sensual felicity, and hath fixed his hopes and resolutions upon Heaven, and is resolved to cast himself upon Christ, and take God for his only portion, this secret habitual resolution will do much to keep him constant in the way, though his thoughts and talk be frequently on other things: Yea when we are thinking of the creature, and feel no actual thoughts of God, it is yet God more than the creature that we think of: For we did beforehand look on the creature as Gods work, representing him unto the world, and as his talents which we must employ for him, and as every creature is related to him: And this estimation of the creature is still habitually (and in some secret less-perceived acts)) most prevalent in the soul. Though I am not alwaies sensibly thinking of the King, when I use his Coin, or obey his Law, &c. yet it is only as his Coin still that I use it, and as his Laws that I obey them. Weak Habits cannot do their work without great carefulness of thoughts: but perfect habits will act a man with little thoughtfulness, as coming near the natural way of operation. And indeed the imperfection of our Habitual Godliness doth make our serious thoughts and vigilancy and industry to be the more necessary to us.
6. There are some thoughts of God that are necessary to the very Being of a Holy state; as that God be so much in our thoughts, as to be preferred before all things else, and principally beloved and obeyed; and to be the end of our lives, and the byas of our wills: And there are some thoughts of God that are necessary only to acting and increase of grace.
7. So great is the weakness of our Habits, so many and great are the temptations to be overcome, so many difficulties are in our way, and the occasions so various for the exercise of each grace, that it behoveth a Christian to exercise as much thoughtfulness about his end and work, as hath any tendency to promote his work and to attain his end: But such a thoughtfulness as hindereth us in our work, by stopping, or distracting, or diverting us, is no way pleasing unto God. So excellent is our end, that we can never encourage and delight the mind too much in the forethoughts of it. So sluggish are our hearts, and so loose and unconstant are our apprehensions and resolutions, that we have need to be most frequently quickening them, and lifting at them, and renewing our desires, and suppressing the contrary desires, by the serious thoughts of God and Immortality. Our Thoughts are the bellows that must kindle the flames of Love, desire, hope and zeal: Our thoughts are the spur that must put on a sluggish tired heart. And so far as they conduce to any such works and ends as these, they are desireable and good. But what Master loveth to see his servant sit down and Think when he should be at work? Or to use his Thoughts only to grieve and vex himself for his faults, but not to mend them? to sit down lamenting that he is so bad and unprofitable a servant, when he should be up and doing his Masters business as well as he is able. Such Thoughts are sins as hinder us from duty, or discourage or unfit us for it, however they may go under a better name.
8. The Godly themselves are very much wanting in the holiness of their thoughts, and the liveliness of their affections. Sense leadeth away the thoughts too easily after these present sensible things; while faith being infirm, the Thoughts of God and heaven are much disadvantaged by their invisibility. Many a gracious soul cryeth out, O that I could think as easily and as affectionately and as unweariedly about the Lord and the life to come, as I can do about my friends, my health, my habitation, my business, and other concernments of this life! But alas such thoughts of God and Heaven have far more enemies and resistance, then the thoughts of earthly matters have.
9. It is not distracting, vexatious thoughts of God, that the holy Scriptures call us to; but it is to such thoughts as tend to the healing and peace and felicity of the soul; and therefore it is not to a melancholy, but a joyful life. If God be better then the world, it must needs be better to think of him. If he be more beloved then any friend, the thoughts of him should be sweeter to us. If he be the everlasting hope and happiness of the soul, it should be a foretast of happiness to find him nearest to our hearts. The nature and use of holy thoughts, and of all Religion, is but to exalt and sanctifie and delight the soul, and bring it up to everlasting Rest: And is this the way to melancholy or madness? Or is it not liker to make men melancholy, to think of nothing but a vain, deceitful and vexatious world, that hath much to disquiet us, but nothing to satisfie us, and can give the soul no hopes of any durable delight?
10. Yet as God is not equally related unto all, so is he not the same to all mens thoughts. If a wicked enemy of God and godliness, be forced and frightened into some thoughts of God, you cannot expect that they should be as sweet and comfortable thoughts, as those of his most obedient children are. While a man is under the guilt and power of his reigning sin, and under the wrath and curse of God, unpardoned, unjustified, a child of the devil, it is not this mans duty to think of God, as if he were fully reconciled to him, and took pleasure in him as in his own. Nor is it any wonder if such a man think of God with fear, and think of his sin with grief and shame. Nor is it any wonder if the justified themselves do think of God with fear and grief, when they have provoked him by some sinful and unkind behaviour, or are cast into doubts of their sincerity and interest in Christ, and when he hides his face, or assaulteth them with his terrors. To doubt whether a man shall live for ever in Heaven or Hell, may rationally trouble the thoughts of the wisest man in the world; and it were but sottishness not to be troubled at it: David himself could say [In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted: I remembred God and was troubled: I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed: Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.—Will the Lord cast off for ever?—] Psal. 77. 2, 3, 4, 5, 7.
Yet all the sorrowful thoughts of God, which are the duty of either the godly or the wicked, are but the necessary preparatives of their joy: It is not to melancholy, distraction or despair that God calleth any, even the worst: But it is that the wicked would [Seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near: that he would forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his Thoughts; and return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon] Isa. 55. 6, 7. Despair is sin; and the thoughts that tend to it are sinful thoughts, even in the wicked. If worldly crosses, or the sense of danger to the soul had cast any into melancholy, or overwhelmed them with fears, you can name nothing in the world that in reason should be so powerful a remedy to recover them, as the Thoughts of God, his Goodness and Mercy and readiness to receive and pardon those that turn unto him, his Covenant, and Promises, and Grace through Christ, and the everlasting happiness which all may have that will accept and seek it in the time of grace, and prefer it before the deceitful transitory pleasures of the world. If the Thoughts of God and of the Heavenly everlasting joyes, will not comfort the soul, and cure a sad despairing mind, I know not what can rationally do it. Though yet its true that a presumptuous sinner must needs be in a trembling state, till he find himself at peace with God: And mistaken Christians, that are cast into causeless doubts and fears, by the malice of Satan, are unlikely to walk comfortably with God, till they are resolved and recovered from their mistakes and fears.