The Saints Everlasting Rest, Treatise 4 · Chapter 13
CHAP. XIII. The Abstract or Sum of all, for the use of the weak.
SECT. I.§. 1.
THus I have by the gracious assistance of the Spirit, directed you in this work of Heavenly Contemplation, and lined you out the best way that I know for your successful performance, and lead you into the path where you may walk with God. But because I would bring it down to the capacity of the meanest, and help their memories who are apt to let slip the former particulars, and cannot well lay together the several branches of this method, That they may reduce them to practice: I shall here contract the whole into a brief sum, and lay it all before you in a narrower compass. But still Reader, I wish thee to remember, that it is the practice of a duty, that I am directing thee in; and therefore, if thou wilt not practise it, do not read it.
The sum is this, As thou makest conscience of praying daily, so do thou of the acting of thy Graces in Meditation; and more duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page especially in meditating on the joyes of Heaven. To this end, Set apart one hour or half hour every day, wherein thou maist lay aside all worldly thoughts, and with all possible seriousness and reverence, as if thou were going to speak with God himself, or to have a sight of Christ, or of that blessed place; so do thou withdraw thy self into some secret place, and set thy self wholly to the following work: If thou canst, take Isaacs time and place, who went forth into the Field in the Evening to meditate: But if thou be a servant or poor man that cannot have that leisure; take the fittest time and place that thou canst, though it be when thou art private about thy labors.
When thou setst to the work, look up toward Heaven, let thine eie lead thee as neer as it can; remember that there is thine Everlasting Rest; study its excellency, study its reality, till thy unbelief be silenced, and thy Faith prevail▪ If thy judgment be not yet drawn to admiration, use those sensible helps and advantages which were even now laid down. Compare thy heavenly joyes, with the choicest on earth, and so rise up from Sense to Faith: If yet this meer consideration prevail not (which yet hath much force, as is before expressed,) then fall a pleading the case with thy heart: Preach upon this Text of Heaven to thy self; convince, inform, confute, instruct, reprove, examine, admonish, encourage, and comfort thy own soul from this Celestial Doctrine; draw forth those several considerations of thy Rest, on which thy several affections may work, especially that Affection or Grace which thou intendest to act. If it be Love which thou wouldst act, shew it the loveliness of Heaven, and how suitable it is to thy condition; if it be Desire, consider of thy absence from this lovely object; if it be Hope, consider the possibility and probability of obtaining it; if it be Courage, consider the singular assistance and encouragements which thou maist receive from God; the weakness of the enemy, and the necessity of prevailing; if it be Joy, consider of its excellent ravishing glory, of thy interest in it, and of its certainty, and the neerness of the time when thou must possess it. Urge these considerations home to thy heart; whet them with all possible seriousness upon each affection: If thy heart draw back, force it to the work; if it loyter, spur it on; if it step aside, command it in again; if it would slip away, and leave the work, use thine authority; keep it close to the business, till thou have obtained thine end: Stir not away, if it may be, till thy Love do flame, till thy Joy be raised, or till thy Desire or other Graces be lively acted. Call in assistance also from God; mix Ejaculations with thy Cogitations and Soliloquies: Till having seriously pleaded the case with thy heart, and reverently pleaded the case with God; thou have pleaded thy self from a clod to a flame, from a forgetful sinner, to a mindful lover; from a lover of the world, to a thirster after God; from a fearful coward, to a resolved Christian; from an unfruitful sadness, to a joyful life. In a word, What will not be done one day, do it the next, till thou have pleaded thy heart from Earth to Heaven; from conversing below, to a walking with God; and till thou canst lay thy heart to rest, as in the bosom of Christ, in this Meditation of thy full and Everlasting Rest.
And this is the sum of these precedent Directions.