Special truths to be known for preventing causeless troubles.
1. That our thoughts of the infinite goodness of God, should bear proportion with our thoughts concerning his infinite power and wisdom.
2. That the mercy of God hath provided for all mankind so sufficient a Saviour, that no sinner shall perish for want of a sufficient satisfaction made for his sins by Christ, nor is it made the condition of any man's salvation or pardon, that he satisfy for his own sins.
3. That Christ hath in his gospel covenant (which is an act of oblivion) made over himself with pardon and salvation, to all that will penitently and believingly accept the offer. And that none perish that hear the gospel, but the final, obstinate refusers of Christ and life.
4. That he that so far believeth the truth of the gospel, as to consent to the covenant of grace, even that God the Father be his Lord and reconciled Father, and Christ his Saviour, and the Holy Ghost his Sanctifier, hath true, saving faith, and right to the blessing of the covenant.
5. That the day of grace is so far commensurate or equal to our lifetime, that whosoever truly repenteth and consenteth to the covenant of grace, before his death, is certainly pardoned, and in a state of life: and that it is every man's duty so to do, that pardon may be theirs.
6. That Satan's temptations are none of our sins, but only our yielding to them.
7. That the effects of natural sickness or diseasedness, are not (in themselves) sins.
8. That those are the smallest sins (formally) and least like to condemn us, which we are most unwilling of, and are least in love or liking of.
9. That no sin shall condemn us which we hate more than love, and which we had rather leave and be delivered from than keep: for this is true repentance.
10. That he is truly sanctified who had rather be perfect in holiness of heart and life, in loving God, and living by faith, than to have the greatest pleasures, riches, or honours of the world; taking in the means also by which both are attained.
11. That he who hath this grace and desire may know that he is elect; and the making of our calling sure by our consenting to the holy covenant, is the making of our election sure.
12. That the same thing which is a great duty to others, may be no duty to one, who by bodily distemper (as fevers, phrensies, melancholy) is unable to perform it.
Direct.II. Take heed of worldly cares, and sorrows, and discontents. Set not so much by earthly things, as to enable them to disquiet you; but learn to cast your cares on God. You can have less peace in any affliction which cometh by such a carnal, sinful means. It is much more safe to be distracted with cares for heaven than for earth.
Direct.III. Meditation is no duty at all for a melancholy person, except some few that are able to bear a diverting meditation, which must be of something furthest from the matter which troubleth them; or except it be short meditations like ejaculatory prayers. A set and serious meditation will but confound you, and disturb you, and disable you to other duties. If a man have a broken leg, he must not go on it till it is knit, lest all the body fare the worse. It is your thinking faculty, or your imagination, which is the broken, pained part; and therefore you must not use it about the things that trouble you. Perhaps you will say, That this is to be profane, and forget God and your soul, and let the tempter have his will. But I answer, No; it is but to forbear that which you cannot do at present, that by doing other things which you can do, you may come again to do this which you now cannot do: it is but to forbear attempting that, which will but make you less able to do all other duties. And at the present, you may conduct the affairs of your soul by holy reason. I persuade you not from repenting or believing, but from set, and long, and deep meditations, which will but hurt you.
Direct.IV. Be not too long in any secret duty which you find you are not able to bear. Prayer itself, when you are unable, must be performed but as you can; short confessions and requests to God must serve instead of longer secret prayers, when you are unable to do more. If sickness may excuse a man for being short, where nature will not hold out, the case is the same here, in the sickness of the brain and spirits. God hath appointed no means to do you hurt.
Direct.V. Where you find yourselves unable for a secret duty, struggle not too hard with yourselves, but go that pace that you are able to go quietly. For as every striving doth not enable you, but vex you, and make duty wearisome to you, and disable you more, by increasing your disease: like an ox that draweth unquietly, and a horse that chafeth himself, that quickly tireth. Preserve your willingness to duty, and avoid that which makes it grievous to you. As to a sick stomach, it is not eating much, but digesting well, that tends to health; and little must be eaten when much cannot be digested; so it is here in case of your meditations and secret prayers.
Direct.VI. Be most in those duties which you are best able to bear; which, with most, is prayer, with others hearing, and good discourse. As a sick man whose stomach is against other meats, must eat of that which he can eat of. And God hath provided variety of means, that one may do the work, when the other are wanting. Do not misunderstand me; in cases of absolute necessity, I say again, you must strive to do it whatever come of it. If you are backward to believe, to repent, to love God and your neighbour, to live soberly, righteously, and godly, to pray at all; here you must strive, and not excuse it by any backwardness; for it is that which must needs be done, or you are lost. But a man that cannot read may be saved without his reading; and a man in prison or sickness may be saved without hearing the word, and without the church communion of saints: and so a man disabled by melancholy, may be saved by shorter thoughts and ejaculations, without set and long meditations and secret prayers; and other duties which he is able for will supply the want of these. Even as nature hath provided two eyes, and two ears, and two nostrils, and two reins, and lungs, that when one is stopped or faulty, the other may supply its wants for a time; so it is here.
Direct.VII. Avoid all unnecessary solitariness, and be as much as possible in honest, cheerful company.You have need of others, and are not sufficient for yourselves; and God will use and honour others, as his hands, to deliver us his blessings. Solitariness is to those that are fit for it, an excellent season for meditation and converse with God and with our hearts; but to you, it is the season of temptation and danger. If Satan tempted Christ himself, when he had him fasting and solitary in a wilderness; much more will he take this as his opportunity against you. Solitude is the season of musings and thoughtfulness, which are the things which you must fly from, if you will not be deprived of all.
Direct.VIII. When blasphemous or disturbing thoughts look in, or fruitless musings, presently meet them, and use that authority of reason which is left you, to cast them and command them out. If you have not lost it, reason and the will have a command over the thoughts as well as over the tongue, or hands, or feet. And as you would be ashamed to run up and down, or fight with your hands, and say, I cannot help it; or to let your tongue run all day, and say, I cannot stop it; so should you be ashamed to let your thoughts run at random, or on hurtful things, and say, I cannot help it. Do you do the best you can to help it? Cannot you bid them be gone? Cannot you turn your thoughts to something else? Or cannot you rouse up yourself, and shake them off? Some by casting a little cold water in their own faces, or bidding another do it, can rouse themselves from melancholy musings as from sleep. Or cannot you get out of the room, and set yourself about some business which will divert you? You might do more than you do, if you were but willing, and know how much it is your duty.
Direct.IX. When you do think of any holy things, let it be of the best things; of God, and grace, and Christ, and heaven; or of your brethren, or the church: and carry all your meditations outward; but be sure you pore not on yourselves, and spend not your thoughts upon your thoughts. As we have need to call the thoughts of careless sinners inwards, and turn them from the creature and sin, upon themselves; so we have need to call the thoughts of self-perplexing, melancholy persons outwards; for it is their disease to be still grinding upon themselves. Remember that it is a far higher, nobler, and sweeter work to think of God, and Christ, and heaven, than of such worms as we ourselves are. When we go up to God, we go to love, and light, and liberty; but when we look down into ourselves, we look into a dungeon, a prison, a wilderness, a place of darkness, horror, filthiness, misery, and confusion. Therefore, though such thoughts be needful, so far as without them our repentance and due watchfulness cannot be maintained, yet they are grievous, ignoble, yea, and barren, in comparison of our thoughts of God. When you are poring on your hearts, to search whether the love of God be there or no, it were wiser to be thinking of the infinite amiableness of God; and that will cause it, whether it were there before or not. So instead of poring on your hearts, to know whether they are set on heaven, lift up your thoughts to heaven, and think of its glory, and that will raise them thither, and give you and show you that which you were searching for. Bestow that time in planting holy desires in the garden of your hearts, which you bestow in routing and puzzling yourselves in searching whether it be there already. We are such dark, confused things, that the sight of ourselves is enough to raise a loathing and a horror in our minds, and make them melancholy; but in God and glory there is nothing to discourage our thoughts, but all to delight them, if Satan do not misrepresent him to us.
Direct.X. Overlook not the miracle of love which God hath showed us in the wonderful incarnation, office, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and reign of our Redeemer; but steep your thoughts most in these wonders of mercy, proposed by God to be the chief matter of your thoughts. You should in reason lay out many thoughts of Christ and grace, for one that you lay out on your sin and misery. God requireth you to see your sin and misery, but so much as tendeth to magnify the remedy, and cause you to accept it. Never think of sin and hell alone; but as the way to the thoughts of Christ and grace. This is the duty even of the worst. Are your sins ever before you? Why is not pardoning grace in Christ before you? Is hell open before you? Why is not the Redeemer also before you? Do you say, Because that sin and hell are yours, but Christ, and holiness, and heaven, are none of yours? I answer you, It is then because you will have it so: if you would not have it so, it is not so. God hath set life first before you, and not only death. He hath put Christ, and holiness, and heaven in his end of the balance; and the devil puts the pleasure of sin for a season in the other end. That which you choose unfeignedly is yours; for God hath given you your choice. Nothing is truer than that God hath so far made over Christ and life to all that hear the gospel, that nothing but their final obstinate refusal can condemn them:[315]Christ and life are brought to the will and choice of all, though all have not wills to accept and choose him. And if you would not have Christ, and life, and holiness, what would you rather have? and why complain you?
Direct.XI. Think and speak as much of the mercy which you have received, as of the sin you have committed; and of the mercy which is offered you, as of what you want. You dare not say that the mercy you have received, is no more worthy to be remembered and mentioned, than all your sins. Shall God do so much for you, and shall it be overlooked, extenuated, and made nothing of? as if his mercies had been a bare bone, or barren wilderness, which would yield no sustenance to your thoughts. Be not guilty of so great unthankfulness. Thoughts of love and mercy would breed love and sweetness in the soul; while thoughts of sin and wrath only breed averseness, terror, bitterness, perplexity, and drive away the heart from God.
Direct.XII. Tie yourselves daily to spend as great a part of your time in your prayers, in the confessing of mercy received, as in confessing sin committed; and in the praises of God, as in the lamenting of your own miseries. You dare not deny but this is your duty, if you understand your duty; thanksgiving and praise are greater duties than confessing sin and misery. Resolve then that they shall have the largest share of time. If you will but do this much, (which you can do if you will,) it will in time take off the bitterness of your spirits; and the very frequent mention of sweeter things, will sweeten your minds, and change their temperature and habit, as change of diet changeth the temperature of the body. I beseech you, resolve, and try this course. If you cannot mention mercy so thankfully as you would, nor mention God's excellencies so holily and praisefully as you would, yet do what you can, and mention them as you are able. You may command your time, (what shall have the greatest share in prayer,) though not your affections; you will find the benefit very great, if you will but do this.
Direct.XIII. Overvalue not the passionate part of duty, but know that judgment, will, and practice,a high esteem of God and holiness, a resolved choice, and a sincere endeavour, are the life of grace and duty, when feeling passions are but lower, uncertain things. You know not what you do, when you lay so much on the passionate part; nor when you strive so much for deep and transporting apprehensions; these are not the great things, nor essentials of holiness. Too much of this feeling may distract you. God knoweth how much you are able to bear. Passionate feelings depend much upon nature. Some persons are more sensible than others; a little thing goeth deep with some: the wisest and weightiest persons are usually least passionate; and the weakest hardly moderate their passions. God is not an object of sense, and therefore more fit for the understanding and will, than the passions, to work upon. That is the holiest soul which is most inclined to God, and resolved for him, and conformed to his will; and not that which is affected with the deepest griefs, and fears, and joys, and other such transporting passions; though it were best, if even holy passions could be raised at the will's command, in that measure which fitteth us best for duty. But I have known many complain for want of deeper feeling, who if their feeling (as they called their passion) had been more, it might have distracted them. I had rather be that christian that loathes himself for sin, resolveth against it, and forsaketh it, though he cannot weep for it; than one of those that can weep to-day, and sin again to-morrow, and whose sinful passions are quickly stirred, as well as their better passions.
Direct.XIV. Make not too great a matter of your own thoughts; and take not too much notice of them; but if Satan cast in molesting thoughts, if you cannot cast them out, set light by them, and take less notice of them. Making a great matter of every thought that is cast into your mind, will keep those thoughts in your mind the longer. For that which we are most sensible of, we most think on; and that which we least regard, we least remember. If you would never be rid of them, the way is to be still noting them, and making too great a matter of them. These troublesome thoughts are like troublesome scolds, that if you regard them, and answer them, will never have done with you; but if you let them talk, and take no notice of them, nor make any answer to them, they will be weary and give over. The devil's design is to vex and disquiet you; and if he see you will not be vexed and disquieted, he will give over attempting it. I know you will say, Should I be so ungodly as to make light of such sinful thoughts? I answer, Make not so light of them as to be indifferent what thoughts are in your mind, nor so as to take the small sin to be none; but make so light of them as not to take them for greater nor more dangerous sins than they are; and so light of them as not to take distinct, particular notice of them, nor to disquiet yourselves about them; for if you do, you will have no room in your thoughts for Christ and heaven, and that which should take up your thoughts; but the devil will rejoice to see how he employeth you in thinking over your own thoughts, or rather his temptations; and that he can employ you all the day in hearkening to all that he will say to you, and in thinking of his motions instead of thinking on the works of God. There are none of God's servants without irregularities and sin of thoughts, which they must daily ask forgiveness of, and rejoice to think that they have a sufficient Saviour and remedy, and that sin shall but occasion the magnifying of grace; but if they should excessively observe and be troubled at every unwarrantable thought, it would be a snare to take them off almost all their greater duties. Would you like it in your servant, if he should stop in observing and troubling himself about every ordinary imperfection in his work, instead of going on to do it?
Direct.XV. Remember that it is no sin to be tempted, but only to yield to the temptation; and that Christ himself was carried about and tempted blasphemously by the devil, even to fall down and worship him; and yet he made these temptations but an advantage to the glory of his victory. Take not the devil's sin to be yours. Are your temptations more horrid and odious than Christ's were? What if the devil had carried you to the pinnacle of the temple as he did Christ? Would you not have thought that God had forsaken you, and given you up to the power of Satan? But you will say, that you yield to the temptation, and so did not Christ. I answer, It cannot be expected that sinful man should bear a temptation as innocently as Christ did? Satan found nothing in Christ to comply with him; but in us he findeth a sinful nature! Wax will receive an impression when marble will not. But it is not every sinful taint that is a consent to the sin to which we are tempted.
Direct.XVI. Consider how far you are from loving, delighting in, or being loth to leave these sinful thoughts; and that no sin condemneth, but that which is so loved and delighted in, as that you had rather keep than leave it. Would you not fain be delivered from all these horrid thoughts and sins? Could you not be willing to live in disgrace, or want, or banishment, so you might but be free from sin? If so, why doubt you of the pardon of it? Can you have any surer sign of repentance, or that your sin is not a reigning, unpardoned sin, than that it is not loved and desired by you? The less will, the less sin, and the more will, the more sin. The covetous man loveth his money, and the fornicator loveth his lust, and the proud man loveth his honour, and the drunkard loveth his cups, and the glutton loveth to satisfy his appetite; and so love these that they will not leave them. But do you love your disturbing, confused, or blasphemous thoughts? Are you not so weary of them, as to be even weary of your lives because of them? would you not be glad and thankful never to be troubled with them more? And yet do you doubt of pardon?
Direct.XVII. Charge not your souls any deeper than there is cause with the effects of your disease. Indeed remotely a man that in distraction thinks or speaks amiss, may be said to be faulty, so far as his sin did cause his disease; but directly and of itself, the involuntary effects of sickness are no sin. Melancholy is a mere disease in the spirits and imagination, though you feel no sickness; and it is as natural for a melancholy person to be hurried and molested with doubts, and fears, and despairing thoughts, and blasphemous temptations, as it is for a man to talk idly in a fever when his understanding faileth; or to think of and desire drink, when his fever kindleth vehement thirst. And how much would you have a man in a fever accuse himself for such a thirst, or such thoughts, desire, or talk? If you had those hideous thoughts in your dreams, which you have when you are awake, would you think them unpardoned sins, or rather unavoidable infirmities? why your distemper makes them to be to you but almost as dreams.
Direct.XVIII. Be sure that you keep yourself constantly employed (as far as your strength will bear) in the diligent labours of a lawful calling; and spend none of your precious time in idleness. Idleness is the tide-time of the tempter: when you are idle, you invite the devil to come and vex you.Then you can have while to hearken to him, and think on all that he will put into your minds, and then to think over all those thoughts again! When you have nothing else to do, the devil will find you such work. Then you must sit still and muse; and your thoughts must be stirring in the mud of your own distempers, as children lie paddling in the dirt. And idleness is a sin, which God will not favour. He hath commanded you to "labour six days, and in the sweat of your brows to eat you bread; and he that will not labour is unworthy to eat," 2 Thess. iii. Remember that time is precious, and doth haste away, and God hath given you none in vain. Therefore, as you are troubled for other sins, make conscience of this sin, and waste not one quarter of an hour's time in your idle, unprofitable musings. It is just with God to make your sin itself to be your punishment, and your own idle thoughts to chastise you daily, when you will not get up and go about your lawful business. Nor will pretences of prayer, or any devotion, excuse your idleness, for it is against the law of God. Above all that I have said to you, let me entreat you therefore to obey this one direction. I have known despairing, melancholy persons cured by setting themselves resolutely and diligently about their callings (and changing air and company, and riding abroad.) If you will sit musing in a corner, and sin against God by idleness and loss of time, and increase your own miseries withal, rather than you will rouse up yourself, and ply your business, your calamity is just. Say not, that you have little or nothing to do; for God hath made it the duty of all, be they never so rich, to labour in such employment as is suitable to their place and strength.
Direct.XIX. Do but mark well how much the devil gets by keeping you in sad, despondent thoughts; and then you may easily see that it cannot be your duty, nor best for you, which is so gainful and pleasing to the devil. By keeping you in these self-perplexing doubts and fears, he robs God of the thanks and praise which you owe him for all his mercies. These highest duties you cast aside, as if they did not belong to you. You give not God the honour of his most miraculous mercy, in our redemption; nor do you study, or relish, or admire, or magnify the riches of grace in Jesus Christ! You have poor, low thoughts of the infinite love of God, and are unfit to judge of it or perceive it, being like a choleric stomach, which puts a continual bitterness in the mouth, which hinders it from tasting any sweetness in their meat. It hereby unfitteth you for the love of God, and more inclineth you to hate him, or fly from him as an enemy, while the devil representeth him to you as one that hateth you; it loseth your time; it depriveth you of all your willingness to duty, and delight in duty, and maketh all God's service a burden and vexation to you. It is very contrary to the spirit of adoption, and to the whole frame of evangelical worship and obedience. And will you, under pretence of being more humbled, and sorrowful, and sensible, thus gratify Satan, and wrong God and yourselves.
Direct.XX. Trust not to your own judgment, in your melancholy state, either as to the condition of your souls, or the choice and conduct of your thoughts or ways; but commit yourselves to the judgment and direction of some experienced, faithful guide. You are no fit judges of your own condition, nor of the way of your duty, in this dark, distempered condition that you are in. Either your mind and imagination is well or ill: if it be well, why complain you of all those disturbances, and confusions, and disability to meditate and pray? If it be ill, why will you be so self-conceited as to think yourselves able to judge of yourselves, with such a distempered fantasy of mind? It is one of the worst things in melancholy persons, that commonly they are most wise in their own eyes, and stiff in their own conceits, when their brains are sickest, and their understanding weakest; and that they are confident, and unruly, and unpersuadable, as if they were proud of those pitiful understandings, and thought nobody knows so well as they. Oh! say they, you know not my case! Am not I liker to know your case, who have seen so many score in that case, than you are that never knew it in any but yourself? A man that stands by may better know the case of a man that is in a dream, than he can know his own. You say that others feel not what you feel! no more doth the physician feel what a man in a fever, or falling-sickness, or distraction feeleth; and yet by the report of what you say you feel, and by what he seeth, he far better knoweth your disease, the nature and the cure of it, than you that feel it. Therefore as a wise man, when he is sick, will trust himself, under God, to the direction of his physician and the help of his friends about him, and not lie wrangling against their help and counsel, and wilfully refuse it, because they advise him contrary to his feeling; so will you do, if you are wise; trust yourself with some fit director; and despise not his judgment either about your state, or about your duty. You think you are lost, and there is no hope: hear what he saith that is now fitter to judge. Set not your weak wit too wilfully against him. Do you think he is so foolish as to mistake? should not humility make you rather think so of yourself? Be advised by him about the matter of your thoughts, the manner and length of your secret duties, and all your scruples that you need advice in. Will you answer me this one question? Do you know any body that is wiser than yourself? and fitter to judge of your condition and advise you? If you say, no; how proud are you of such a crazed wit! If you say, yea; then believe and trust that person, and resolve to follow his direction. And I would ask you, were you not once of another judgment concerning yourself? If so, then were you not as sound and able to judge, and liker to be in the right than you are now.
Direct.XXI. My last advice is, to look out for the cure of your disease, and commit yourself to the care of your physician, and obey him; and do not as most melancholy persons do, that will not believe that physic will do them good, but that it is only their soul that is afflicted; for it is the spirits, imagination, and passions, that are diseased, and so the soul is like an eye that looketh through a coloured glass, and thinks all things are of the same colour as the glass is. I have seen abundance cured by physic; and till the body be cured, the mind will hardly ever be cured, but the clearest reasons will be all in vain.
Direct.I. Let it be your first and most serious study to make sure that you are regenerate, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and justified by faith in Christ, and love God above all, as your reconciled Father, and so have right to the heavenly inheritance.
For, 1. You are nearest to yourselves, and your everlasting happiness is your nearest and your highest interest: what will it profit you to know all the world, and to lose your own souls? to know as much as devils, and be for ever miserable with devils?
2. It is a most doleful employment to be all day at work in Satan's chains! to sit studying God and the holy Scriptures, while you are in the power of the devil, and have hearts that are at enmity to the holiness of that God and that Scripture which you are studying! It is a most preposterous and incongruous course of study, if you first study not your own deliverance. And if you knew your case, and saw your chains, your trembling would disturb your studies.
3. Till you are renewed you study in the dark, and without that internal sight and sense, by which the life, and spirit, and kernel of all that you study must be known. All that the Scripture saith of the darkness of a state of sin, and of the illumination of the Spirit, and of the marvellous light of regenerate souls, and of the natural man's not receiving the things of the Spirit, and of the carnal mind that is enmity against God, and is not subject to his law, nor can be;[316]all these and such other passages are not insignificant, but most considerable truths from the Spirit of truth. You have only that light that will show you the shell, and the dead letter, but not the soul, and quickening sense, of any practical holy truth. As the eye knoweth meat which we never tasted, or as a mere grammarian, or logician, readeth a law book, or physic book, (who gather nothing out of them that will save a man's estate or life,) so will you prosecute all your studies.
4. You are like to have but ill success in your studies, when the devil is your master, who hateth both you, and the holy things which you are studying. He will blind you, and pervert you, and possess your minds with false conceits, and put diverting, sensual thoughts into you, and will keep your own souls from being ever the better for it all.
5. You will want the true end of all right studies, and set up wrong ends; and therefore whatever be the matter of your studies, you are still out of your way, and know nothing rightly, because you know it not as a means to the true end. (But of this anon.)
Direct.II. When you have first laid this foundation, and have the true principle and end of all right studies, be sure that you intend this end in all, even the everlasting sight and love of God, and the promoting his glory, and pleasing his holy will; and that you never meddle with any studies separated from this end, but as means thereto, and as animated thereby.
If every step in your journey is but loss of time and labour, which is not directed to your journey's end; and if all that you have to mind or do in the world, be only about your end or the means; and all creatures and actions can have no other moral goodness, than to be the means of God your ultimate end; then you may easily see, that whenever you leave out God as the end of any of your studies, you are but sinning, or doting; for in those studies there can be no moral good, though they may tend to your knowledge of natural good and evil. And when you think you grow wise and learned men, and can dispute and talk of many things, which make to your renown, while your "wills consent not to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrine which is according to godliness; you are proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railing, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, supposing that gain is godliness: from such turn away," 1 Tim. vi. 3-6. As there is no knowledge but from God, so it is not knowledge but dotage if it lead not unto God.
Direct.III. See therefore that you choose all your studies according to their tendency to God your end, and use them still under the notion of means, and that you estimate your knowledge by this end, and judge yourselves to know no more indeed, than you know of God and for God: and so let practical divinity be the soul of all your studies.
Therefore, when life is too short for the studies of all things which we desire to know, make sure of the chief things, and prefer those studies which make most to your end; spend not your time on things unprofitable to this end; spend not your first and chiefest time on things unnecessary to it; for the near connexion to God the end, is it that ennobleth the matter of your studies. All true knowledge leads to God; but not all alike: the nearest to him is the best.[317]
Direct.IV. Remember that the chief part of your growth in knowledge, is not in knowing many smaller things, of no necessity; but in a growing downwards in a clearer insight into the foundation of the christian faith, and in taking better rooting than you had at your first believing; and in growing upward into a greater knowledge of God, and into a greater love of him, and heavenly-mindedness, and then in growing up to greater skill, and ability, and readiness to do him service in the world.
Know as much as you can know of the works of God, and of the languages and customs of the world; but still remember, that to know God in Christ better, is the growth which you must daily study: and when you know them most, you have still much more need to know better these great things which you know already, than to know more things which you never knew. The roots of faith may still increase, and the branches and fruits of love may be still greater and sweeter! As long as you live, you may still know better the reasons of your religion, (though not better reasons,) and you may know better how to use your knowledge. And whatever you know, let it be that you may be led up to know God more, or love him more, or serve him better.
Direct.V. With fear and detestation watch and resolve against all carnal, worldly ends; and see that your hearts be not captivated by your fleshly interest; nor grow to a high esteem of the pleasures, or profits, or honours of this world, nor to relish any fleshly accommodations, as very pleasant and desirable: but that you take up with God and the hopes of glory as your satisfying portion, and follow Christ as cross-bearers, denying yourselves, and dead to the world, and resolved and prepared to forsake all for his sake.
These are words that you can easily say yourselves; but these are things that are so hardly learned, that many of the most learned and reverend perish for want of being better acquainted with them (and I shall never take that man to be wisely learned, that hath not learned to escape damnation). Christ's cross is to be learned before your alphabet. To impose the cross is quickly learned, but to learn to bear it is the difficulty. To lay the cross on others is to be the followers of Pilate; but to bear it when it is laid on us, is to be the followers of Christ. If you grow corrupted with a love of honour, and riches, and preferment, and come to the study of divinity with a fleshly, worldly mind and end, you will but serve Satan while you seem to be seeking after God, and damn your souls among the doctrines and meansof salvation, and go to God for materials to chain you faster to the devil, and steal a nail from divinity to fasten your ears unto his door. And you little know how Judas's gain will gripe and torment the awakened conscience! and how the rust will witness against you, and how it will eat your flesh as fire, James v. 3.
Direct.VI. Digest all that you know, and turn it into holy habits, and expect that success first on yourselves, which if you were to preach you would expect in others. Remembering that knowing is not the end of knowing; but it is as eating to the body, where health, and strength, and service are the end.[318]
Every truth of God is his candle which he sets up for you to work by; it is as food that is for life and action. You lose all the knowledge which ends in knowing. To fill your head and common-place book is not all that you have to do. But to fortify, and quicken, and inflame your hearts. Good habits are the best provision for a preacher. The habits of mind are better than the best library. But if the habits of heavenly love, and life in the heart, do not concur, the heart and life of a preacher and a scholar are wanting still, for all your knowledge. Study Paul's words, 1 Cor. viii. 1, "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth." If he had said that knowledge edifieth others, and charity saveth ourselves, he would have said nothing that is strange. But even as to edification charity hath the precedency.
Direct.VII. Yea, see that you excel the unlearned as much in holiness as you do in knowledge: unless you will persuade them that your knowledge is a useless, worthless thing; and unless you would be judged as unprofitable servants.
Every degree of knowledge is for a further degree of holiness: ten talents must be improved to ten more. They that know and do not, are beaten with many stripes. The devil's scholars look on the godly that are unlearned with hatred and disdain, and preach to their discouragement and disgrace, and strive to set and keep true godliness in the stocks. But Christ's ministers love holiness wherever they see it, and are ashamed to think that the unlearned should be more holy and heavenly than they; and strive to go beyond them as much in the use and ends of knowledge, as in knowledge itself; and with Austin lament, that while the unlearned take heaven by violence, the learned are thrust out into hell, as thinking it is their part to know and teach, and other men's to practise.
Direct.VIII. Cast not away a moment of your precious time in idleness, or impertinencies; but follow your work diligently, and with all your might.
I mean not that you should overdo, and overthrow your brains and bodies, nor forbear such sober exercise as is most necessary to your health; for a sick body is an ill companion for a student, and much more a crazed brain. But time-wasters are lovers of pleasure or idleness, more than of knowledge and holiness: and wisdom falleth not into idle, sluggish, dreaming souls. If you think it not worth your painfullest and closest studies, you must take up with idle ignorance, and go abroad with swelling titles and empty brains, as the deceivers and the scourgers of the church.
Direct.IX. Keep up a delight in all your studies, and carry them on not in an unwilling weariness: and, if it be not by notable error in matter or method, gratify your delight with such things as you are best pleased with, though they bring some smaller inconvenience; because else your weariness may bring much more.
I know that a delight in sin and vanity is not to be gratified; and force must be used with a backward mind in case of necessity and weight. But if it be but in the variety of subjects, and the choice of pleasing studies which are profitable, though simply some other might be fitter, something is to be yielded to delight. But especially the heart must be got to a delight in holy things: and then, time will be improved; the memory will be helped; much will be done; and you will persevere; and it will preserve the mind from temptations to needless recreations, and from the deadly plague of youthful lusts, when your daily labour is a greater pleasure to you.
Direct.X. Get some judicious man to draw you up the titles of a threefold common-place book: one part for definitions, axioms, and necessary doctrines; another part for what is useful for ornament and oratory; and another for references as a common index to all the books of that science which you read: for memory will not serve for all.
Ordinarily students have not judgment enough to form their own common-place books till they are old in studies, and have read most of the authors which they would remember; and therefore the young must here have a judicious helper. And when they have done, injudiciousness will be apt to fill it with less necessary things, and to make an unmeet choice of matter, if they have not care and an instructor.
Direct.XI. Highly esteem a just method in divinity, and in all your studies; and labour to get an accurate scheme or skeleton, where at once you may see every part in its proper place. But remember that if it be not sound, it will be a snare; and one error in your scheme or method will be apt to introduce abundance more.[319]
It is a poor and pitiful kind of knowledge, to know many loose parcels, and broken members of truth, without knowing the whole, or the place and the relation which they have to the rest. To know letters and not syllables, or syllables and not words, or words and not sentences, or sentences and not the scope of the discourse, are all but an unprofitable knowledge. He knoweth no science rightly that hath not anatomized it, and carrieth not a true scheme or method of it in his mind. But among the many that are extant, to commend any one to you which I most esteem, or take to be without error, is more than I dare do.
Direct.XII. Still keep the primitive, fundamental verities in your mind, and see every other truth which you learn as springing out of them, and receiving their life and nourishment from them: and still keep in your minds a clear distinction between the truths of several degrees, both of necessity, and certainty, always reducing the less necessary to the more necessary, and the less certain to the more certain, and not contrarily.[320]
If God had made all points of faith, or Scripture revelation, of equal necessity, our baptism would not only have mentioned our belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; nor should we ever have seen the ancient creed, nor the ten commandments. And if all points were of equal evidence, and plainness, and certainty to us, we should not have some so much controverted above others: "Some things" in Scripture are "hard to be understood," but not "all things," 2 Pet. iii. 16. To pretend that any truth is more necessary than it is, doth tend to uncharitableness and contention: and to say that any is less necessary than it is, doth tend to the neglect of it,and to the danger of souls. To pretend any point to be more plain and certain than it is, doth but show our pride and ignorance. But to set up uncertain and unnecessary points, and make a religion of them, and reduce things certain or necessary to them, this is the method of turbulent heretics.
Direct.XIII. Take nothing as universally necessary in religion, which was not so taken in the days of the apostles, and primitive church; and take that for the safest way to heaven which the apostles went who certainly are there: value the apostolical purity, simplicity, charity, and unity; and follow not them that by being wise and pious overmuch, corrupt our sacred pattern by their additions, and fill the church with uncharitableness and strife.
If it were not a thing too evident that dominion and riches go for religion with them, and gain for godliness, and honour and money instead of argument, it would be a most stupendous wonder that so many learned men should be found among christians in the world, to hinder the peace and unity of the church, as do it vehemently and implacably in the church of Rome; when so easy a thing, and so reasonable, would unite almost all the christian world, as is the requiring no more as necessary to our union, than what was made necessary in the days of the apostles, and the obtruding nothing as necessary to salvation, which the apostles and primitive church were saved without. This easy, reasonable thing, which no man hath any thing of seeming sense and weight to speak against, would end all the ruinating differences among christians.
Direct.XIV. Be desirous to know all that God would have you know, and be willing to be ignorant of all that God would have you ignorant of; and pry not into unrevealed things; and much less make them the matter of any uncharitable strife.
Abundance of contentious volumes between the Dominicans, and Jesuits, and many others, are stuffed with bold inquiries, wranglings, or determinations of unsearchable mysteries, utterly unknown to those that voluminously debate them, and never revealed in the word or works of God. Keep off with reverence from concealed mysteries. Talk not as boldly of the divine influx, and the priority, posteriority, dependence or reason of God's decrees, as if you were talking of your common affairs. Come with great reverence when you are called of God to search into those high and holy truths, which he hath revealed. But pretend not to know that which is not to be known. For you will but discover your ignorance and arrogance, and know never the more, when you have doted about questions never so long.
Direct.XV. Avoid both extremes, of them that study no more but to know what others have written and held before them, and of them that little regarded the discoveries of others. Learn all of your teachers and authors that they can teach you; but make all your own, and see things in their proper evidence; and improve their discoveries by the utmost of your diligence; abhorring a proud desire of singularity, or to seem wiser than you are.
Most students through slothfulness look no further for knowledge than into their books; and their learning lieth but in knowing what others have written, or said, or held before them; especially where the least differing from the judgment of the party which is uppermost or in reputation, doth tend to hazard a man's honour, or preferments, there men think it dangerous to seem to know more than is commonly known; and therefore think it needless to study to know it. Men are backward to take much pains to know that which tendeth to their ruin to be known, but doth them no harm while they can but keep themselves ignorant of it: which makes the opposed truth have so few entertainers or students among the papists, or any that persecute or reproach it. And others discerning this extreme, do run into the contrary; and under pretence of the loveliness of truth, and the need of liberty of judging, do think the edifying way is first to pull down all that others have built before them, and little regard the judgment of their predecessors, but think they must take nothing on trust from others, but begin all from the very ground themselves. And usually their pride makes them so little regard the most approved authors, that they have not patience to read them till they thoroughly understand them; but reject that which is received, before they understand it, merely because it was the received way: and while they say, that nothing must be taken upon trust, they presently take upon trust themselves that very opinion, and with it the other opinions of those novelists that teach them this. And believing what such say in disgrace of others, withal they believe what they hold in opposition to those that they have disgraced. But it is easy to see how sad a case mankind were in, if every man must be a fabricator of all his knowledge himself, and posterity should be never the better for the discoveries of their ancestors; and the greatest labours of the wisest men, and their highest attainments, must be no profit to any but themselves. Why do they use a teacher, if they must do all themselves? If they believe not their tutors, and take nothing on trust, it seems they must know every truth before they will learn it: and what difference is there between believing a tutor and an author? And is not that more credible which upon long experience is approved by many nations and ages, than that which is recommended to you but by one or few? These students should have made themselves an alphabet or grammar, and not have taken the common ones on trust. It is easier to add to other men's inventions, than to begin and carry on all ourselves. By their course of study, the world would never grow wiser; but every age and person be still beginning, and none proceed beyond their rudiments.
Direct.XVI. Be sure you make choice of meet teachers and companions for your studies and your lives; that they be such as will assist you in the holy practice of what you know, as well as in your knowledge: and shun as a plague the familiarity, 1. Of sensual, idle, brutish persons. 2. And of carnal, ambitious ones, who know no higher end than preferment and applause. 3. And of proud, heretical, contentious wits, whose wisdom and religion are nothing but censuring, reproaching, and vilifying them that are wiser and better than themselves.
Bad company is the common ruin of both: their own sensuality is easily stirred up by the temptations of the sensual; and their consciences overborne by the examples of other men's voluptuous lives. It imboldeneth them to sin, to see others sin before them; as cowards themselves are drawn on in an army to run upon the face of death, by seeing others do it, and to avoid the reproach of cowardice; and the noise of mirth and ranting language, are the drums and trumpets of the devils, by which their ears are kept from hearing the cries of wounded, dying men, the lamentations of those that have found the error of that way. And there is in corrupted nature so strong an inclination to the prosperity and vain-glory of the world, that makes them quickly take the bait, especially when the devil doth offer it them by a fit instrument, which shall not deter them, as it would do if he had offered it them himself. It is a pleasant thing to flesh and blood to berich and great, and generally applauded; and a grievous thing to be poor, and despised, and afflicted.[321]The rawness also and unsettledness of youth, who want well furnished understandings and experience, is a great advantage to heretics and deceivers, who still sweep many such away, wherever they come and have but opportunity. Children are "easily tossed up and down, and carried to and fro with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning sleight and subtlety of them that lie in wait to deceive," Eph. iv. 14. Deceivers have their methods; and methods are the common instruments of deceit, which are not easily detected by the unexperienced. On the contrary, the benefit of wise, and staid, and sober, and peaceable, meek, humble, holy, heavenly companions, is exceeding great, especially to youth! Such will lead them in safe paths, and be still preserving them, and promoting the most necessary parts of knowledge, and quickening them to holy practice, which is the end of all.
Direct.XVII. In all your studies be jealous of both extremes; and distinctly discern which are the extremes, that you run not into one while you avoid the other. And be especially careful, that you imagine not co-ordinates or subordinates to be opposites; and throw not away every truth, which you cannot presently place rightly in the frame, and see it fall in agreeably with the rest; for a further insight into true method (attained but by very few) may reconcile you to that which now offendeth you. What God hath joined together, be sure that you never put asunder; though yet you cannot find their proper places.[322]
There is scarce any error more common among students, than supposing those truths to be inconsistent, which indeed have a necessary dependence on each other; and a casting truth away as error, because they cannot reconcile it to some other truth. And there is nothing so much causeth this, as want of a true method. But that hath no method considerable, or after much curious labour hath fallen upon a false method, or a method that in any one considerable point is out of joint, will deal thus by many certain truths: as an ignorant person that is to set all the scattered parts of a clock or watch together, if he misplace one, will be unable rightly to place all the rest; and then, when he finds that they fit not the place which he thinks they must be in, he casteth them away, and thinks they are not the right, and is searching for or maketh something else to fit that place. False method rejecteth many a truth.
And, unless it be in loving God, or other acts of the superior faculties, about their ultimate end and highest object, there is scarce any thing in mortality but hath its extremes. And where they are not discerned, they are seldom well avoided. And usually narrow-sighted persons are fearful only of one extreme, and see no danger but on one side; and therefore are easily carried, by avoiding that, into the contrary.
I think it not unprofitable to instance in several particular cautions, that you imitate not them that put asunder what God hath conjoined, and cast not away truth as oft as you are puzzled in the right placing or methodizing it.
InstanceI. The first and second causes are conjoined in their operations, and therefore must not be put asunder. If the way of influx, concourse, or co-operation be dark and unsearchable to you, do not deny that it is, because you see not how it is. The honour of the first and second cause also are conjunct, according to their several interests in the effects: do not therefore imagine, that all the honour ascribed to the second cause is denied or taken away from the first; for then you understand not their order: otherwise you would see, that as the second causeth independence on the first, and insubordination to it, and hath no power but what is communicated by it, so it hath no honour but what is received from it; and that it is no less honour for the first cause to operate mediately by the second, than immediately by itself: and that there is no less of the power, wisdom, or goodness of God, in an effect produced by means and second causes, than in that which he produceth of himself only, without them: and that it is his goodness to communicate a power of good to his creatures, and the honour of working and causing under him: but he never loseth any thing by communicating, nor hath the less himself by giving to his creatures: for if all that honour that is given to the creature were taken injuriously from God, then God would never have made the world, nor made a saint; and then the worst creatures would least dishonour God: then he would not shine by the sun, but by himself immediately: and then he would never glorify either saint or angel. But on the contrary, it is God's honour to work by adapted means; and all their honour is truly his; as all the commendation of a clock or watch is given to the workman. And though God do not all so immediately, as to use no means or second causes; yet is he never the further from the effect, but,immediatione virtutis et suppositi, is himself as near as if he used none.
InstanceII. The special providence of God, and his being the first universal cause, are conjunct with the culpability of sinners; and no man must put these asunder. Those that cannot see just how they are conjoined, may be sure that they are conjoined. It is no dishonour to an engineer that he can make a watch which shall go longer than he is moving it with his finger. Nor is it a dishonour to our Creator, that he can make a creature which can morally determine itself to an action as commanded or forbidden, without the predetermination of his Maker, though not without his universal concourse necessary to action as action. If Adam could not do this through the natural impossibility of it, then the law was, that he should die the death if he did not overcome God, or do that which was naturally impossible; and this was the nature of his sin. Few dare say, that God cannot make a free, self-determining agent; and if he can, we shall easily prove that he hath; and the force of their opposition then is vanished.
InstanceIII. The omniscience of God, and his dominion, government, and decrees, are conjunct with the liberty and sin of man: yet these by many are put asunder: as if God must either be ignorant or be the author of sin! As if he made one poor, by decreeing to make another rich! As if he cannot be a perfect governor, unless he procure all his subjects perfectly to keep his laws! As if all the fault of those that break the law, were to be laid upon the maker of the law! As if all God's willde debitowere not effective of its proper work, unless man fulfil it in the event! And as if it were possible for any creature to comprehend the way of the Creator's knowledge.
InstanceIV. Many would separate nature and grace, which God the author of both conjoineth. When grace supposeth nature, and in her garden soweth all her seed, and exciteth and rectifieth allher powers; yet these men talk as if nature had been annihilated, or grace came to annihilate it, and not to cure it. As if the leprosy and disease of nature were nature itself! And as if natural good had been lost as much as moral good! As if man were not man till grace made him a man!
InstanceV. Many separate the natural power of a sinner from his moral impotency, and his natural freedom of will from his moral servitude, as if they were inconsistent, when they are conjunct. As if the natural faculty might not consist with an evil disposition; or a natural power with an habitual unwillingness to exercise it aright. And as if a sinner were not still a man.
InstanceVI. Many separate general and special grace and redemption, as inconsistent, when they are conjunct; when the general is the proper way and means of accomplishing the ends of the special grace, and is still supposed. As if God could not give more to some, if he give any thing to all. Or as if he gave nothing to all, if he give more to any. As if he could not deal equally and without difference with all as a legislator, and righteously with all as a judge, unless he deal equally and without difference with all as a benefactor, in the free distribution of his gifts. As if he were obliged to make every worm and beast a man, and every man a king, and every king an angel, and every clod a star, and every star a sun!
InstanceVII. Many separate the glory of God and man's salvation, God and man, in assigning the ultimate end of man! As if a moral intention might not take in both! As if it were notfinis amantis; and the end of a lover were not union in mutual love! As if love to God may not be for ever the final act, and God himself the final object: and as if, in this magnetic closure, though both may be called the end, yet there might not in the closing parties be an infinite disproportion, and only one befinis ultimate ultimus.
InstanceVIII. Yea, many would separate God from God, while they would separate God from heaven, and say that we must be content to be shut out of heaven for the love of God; when our heaven is the perfect love of God. And so they say in effect, that for the love of God we must be content to be shut out from the love of God.
InstanceIX. Thus also the vulgar separate the mercy and the justice of God! As if God knew not better than man to whom his mercy should extend. And as if God be not merciful, if he will be a righteous governor, and unless he will suffer all the world to spit in his face and blaspheme him, and let his enemies go all unpunished.
InstanceX. Thus many separate threatenings and promises, fear and love, a perfect law and a pardoning gospel. As if he that is a man, and hath both fear and love in his nature, must not make use of both for God and his salvation; and the lawgiver might not fit his laws to work on both. As if hell may not be feared, and heaven loved at once.
InstanceXI. Thus hypocrites separate and conceit their seeming holiness and devotion to God from duties of justice and charity to men. As if they could serve God acceptably, and disobey him wilfully! Or as if they could love him whom they never saw, and not love his image in his works and children, whom they daily see. As if they could hate and persecute Christ in his little ones, or at least neglect him, and yet sincerely love him in himself.
InstanceXII. Thus, by many, Scripture and tradition, divine faith and human faith, are commonly opposed. Because the papists have set tradition in a wrong place, many cast it away because it fits not that place: when man's tradition and ministerial revelation, is necessary to make known and bring down God's revelation to us; and a subservient tradition is no disparagement to Scripture, though a supplemental tradition be; and man must be believed as man, though not as God; and he that will not believe man as man, shall scarce know what he hath to believe from God.
InstanceXIII. Thus many separate the sufficiency of the law and rule from the usefulness of an officer, minister, and judge. As if the law must be imperfect, or else need no execution, and no judge for execution. Or as if the judge's execution were a supplement or addition to the law. As if the question, Who shall be the judge? did argue the law of insufficiency; and the promulgation and execution were not supposed.
InstanceXIV. Thus also many separate the necessity of a public judge, from the lawfulness and necessity of a private judgment, or discerning in all the rational subjects. As if God and man did govern only brutes; or we could obey a law, and not judge it to be a law, and to be obeyed; and not understand the sense of it, and what it doth command us. As if fools and madmen were the only subjects. As if our learning of Christ as his disciples, and meditating day and night in his law, and searching for wisdom in his word, were a disobeying him as our King. As if it were a possible thing for subjects to obey, without a private judgment of discretion. Or as if there were any repugnancy between my judging what is the king's law, and his judging whether I am punishable for disobeying it. Or as if judging ourselves, contradicted our being judged of God.
InstanceXV. So, many separate between the operation of the word and Spirit, the minister and Christ. As if the Spirit did not usually work by the word; and Christ did not preach to us by his ministers and ambassadors. And as if they might despise his messengers, and not be taken for despisers of himself. Or might throw away the dish and keep the milk.
InstanceXVI. Thus many separate the special love of saints from the common love of man as man. As if they could not love a saint, unless they may hate an enemy, and despise all others, and deny them the love which is answerable to their natural goodness.
InstanceXVII. Thus many separate universal or catholic union and communion from particular. And some understand no communion but the universal, and some none but the particular. Some say we separate from them as to catholic communion, if we hold not local, particular communion with them; yea, if we join not with them in every mode. As if I could be personally in ten thousand thousand congregations at once, or else did separate from them all. Or, as if I separated from all mankind, if I differed from all men in my visage or complexion. Or, as if I cannot be absent from many thousand churches, and yet honour them as true churches of Christ, and hold catholic communion with them in faith, hope, and love; yea, though I durst not join with them personally in worship, for fear of some sinful condition which they impose. Or, as if I need not be a member of any ordered worshipping congregation, because I have a catholic faith and love to all the christians in the world.
InstanceXVIII. Thus are the outward and inward worship separated by many, who think that all which the body performeth is against the due spirituality; or that the spirituality is but fancy, and contrary to the form or outward part. As if theheart and the knee may not fitly bow together; nor decency of order concur with Spirit and truth.
InstanceXIX. Thus many separate faith and obedience; Paul's justification by faith, without the works of the law, from James's justification by works, and not by faith only, and Christ's justification by our words, Matt. xii. 47. And thus they separate free grace and justification from any necessary condition, and from the rewardableness of obedience (which the ancients called merit): but of this at large elsewhere.
InstanceXX. And many separate prudence and zeal, meekness and resolution, the wisdom of the serpent and the innocency of the dove; yielding to no sin, and yet yielding in things lawful; maintaining our christian liberty, and yet becoming all things to all men, if by any means we may save some. These instances are enough, I will add no more.
Direct.XVIII. Take heed of falling into factions and parties in religion (be the party great or small, high or low, in honour or dishonour); and take heed lest you be infected with a factious, censorious, uncharitable, hurting zeal: for these are much contrary to the interest, will, and Spirit of Christ. Therefore among all your readings, deeply suck in the doctrine of charity and peace, and read much, reconciling, moderating authors; such as Dury, Hall, Davenant, Crocius, Bergius, Martinius, Amyraldus, Dallæus, Testardus, Calixtus, Hottonus, Junius, Paræus and Burroughs their Irenicons.
The reading of such books extinguisheth the consuming flame of that infernal, envious zeal described James iii.; and kindleth charity, and meekness, and mellowness, and moderation in the heart; and cureth those bloodshotten eyes, which are unable till cured to discern the truth. It helpeth us to knowledge, and to that which is more edifying, and keepeth knowledge from puffing us up. And experience will tell you at long running, that among ancients and moderns, Greeks and Latins, papists and protestants, Lutherans and Calvinists, remonstrants and contra-remonstrants, prelatists, presbyterians, independents, &c., commonly the moderators are not only the best and most charitable, but the wisest, most judicious men.
Direct.XIX. With all your readings still join the reading of the Scriptures, and of the most holy and practical divines; not fantastical, enthusiastic counterfeits, Paracelsian divines; but those that lead you up by the solid doctrine of faith and love to true devotion, and heavenly-mindedness and conversation.
This must be your bread and drink, your daily and substantial food: without this you may soon be filled with air, that cannot nourish you, and prove in the end as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. These will breed strength, and peace, and joy, and help you in your communion with God, and hopes of heaven, and so promote the end of all your studies. There is more life and sweetness in these, than in things that are more remote from God and heaven.
Direct.XX. Lastly, Do all as dying men: promise not yourselves long life, lest it tempt you to waste your time on things less necessary, and to loiter it away; or lest you lose the quickening benefit, which the sight of death and eternity would yield you in all your studies.
The nearer you apprehend yourselves to death and heaven, the greater help you have to be mortified and heavenly. This will make you serious, and keep up right intentions, and keep out wrong ones, and powerfully help you against temptations, that when you have studied to save others, you may not be cast-aways; nor be cheated by the devil with the shell, and leaves, and flowers, while you go without the saving fruit.
I have spoken the more on this subject of governing the thoughts, because it is so great and excellent a part of the work of man; and God doth so much regard the heart; and the Spirit of Christ and Satan so much strive for it; and grace is so much employed about it; and our happiness or misery, joy or sorrow, is greatly promoted by our thoughts. And more I would have said, but that in the third chapter, and in my "Treatise of the Divine Life," there is much said already. And for a method and directions for particular meditations, I have given it at large in the fourth part of the "Saints' Rest," from whence it may easily be taken, and applied to other subjects, as it is there to heaven. It is easy to write and read directions; but I fear lest slothfulness, through the difficulty of practice, will frustrate my directions to the most. But if any profit by them, my labour is not lost.
The passions are to be considered, 1. As in themselves, and the sin of them as respecting God and ourselves only: and so I am to speak of them here. 2. As they are a wrong to others, and a breach of the commandments which require love and duty towards our neighbour: and so I shall speak of them after.
Passions are not sinful in themselves, for God hath given them to us for his service; and there is none of them but may be sanctified and used for him. But they are sinful, 1. When they are misguided and placed on wrong objects. 2. When they darken reason, and delude the mind, and keep out truth, and seduce to error. 3. When they rebel against the government of the will, and trouble it, and hinder it in its choice or prosecution of good, or urge it violently to follow their brutish inclination. 4. When they are unseasonable. 5. Or immoderate and excessive in degree. 6. Or of too long continuance. 7. And when they tend to evil effects, as to unseemly speeches or actions, or to wrong another.
Passions are holy when they are devoted to God, and exercised upon him or for him. They are good when, 1. They have right objects; 2. And are guided by reason; 3. And are obedient to the well-guided will; 4. And quicken and awake the reason and the will to do their duty; 5. And tend to good effects, exciting all the other powers to their office; 6. And exceed not in degree, so as to disturb the brain or body.
Direct.1. Trust not to any present actual resistance, without any due, habitual mortification of passions, and fortification of the soul against them. Look most to the holy constitution of your mind and life, and then sinful passions will fall off, like scabs from a healthful body when the blood is purified.
No wonder if an unholy soul be a slave to passion, when the body is inclined to it: for such a one is under the power of selfishness, carnality, and worldliness; and from under the government of Christ and his Spirit; and wanteth that life of grace by which he should cure and subdue the corruptions of nature. The way for such a one to master passion,is not to strive by natural, selfish principles and reasons, which are partial, poor, and weak; but to look first to the main, and to seek with speed and earnestness for a new and sanctified heart, and get God's image, and his Spirit, and renewing, quickening grace: this is the only effectual conqueror of nature. A dull and gentle disposition may seem without this to conquer that which never much assaulted it: (the trial of such persons being some other way); but none conquereth Satan indeed but the Spirit of Christ. And if you should be free from passion, and not be free from an unholy, carnal, worldly heart, you must perish at last, if you seemed the calmest persons upon earth. Begin therefore at the foundation, and see that the body of sin be mortified, and that the whole tree be rooted up which beareth these evil, bitter fruits; and that the holy, victorious new nature be within you; and then you will resist sin with light and life, which others still resist but as in their sleep.
Direct.II. More particularly, let your souls be still possessed with the fear of God, and live as in his family, under his eye and government, that his authority may be more powerful than temptations, and your holy converse with him may make him still more regarded by you than men or any creatures. And then this sun will put out the lesser lights, and the thunder of his voice will drown the whisperers that would provoke you, and the humming of those wasps which make you so impatient. God would make the creature nothing, and then it would do nothing to disturb you, or carry you into sin.
Direct.III. Dwell in the delightful love of God, and in the sweet contemplation of his love in Christ, and roll over his tender mercies in your thoughts, and let your conversation be with the holy ones in heaven, and your work be thanksgivings and praise to God: and this will habituate your souls to such a sweetness, and mellowness, and stability, as will resist sinful passion even as heat resisteth cold.
Direct.IV. Keep your consciences continually tender, and then they will check the first appearance of sinful passions, and will smart more with the sin than your passionate natures do with the provocation. A seared conscience, and a hardened, senseless heart, are to every sin, as a man that is fast asleep is to thieves; they may come in and do what they will, so they do not waken him. But a tender conscience is always awake.
Direct.V. Labour after wisdom, strength of reason, and a solid judgment; for passion is cherished by folly. Children are easily overthrown, and leaves are easily shaken with every little wind; when men keep their way, and rocks and mountains are not shaken. Women and children, and old, and weak, and sick people are usually most passionate. If a wise man should have a passionate nature, he hath that which can do much to control it: when folly is a weather-cock at the wind's command.
Direct.VI. See that the will be confirmed and resolute, and then it will soon command down passion. Men can do much against passion if they will. Nature hath set the will in the throne of the soul; it is the sinful connivance and negligence of the will, which is the guilty cause of all the rebellion; as the connivance of the commanders is the common cause of mutinies in an army.[323]The will either consenteth, or is remiss in its office, and in forbidding and repressing the rage of passion. When I say, you can do it if you will, you think this is not true, because you are willing, and yet passion yieldeth not to your will's command; but I mean not that every kind of willingness will serve; it is not a sluggish wish that will do it; but if the will were resolute without any compliance, or connivance, or negligence in its proper office, no sinful passion could remain; for it is no further sin, than it is voluntary, either by the will's compliance, or omission and neglect. Therefore let most of your labour be to waken and confirm the will; and then it will command down passion.