and so rudely Before thou Prayest says the wise Son of Syrach prepare thy self and be not as one that tempteth the Lord. i. e. I conceive Ecclesiasticus 18. 23. to be angry with thee and to curse rather then to bless thee T was one of the good things found in Jehoshaphat that he had prepared his Heart to seek God And no Man 2 Chron. 19. 3. pretends to good Musick before he has put his Instrument in tune when our Hearts are fixed O God when our Hearts are fixed then shall we best sing and give Praise Now by preparation here I do not mean those succinct Applications we are wont to make to God upon our entering on his Service in houses set a part to that propose but the revolving in our Minds such previous reflections as these are 1. THE Weight and Importance of the duty we are about which is the onely proper Conveyancer of the divine Blessings and that by divine Appointment and is of no less consequence to us than the Supply of our wants both Spiritual and Temporal the promises of this Life and of that which is to come t is in a word a transaction whereon depends the concern of Life and Death and what is more of Eternal Life and Eternal Death and will a Man slubber over such a Business as this will he plead his Cause so supinely as if he were bribed against himself when so vast an Estate as the everlasting Inheritance depends upon the Issue of the Tryal Moses exhorts the Jews to hearken unto the Words of the Law because Deut. 32 40. says he it is your Life Prayers and Praises are the spiritual Life of a Christian and therefore when any forreign Thoughts assail it either by force or fraud we must take up Nehemiahs answer to his Enemies I am doing a great Work so that Nebem 6. 3. I cannot come down why should the work cease whilst I leave it and come down to you A 2. PREPARATORY will be best placed upon the dread Majesty of him we address to and his more immediate Presence in places set apart for his Service for God himself alledgeth the greatness Malac. 1. 14. of his Majesty to caution Men against offering him any mean and contemptible Sacrifices Cursed be the Deceiver says he which hath in his flock a Male and voweth and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing For I am a Great King says the Lord of Hosts and my Name is dreadful among the Heathen and the wise Man urgeth the distance betwixt the great Creator and his Creatures as an argument of that Sobriety and exactness of Utterance and Affection that becomes his Presence Be not rash with thy mouth says he and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in Heaven and thou upon earth AY 't is certainly the want of a due consideration of the terrible name of the great and living God who is infinitely exalted above our most elevated Conceptions of him that makes us so often present him with the Sacrifice of Fools that Excors Sacrificium which the Heathen World look'd upon as so prodigious a thing It requires indeed a genious wide and Philosophical the portion of but a few to take in a full draught of Contemplation of the Great and Invisible Being and tho it must be own'd that the most refined Capacity cannot now behold him as he is shining in his full Orb of Glory for the Contemplation of his Essence is an Abyss which immediately devours and swallows up a dark and broken Understanding it being a sort of endeavour to look God in the Face which no Man can do and Live yet he has not lest us without witnesses of his Majesty in the convulsion of the Mountain and the Agony of Nature at the promulgation of the Law in the losty but yet infinitely inadequate Descriptions that the Prophets give of him In his works of spreading out the Heavens and treading upon the waves of the Sea c. In those frightful and amazing Accounts the Scripture give us of the transactions of the last Day c. And certainly did we but endeavour to possess our Souls with tolerable Conceptions of this great and dreadful Being from these imperfect Notices we have of him we could not but be induced to take some tolerable care how and what we say when we are speaking unto God for the Angels themselves the ten thousand times ten thousand that stand before him do not more truly minister in his Presence than we do in our addresses to Him And Oh! that we had but a glimps of him that is Invisible that the God of Heaven would but irradiate our dark capacity with some beam of his Majesty with what Reverence what Fear and Trembling should we come before him And this more especially in places consecrate and set apart for the payment of our homage to him where he vouchsafes his more immediate and more special Presence Not indeed after any gross and local manner as the Gentiles conceiv'd of their fictitious Deities in their Temples in which sense it is said of the most High that he dwelleth not in Temples Acts. 7. made with hands but by the retinue of his Angels which give their more immediate Attendance there as in their Masters house by his Word and Sacraments and by his peculiar readiness to hear and bless those that devoutly call Exod. 20 24. upon his Name there for which reason as one well observes the Tabernacle of the Lord was call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tabernacle of meeting not of Mens meeting together as is commonly suppos'd when we translate it Tabernacle of the Congregation but of God's meeting there with Men his poor humble Supplicanâ—s For so he Nâ—mb 17 4. himself gives the reason of the Name And thou shalt lay them up says God to Moses speaking of the Rods of the Tribes in the Tabernacle of the Ezod 25. 22. Congregation before the Testimony where I will meet with you And there I will meet with thee and commune with thee And what else can be the true and unstrained meaning of that Passage of our Saviour's in the Gospel where he promises that where two or three are gathered together in his Name he is there in the midst of them For whatever may be particularly affirmed of the Temple a greater than Isal 85. 35. Solomon is here even God wonderful in his holy Places sure these are no other than the Houses of God these are the Gates of Heaven AND therefore we would do well to take care how we make Iniquity even the solemn Meeting by affronting God with our lip Services and that so immediately to his Face For can any any Man in his wits but think that the great God to whom the profoundest homage of the Soul is due is much more affronted than he is honoured by the dull spiritless muttering a few Pater nosters
Voluntiers in the service and as our Thoughts are thus above the reach of fear so of favour too above the love of friends or the reverence of great men or the expectation of rewards for who can pay a man for that which no man knows but the Spirit of a man which is in him how shall outward hopes influence the inward transactions of ones own breast only external acts of sin indeed may have somthing to say for themselves because they may chance to carry their wages such as it is along with them but he who plays the knave the adulterer the murderer c. in his own heart he has nothing in exchange for his Soul but sins for pure sinnings sake as it were without any prospect of ever being consider'd for his pains without any other wages than the old standing one of death VII AND Lastly those Sins which have a more immediate relation to the mind and spirit as pride envy ambition malice unfaithfulness uncharitableness c. which are transacted mostly in the inner man as they are more incorrigible so consequently more criminal than others For as to those Vices which in a high measure depend upon the tempers and constitutions of our Bodies want of fuel will in time dead their flame when the spirits flag the blood chills and the pulse beats low and the evil days come on wherein we have no pleasure in them the decays of nature set the Soul then at some tolerable sort of liberty to reflect upon her own condition but as to the other age generally only serves to confirm and establish us in them For how rarely do we see a covetous wretch let go his hold of the earth tho' he is dropping into it how seldom are envy and malice exchang'd for contentment and good nature and when see we the proud ambitious man reduced to the same level of mind with his humble neighbours Sins of this kind have too much of the Aethiopian's skin and the Leopard's spots easily to admit the laver of regeneration Accordingly we find the Angels who kept not their first station reserv'd in everlasting chains under darkness to the Judgment of the great day for sins of this incorrigible kind For suppose their sin pride and ambition malice or envy or what you will 't was certainly transacted in the mind without the intervention of corporal efficiency and deriv'd it's peculiar venom from the spirituality of its nature Mental sins then were the first and are still considered in themselves the most crying provocations SECT 4. Other Reasons why we should govern our Thoughts BESIDES what has been hitherto alledg'd on this behalf the consideration of God's all-seeing eye ought also to influence the conduct of our Thoughts they lie not indeed within the walk of humane justice are without the ken of humane inspection no eye can pry into the recesses of the heart but God sees and knows and reads their subtilest motions and darkest intrigues with greater perspicacity then we do men's outward words and actions For lo there is not a thought not the motion of the least fibre in our hearts but he knoweth it altogether knoweth it afar off at the distance of Eternity it self e'er we or our thoughts had any other being than in the Divine Idea For no thought can Job 42. 2. be witholden from him Hell and Prov. 15. 11. destruction are before him how much more then the hearts of the Children of Men And then how strongly are we obliged to keep good order there since they are under the eye of so intimate and accurate an Observer of their internal motions and subject to the inspection of so true a Judge of good discipline and so severe an Avenger of bad But I shall urge this consideration farther in it's proper place as a means to assist us in the ordering of our thoughts aright And therefore II. IN order to this end it would be â—onsidered that God bears a special regard to the obedience of our hearts and affections For tho bright and shining Examples of Vertue diffuse a lustre round about them promote the divine honour and induce men to glorifie the great Father of such burning Lights which is in Heaven yet nothing is so unexceptionable a demonstration of the power of Grace and the sincerity of our hearts as a conscientious care and management of those Thoughts that fly up and down in them for where such an obedience is yeilded to the divine commands as no eye can pry into but that which is ten thousand times brighter than the Sun in its Zenith it cannot possibly admit of the least intermixture or suspition of by-respect but must be tender'd God purely for his own Sake from a true spiritual principle of life and in a spiritual manner and then what sacrifice can possibly be more acceptable to our Maker than the immediate issues and emanations of our Souls when there is no Stander by no Witness of what passes betwixt God and our Souls in private no secular consideration that can possibly ingage us nor temporal rewards to induce nor temporal punishments to force us to the discharge of so spiritual and hidden a duty III. 'T IS a main point of Wisdom and Argument of good understanding to be able to order our Thoughts aright and the acquisition of that noble Character should spur us on to this discipline of our minds All the reasonable World will allow him to be a penson of a vast compass of understanding who by foreseeing and providing against the exigences of State by knowing how to compound temper and qualifie the different interests passions and perswasions of Men c. prudently administers a Government and if so no less will he deserve the Character who governs his Thoughts well for they are a Great people for number and as mutinous and disorderly as the most tumultuous rabble so that they who rule well in this sense too are worthy of double Honour IV. AND Lastly let the consideration of the noble and dignified Nature of our Thoughts induce us to an orderly management of them for they are beams of that Light which is inaccessible the immediate fruits and eldest Sons of that immortal Parent in us which is nearly allied to the Divinity it self and how then can we possibly be so insensible of our own high Character who were framed after the Image of the Immortal God and are designed to be made more ample partakers of his Nature as to lay out our time and our pains so busily as we do in the management of a Family acquireing an Estate and supporting and adorning a mouldring Carcase and yet totally disregard the menage of our thoughts which are the pride and glory of our Nature For wherein else but in this thinking reasoning Power do we differ from the inhabitants of our stable or our kennel And as this in general diserminates our Nature from theirs so I had almost said do's one Man as much differ from
her Mind Cares intangle and perplex the Thoughts and too much Worldly business limes and clings the wings of our Mind so fast that it cannot take its due and natural slight Variety of objects ever weakens and distracts the force of our faculties which are so stinted in their operation that they cannot with any tollerable vigor direct to more than one mark at once and therefore if we would bear a due regard to the truest improvement of our Minds and management of our Thoughts we must narrow our secular affairs as much as we can lest the multitude of business which Solomon says occasions dreams in sleep make our Thoughts to be little better in the day time And therefore in order to take off our Minds from a too greedy pursuit of secular concernments that we may be thereby the better inabled to attend upon God and our own Souls without distraction let us X. IN the next place frequently set before us the vanity of the World and the emptiness of all its injoyments Remembring that that was the result of Solomon's vast experience in this kind Vanity was the Motto he inscribed on all things under the Sun for even when he gave his heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under Heaven even this also this noble imployment of his vast capacities he pronounces no better than vexation of Spirit for in much wisdom says he is much grief and he that increaseth knowledge it self do's but increase his sorrow And if this great Master of experience and skillful observer of things met with so very little satisfaction even in the pursuit of knowledge and resolves the conclusion of the whole matter as he speaks into the fearing of God and keeping his commandments we may safely conclude that there is nothing here below adequate to the large Soul of Man worthy to engage his affections and ingross his powers and if we can but thus wean our Thoughts from the World and its allurements we shall then be at liberty to lay them out elswhere to better purpose and to our own greater and more lasting satisfaction NOT that what I have said on these two last heads is to be understood as if I would have all Men devote themselves to Contemplation to quit the World and their ordinary Imployments and meddle with no business for I prescribe it XI IN the next place as an excellent remedy against evil Thoughts to avoid Idleness which in common experience ever gives the Devil an advantage against us when David coming from lolling on his Bed walked idly it should seem on the Roof of his House he immediately 2 Sam. 11. presented Bathsheba to his Thoughts and soon prevailed with him to accept of the Proffer For when we are the idlest he is the busiest when we do the least he do's the most with us If our Minds sleep he 'l sow his Tares the faster and if we let them lie fallow Weeds will be the natural Product of the neglected Soil Standing Minds like standing Waters puddle and corrupt and become the proper Element of Vermin XII AGAIN it will be our Wisdom for the better management of our Thoughts now and then to review them to call them together to the Muster and examine the state and plight of our Minds to encourage good Motions and discountenance Bad and to let them know we have set a spie upon them and that they come not there without our Observation And because every Man has his blind Side and the Sin of his Bosom and consequently our Thoughts run further into some sort of Objects than others we must take particular care and after such review shall be better inabled to guard there most where our Thoughts ply the most where their haunts are and the company they most delight in as he who commands in chief in a Siege will place the strongest Guard there where the Walls or other Fortifications of the Town are the weakest So if you find that lust for instance has stollen in at the Windows of your eyes and got the greatest ascendant over you watch your Thoughts on that side for there they 'l be sure to hanker So again if you observe your self the weakest on the side of provocations and Anger be your infirmity take care to have your Reason within call and take off your Thoughts betimes from resentments and meditating revenge for that 's the subject they 'l be sure most of all to dwell on c. And thus by reveiwing our Thoughts we shall both acquire power and learn how to manage them and be able to countermine the Devil who knowing our strong and feeble part better many times than we do our selves always layes his train there where 't is most likely to take fire and to blow up our Hearts the strong Fort of our innocence XIII SINCE as has been before observ'd our Thoughts are generally too much at the command of our passions so that look what sort of affections bear the sway in a Man's heart that way his Thoughts will take their course therefore is it highly advisable again to ride this brutal part of us with a strait rein to raise and spiritualize our affections by setting them on things above and not letting them run so madly as they do on things that are upon the earth For tho Thoughts give the first being to affections as no Man can love or hate a thing before he thinks on 't yet when they are once placed upon their objects they make our Thoughts dance after them at their pleasure As if fear has seiz'd us it calls in all our Thoughts to view the frightful object disorders our powers and makes the mind paint the bugbear with unjust dimensions perhaps and unnatural colours so if desire carry us abroad amongst variety of objects our Thoughts must keep it company and lie under that infinite perplexity and distraction that naturally attends its extravagance and therefore if we would command our Thoughts we must first learn to command our passions XIV HE that would have the company of good Thoughts must entertain them kindly and give them a friendly reception when they come and visit him If you receive them coldly and with an Air of indifferency they 'l be as shie to you in time as you can be to them for the Divine Spirit the great Author of them will not always strive with Men but will take wing fly away and desert you for they are nimble movers and are sent upon an errand that is your own truest interest and therefore if you have not yet learnt to be wise to your selves by closing with their proposals co-operating with them and working out your own Salvation they have no Commission to force or drive you on to happiness like an horse or mule that have no understanding but will leave you not only where but worse than they found you XV. SINCE
occasion require But he must have a further and a fairer Mark at which he aims and directs them all A Man may make this or that harbour as occasion serves in his voyage but sure every motion he makes is in subserviency to gain some one determinate port of Traffick for otherwise as the one sails uncertainly and to very little purpose so the other thinks and lives but from hand to mouth as we say by breaks and by parcels without any dependance and coherence in Thought or Action he pursues no one Road of Life but takes into every by-path and his Thoughts like a wanton Spaniel in its range run after every accidental Game that comes in their way Est aliquid quò tendis in quod dirigis arcum An passim sequeris corvos testâque lutoque Securus quò pesferat atque ex tempore vivis IX ANOTHER sinful weakness of our Thoughts is seen in their being so much at the command of our passions as if you observe it they generally are for tho Thoughts are originally antecedent to our passions as a Man must first think before he can be affected with Joy grief anger c. Yet when these passions are once up they command the Thoughts that made them and imploy them wholly on those objects that raise and affect them So that look what affections bear the sway in a Man's heart that way his thoughts will take their course as for instance tho a man must first think before he can be angry yet when that Passion is once upit lays out for that time all the Thoughts of an unsanctified Heart upon the Injury Affront or Injustice done one and the means whereby we may effectually resent and revenge it So again when Love and Desire have taken possession of us be the Object what it will our minds are always musing on it Can a Maid forget her Ornaments or a Bride her Attire Sayes Jeremy the things they love and delight in No Our Thoughts are always present with their beloved Object run after it and into it and represent it to us with far more advantages than it really carries along with it And the like might be said of any other of our affections They discompose our minds confuse our Souls and like a too powerful Enemy breaking in upon us put the numerous Army of our Thoughts into disorder so that when the heat of the Battle is over a Man looks back upon the defeat with Sorrow and Regret and is at a vast expence of trouble to rally up his scatter'd good Thoughts again and to put them once more in a posture of defence against those intestine disturbers of his Quiet Now I say this is a signal weakness in our thoughts to be thus carried away by our passions at their Will and Pleasure for our thinking Power was given us amongst other Ends to regulate and prescribe to our passions and not our passions to them BUT since they were given us for good Ends and Purposes and we are not requir'd to eradicate but to govern them therefore the Apostle's rule is the proper Remedy in this Case viz. That we set our affections on things above not upon things that are upon the earth For our Thoughts will partake of the Qualities and Genius of our Affections if the one are Heavenly and Divine the other will on course be so too David speaking of the Blessed Man tells us Psal 1. ver 2. That his delight is in the Law of the Lord and then adds that in his Law doth he meditate day and night and in another place professing of himself that he loved the divine Law he affirms likewise that it was his meditation continnually Psal 119. 97. For Men naturally meditate on what they love and delight in and in Malachy the Fear of God and thinking upon his Name are Malach. 3. 16. joyned together X. THERE is another sinful Vanity of our Thoughts in making the concerns of other Men their Objects when they make Incursions into their Neighbours Affairs break down his Inclosures and impertinently ramble through all his concernments For such is the Curiosity or Malice or Envy or I know not well what to call it of some persons that they can entertain their Thoughts as they do their company too upon occasion much more agreeably with other Men's matters than their own and ev'n whilst they keep at Home incur the guilt of their Character whom St. Paul stiles busie Bodies Tatlers wandring in their Thoughts from House to House The Practice of those generally who in their own phrase have nothing to do as wanting Matter I conceive in themselves for their Thoughts to feed and exert upon NOW this imployment of our Thoughts is not onely silly and impertinent to any good purpose of Life but 't is criminal too in as much as every Man let him have as much secular business as he will yet has work enough upon his hands the improvement of his mind the government of his Passions and the salvation of his Soul to take up all his Thoughts all his time and leisure and therefore it must needs be Sin in a Man in neglect of his own proper business to let the precious sand of his Thoughts run out upon other Mens where they are not call'd and have nothing to do AND as it is a vanity of our Thoughts to gad so much abroad amongst our Neighbours affairs where they have no business so are they no less vain in this that when they stay at home and turn their Eyes inward they are apt to overlook the failings and imperfections of their Owners Every Man has his Fort and his Foible his strong and his weak part his seeing and his blind side and whilst the eyes of our minds view the one even the least Mote of Excellency in us with infinite Complacency and Satisfaction they commonly wink so hard at the other that they let Beams themselves escape their Observation For every one that doth evil hateth the Light of his own mind neither cometh to the Light least his Deeds Mat. 7. 8. should be reproved For self Love is ever ready to take care that a Man fall not out with himself Lastly ANOTHER leading imperfection of our Thoughts is observable in their Levity or want of fixation whereby we become as unstable as water and shall not excell The heart of the foolish is like a Cart Wheel saies the wise Son of Sirach and his Thoughts are like a rolling Axle-tree Glib and voluble in their Motions nothing so volatile and aery as they they stream and shoot in an instant from one corner of the Earth to another sore as high as Heaven and dive as deep as Hell curvet and caper over the whole Creation and as if that were too little for them flie beyond the limits of the Universe and the bounds of time to Eternity and Imaginary Spaces Like wanton Spaniels they set out with you and perhaps wait on you home
it should be able of it self to terrifie it self to fill the mind with Horror to startle its own Corruptions and go directly contrary to its own Affections Inclinations and Reluctancies borders too much upon a contradiction to be admitted No Man for instance of himself can be studious of Life and yet at the same time entertain Thoughts of turning felo de se The Suggestions of this kind that derive purely from our own Hearts are always more or less agreeable to Nature pleasing to our Affections and fall in with our own Inclinations II. THE injections of the Devil are discernable from the productions of our own Hearts by the Manner of their assailing us Corrupt Nature proceeds orderly and deliberately with us tampers and argues with our Thoughts and through the deceitfulness of Sin gradually gets ground upon us till by steps and successive advances it compleats its intended Victory For our own Lusts do not force but draw us away wheedle us on and entice us But 't is Jam. 14. otherwise with Satanical Injections of this horrid Kind they are a sort of motus in instanti dart and break in upon our Thoughts howsoever otherwise imployed and taken up without any previous intimation of their approaches the Devil in these cases sends no harbingers before him to prepare his way but forces his passage on a suddain shoots like that Lightning to which our Saviour compares his Fall into our Minds and Luk. 10. 18. Hell takes our Heaven by Violence AND as Thoughrs of this kind are thus suddain in their first attacques upon us so are they observed generally to be very pertinacious and obstinate in the continuance of them which is a III. INDICATION that they proceed from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for t is highly agreeable to the innate malice of his temper incessantly to alarm the Fort of our Souls with perplexities and anxieties of mind about his injections even then when he sees he is unable to carry it The IV. AND last sign of his being the Author of these Thoughts within us is from the effects that generally attend them Our own Thoughts being the natural issue of our own hearts do not scare nor affright us nor are follow'd with any extraordinary perturbation of Mind and Spirit and therefore when Men meet with such Thoughts as are accompanied with an horror and dread upon their Spirits with confusion of mind astonishment of its powers and perhaps with equal agonies and convulsions of Body there to be sure the Devil is the sole operator Agreeable whereunto is that observation of antiquity that they were false Prophets and of Diabolical inspiration who were acted in a confused perplexed and distracted manner the principal Test this whereby the Catholick Christians were wont to distinguish an Enthusiastic Montanist from a Divinely inspired Prophet as may be seen in Eusebius where we find Miltiades an Ecclesiastic Author writing a Euseb lib. 5 ch 16. 17. whole tract upon this subject and Asterius Vrbanus challenging them all to produce him one single instance of a Prophet under either Old or New Testament acted after their dark and impetuous manner For the Devil dealt violently with his Enthusiasts confused and oppress'd their understandings distorted and convuls'd their bodily Organs and in short put them like the unhappy Persons we at present speak of into most terrible agonies of Soul and Body Pythia her self never mounted the Tripos but with horror where she fomed raved and tore her hair like a drunken or a frantic person whilst the Prophetick fit lasted on her and this I was the more willing by the by to take notice of because the darkness of Mind and violent agitations of Body observable among'st a company of poor besotted if not sometimes possessed Sectaries amongst our selves agree so exactly with the descriptions antiquity has left us of those Children of disobedience the Devil wrought in then that one may very well be tempted to conclude he repeats the experiment now and then upon these Men too COME we now in the Fourth place to consider how far these horrid and amazing Thoughts affect our main state and touch our Salvation an argument so much the more necessary by how much 't is an undoubted stratagem of the Devil to urge the incursion of such Thoughts upon these unhappy Person as cause of despair and evident argument of their reprobation and here is to be observed 1. THAT it is not altogether in our power to govern our Thoughts they are not absolutely subject to our dominion for the Heart of Man is as it were an high Road through which Passengers both good and bad will take their way without asking leave of us or if you will take it under the notion of a publick House which is open to all Comers not only to the sober but to lewd and debauch'd company whose wild roarings curses and huzzas will strike our Ears and we cannot help it For we can no more prevent our simple apprehensions of things than a sound and open eye can prevent its seeing and the one is no more polluted by a vitious object than the other and therefore to be sure God will never condemn us for what we cannot help nor hinder For 2. IT can never be Sin to us because unavoidable to be subject to the inroads of these black blasphemous Thoughts upon our minds no more than 't is sin in us to be liable to the assaults of any other Temptation What worse is a sober Person for being tempted onely to excess of drinking or a chast Virgin to incontinence Our Lord himself was tempted to commit the most gross and abominable Idolatry and yet notwithstanding that was as free from sin in his Thoughts as from guile in his Mouth because he resisted the Temptation and baffled the Tempter We sin only then when we basely give way and comply with him The Law of Moses excused a Virgin that was forced in the Field far from hearing for as when a Man riseth Deut. 22. 26. against his Neighbour and slayeth him even so is this Matter So when the Devil commits a Rape upon our Souls by Atheistical Blasphemous or any other Horrid Injections if we cry out for help abhor the base Suggestions in our Judgment our Will and Affections great is our Victory and greater shall be our Crown and Glory guilt is our Portion only then when we embrace the bold Ravisher of our Hearts and kiss and hug the production of so monstrous a Coaction He were highly criminal who in a besieg'd Town should willfully set his own house on fire but a Man certainly is not responsible for the fire balls and bombs that are thrown in by the Enemy all he can and consequently is bound to do is to use his best Diligence to extinguish the fire enkindled by them and thus it is with these Thoughts we speak of if we make them out of the amunition of our own hearts we are accountable for
retirement of the Mountains But yet in this case when the mind left to it self is apt continually to dwell upon one's own supposed desperate Condition and be perpetually haunted with the Ghosts it has conjur'd up t is far more adviseable to repair to the City than to the Desart and to chuse Company before a Retreat The one will help to lay the evil Spirit the other as certainly improves its Terrors If one fall in Society another may lift him up again but in Privacy a Man must stand upon his own bottom and be in some measure self sufficient to encounter with the Tempter and that in circumstances most advantagious to his Design upon us for the temptations of Solitude are I verily believe more dangerous than those to be met with upon the stage of Action because it lays us more especially open to the assaults of the Tempter for which reason 't is rationally presumed he made choice of the Wilderness when he encountred with our Lord and Saviour and both Reason and the experience of several of Ignatius particularly that famous Founder of the Jesuit's Order and eminent Instance of the Truth assures us that they who give themselves much up to Solitude are infinitely obnoxious to Satanical Illusions If therefore we would divert and break the force of these frightful Thoughts and Suggestions we would do well to keep our Minds imployed either in innocent and agreeable Conversation or when out of that in our own and proper Imployments for idleness is a sort of Solitude of the Mind even in places of the greatest Concourse and gives the Devil as great an Advantage against us as the other Solitude of the Desert or the Cloister III. 'T IS advised by Divines in these cases rather to slight than to struggle and contest with the Temptor not to argue the case or enter into parley with him about one's Condition for the conflict will gall and chafe our Minds the more but as far as we are able to let his Hellish Injections go as they come and be no more concern'd for his blaspheming within us than for the Curses and Imprications of any other lewd Company that we cannot get rid of For Opposition do's but perpetuate the Fray and make the Battle the hotter A wild Beast if you violently stop its Passage may chance to run over you let it alone t' will go the gentlier by you The way then in this case is not to resist the Devil otherwise than by Prayer but to let him spend his Fury and bear his Shocks with a severe Contempt of them with a resolv'd firmness of Mind and sedateness of Temper till his force dissipates and wasts away of it self IV. AND Lastly a constant prosecution of one's Duty howsoever irksom and uncomfortable it may appear will certainly in time give the Mind Ease and set it at Liberty from these Hellish Thoughts The Clouds that darken the Mind now will by perseverance in Duty be succeeded by a perfect Day a Day of Glory and eternal Brightness For God will judge no Man for what he cannot help nor hinder but will certainly reward him who do's him the best Service he is able and is grieved only he can do him no better For 't is true in this case too that if there be a willing Mind it is accepted according to what a Man has and not according to what he has not SECT 2. PROCEED we now to such Considerations as may be proper to govern and fix our Thoughts during our attendance upon religious Duties AND here we cannot more profitably commence this important Work than by the same measure we at first prescribed on the last part of this Subject that is by addresssing to God for his Aid and Assiance in the Matter that not onely the Words of our Mouth but the Meditations if our Heart especially in our immediate approaches to Him may be always acceptable in the sight of the Lord our God and our Redeemer For Prayer it self will facilitate that application of Mind which is necessary to a due performance of it in as much as it purifies the Heart sublimates the Spirit and exalts it above its natural Pitch and Level For by often returning to God and carefully renewing our commerce with Heaven we shake off our criminal Dispositions and what was at first irksom and wearisomness to the flesh becomes at length an easie and a pleasurable Exercise He will never be able to arrive to any tolerable degree of Perfection in any Attainment whose desires do not first carry him on towards it with some Eagerness and Impatience and Prayer is nothing but putting our desires into Suit He is certainly a very temerarious Person who commences any Undertakeing without invokeing first the divine Favour and Assistance The only proper Foundation Stone whereon to build our hopes of Success in any of our Enterprises and judged as such even by the Heathen World it self who generally commenc'd their Works with apprecation of good Success from the great Author of it Cesar being to enter the Senate sacrificed first and Prayer among them was a constant Attendance upon that Performance and Appian particularly speaks of that Act not as of an extraordinary but as of a customary thing And if this piece of homage be so highly our Duty in enterprising things that do not I may say so nearly regard him how much more will it be so in our endeavours to attain that grace which flows directly from him immediately concerns his Honour and is terminated in him as its final and onely proper Object II. ANOTHER proper remedy for the government of our Thoughts in religious Duties is to qualifie and prepare our Hearts before hand for the performance To discharge all Thoughts of the World for that time from their attendance to require them to stand by to carry here or there whilst we go and Pray yonder 'T is true indeed that the Loins of a Mind throughly principled with the Love and Fear of the divine Majesty are always ready girt about for the Sacrifice such Persons liveing under a constant sense and practice of it but we address not here to the whole who have no need of a spiritual Physitian but to those who are sick of their Duty who come to it with ten thousand foreign and improper Ideas with the Images of an Estate a Purchase a Family a Trade a Ball a Consort of Musick or perhaps last nights Debauch about them To these one would prescribe some preparatory Physick some sequestring of the Mind from these ingageing Objects before they enter upon conversing with God and corresponding with Heaven least the Thoughts that possess'd them this hour or this day keep their haunt the next and mar the performance We are not wont to rush into the presence of a Prince without premeditation and some previous care of our Mien and Deportment and how comes it then to pass that we dare presume to address the Living God so familiarly
or any other Prayers by the bare telling over as the manner of some is and stringing up their Petitions We durst not thus mock our Prince to his Face we would hardly do it to our Equals and whence then is it but through want of preparing our Hearts with due Conceptions of his Awful and Majestick Presence in his own House that we make thus bold with our Maker 3. IT might be a proper preparatory reflection to consider the Fruits and Consequences of approaching God in so careless and so incogitant a Manner I shall not go about to shew at large how severe God has formerly been upon all disorders and irregularities committed about holy Things and Duties as in the Case of Aarons Sons of Vzzah of Lev. 10. 2. 2 Sam. 6. 6. the Bethshemites and of the Church 1 Sam. 6. 19. 1 Câ—r 11. 30. of Corinth nor how he threatn'd that for this very thing because his People drew near to him with their Lips but had removed their Heart far from him he would therefore Isa 29. 13 14. proceed to do a marvellous Work among them even a marvellous Work and a Wonder Which was no less than to confound the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the prudent Men amongst them I shall not I say insist on these Considerations now because it has seem'd good to the infinite Wisdom to alter the nature of his Inflictions and for neglects of this kind especially to change them from temporal into spiritual which tho they do not so immediately affect the Body as the others did yet endanger the Soul and take away the spiritual Life of a Christian For tho he do's not now smite Men with Death for their unsanctified Approaches to him yet he smites them with Deadness with Coldness and Indifferency in the cause of Religion suffers them to grow listless reasty and awkard at their Devotions and ten to one to lapse at long run into open Atheism and Prophaneness For we certainly lose ground by every spiritless Prayer we advance grow from bad to worse from worse to stark nought and past feeling For every such formal performance grieves the Spirit cloggs the Conscience hardens the Heart and gives the Devil an occasion to draw us off from our Neutrality and to make us at last declare for his Party whence it is not improbable that when we have once contracted such a vitious habit and crasis of Soul in Devotion he himself many times sends us to our Prayers adding that he may add to our Disease and turn the best Antidote we have against him into so much stronger Poison to our selves And therefore we would do well to season and prepare our Hearts beforehand with these and the like Considerations that by a just Reslection upon the Importance of the Duty the Supream Majesty to whom we pay it and the fatal Consequences of a perfunctory Performance of it we may attend upon the Lord without Distraction III. ANOTHER proper means to fix our Thoughts in the Service of God is to Love him with all our Hearts with all the Powers and Capacities of our Souls did we Delight to have our Conversation with Him our Hearts would keep our Minds close to their Work and not suffer them to loiter or to ramble for our Affections have an immediate Influence upon our Thoughts and our Hearts generally sets our Mind the Theme of its Contemplations Love particularly is a commanding and imperial Passion that bids us go and and we go come and we come do this and we do it a passion that ingrosses all our Powers binds us fast to and runs our Thoughts so deep into its Object that we have neither Leisure nor Patience hardly Power to attend to any others O how I love thy Law says holy David and then it follows both in him and in the nature of the things it is my Meditation all the Ps 119. 97. Day and the first part of his Character of a good Man is that his Delight is in the Law of the Lord and the second is the natural Result of the first that in his Law doth he meditate Day and Night Ps 1. 2. For a Man cannot but pore and muse on the thing he delights in and therefore were our Hearts ravished with the Love of God from just and retired Reflections upon the benefits of Creation Preservation Redemption and the Glory that hereafter shall be Revealed did we but kindle this holy Flame in us by frequent Considerations of his patience forgiveness forbearance the Abyss of his Love and the great depths of his infinite beneficence things that must needs render the Deity amiable and lovely to us in our Conceptions of him all our motions would tend Heaven wards when once invigorated with impressions from that celestial Fire we should not be at leisure to admit any Rival of God in our Thoughts and to attend to those little idle Toys and Fancies that have the impudence to step into our Closets and distract us IV. MEDITATION is another proper Remedy of the wandring of our Thoughts in Prayer The Hill of Meditation is indeed of difficult but yet of noble Ascent that lifts us up so far above our natural Level that we look down upon the World and all its Enjoyments which so frequently interrupt our Devotions as a very little Thing 'T is an heroic and abstracted Operation of the Soul that lets us into the very secrets of the Objects we Contemplate that makes every day fresh Discoveries and gives us both deep and diffused Prospects of things otherwise invisible the Telescope of the Mind whereby we descry new Worlds a new Heaven and a new Earth the Terra incognita of Nature and Grace and see things at an immense distance from us It opens to us the Scene of Paradise it self makes a sort of indistance betwixt God and our own Souls takes us out or at least makes us forget that we are Flesh fills our head with those elevated Conceptions and warms our Heart with those Ravishments of Joy that we can feel indeed but cannot utter or express them And he who has never yet been experimentally sensible of this Truth never yet rightly enjoyed either God or himself has the most exquisite Pleasure of this Life yet to come and wants the preparatory Foretaste of the enjoyments of the other Meditation in a word I mean where God is the Object both quickens and fixes our Devotion which embraces not its Object but in proportion as Meditation gives it Entrance V. AND Lastly Solitude gives a mighty fixation of Thought in private and Religious Assemblies in publick Devotion for a Retreat naturally tends to Recollection of the Spirit and Communion with God it helps to center all the Emanations of our Souls upon him and gives us more pure and perfect Prospects and therefore when thou prayest says he who taught us to pray enter into thy Closet not only to avoid that vain Pomp and
few Men are of that strong and athletick temper of Soul as to be able to bear the shocks of adversity but that it generally ruffles and discomposes their Thoughts and like the desperate pushes of an enemy breaks their ranks and puts them in disorder it would be therefore of excellent and common use for the management of our Thoughts in those exigences to be verst in the Theory of the Divine dispensations to bring our selves to a recumbency upon God and commit our cares to him who careth for us that we may thereby maintain an evenness of temper amidst the roughest emergencies and enjoy a calm of mind within amidst the loudest storms without XVI AGAIN since notwithstanding the immaterial and spiritual nature of the Soul it is capable of being wrought upon and affected by the body during their union for when once link'd and wedded together there ariseth a mutual sympathy betwixt the unequal couple and that thence doubtless proceed many foolish wandering and impure cogitations it would be advisable to tame the one by the macerations of the other to mortifie the flesh to keep our bodies under and not cram and indulge them till the Beast rides the Man till they grow too hard for our reason throw off its government and draw even it in too to second the motions and solicitations of the flesh For the flames of lust quench the spirit as the scorching Sun beams put out the gentler heat of the fire Foul weather in the lower Region sends up nought but filthy Streams and vapours The pure in Heart only shall see God here as well as hereafter and thence be furnished with just and elevated conceptions for he will not accept polluted Bread upon his Altar Nor will Mal. 1. 7. admit an unclean sacrifice If therefore we would be Masters of our own Thoughts we must first be Masters of our Appetites and not pamper and indulge our Carkasses but wisely avoiding all excesses of this kind must endeavour by a Substraction of unnecessary fuel from the Body to let the fire thereby kindled in our Thoughts go out XVII LASTLY it will highly conduce to the ordering of our Thoughts aright to live as much as possibly we can under this Apprehension that Almighty God is present with them see 's knows reads and scans their subtlest Motions and darkest Intrigues better than the Eyes and Ears of Men hear or see them in their fruits of Words and Actions For lo there is not a Thought in our Heart but he knoweth it altogether and afar off for I know their Imagination says God concerning his People which they go about Deut. 31. 21. even now before I have brought them into the land which I swear For He even He only knows all the Hearts of 1 Kings 8. 39. the Children of Men and as Job says Job 4â— 2. no Thought can be witholden from him Hell and Destruction are before him Prov. 15. 11. how much more then the Hearts of the Children of Men For shall not the Almighty Artificer who made the Heart know all the wheels the springs â—nd movements that are in it Go then and ascend up into Heaven in the Psalmist's Rethorick on this occasion make thy bed in Hell take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Sea go whither do what thou wilt there 's an Ear to over-hear thee an Eye to over-look thee and an invisible hand to transcribe and register the closest transactions of thy Mind We find the Royal David had such a continual lively Sense of this matter on Ps 139. him that he tells us when he awaked God was ever present with him occur'd immediately to his Mind as those objects generally do at our wakening which most of all engross our Thoughts And could we but learn to live under the same quick Apprehension would we walk less by Sense and more by Faith and look through at those things that lie within the Vail it would be a mighty use to us in the management of this hidden and unseen part of us For since our Sins in embrio at their first conception in the Soul are as loathsom in Gods Eyes as they are in their Birth and Production shameful in the eyes of Men Since the remarks of those who are of like Infirmities with our selves are powerful enough to perswade us to the regulation of our outward Behaviour and we should really be in confusion to have any grave sober Friend whose esteem we value and whose judgment we revere privy to all the foolish and unhallowed Thoughts of our Souls how much rather should the consideration of Gods all-seeing Eye lay a restraint upon our internal Follies For what absurdity is this to be ashamed of what passes in our Thoughts could Men pry into those recesses and yet to let God look on without the least Emotion What inadvertancy or Atheism rather is it to be ashamed or afraid of an overt act of wickedness least Men should find us out and yet at the same time riot in our Hearts and debauch in our Thoughts when God all the while stands by a Spectator and if he pleas'd himself a just Avenger of all such impious Transactions Since then God certainly knows all that passes in our Hearts sees and observes who comes in and who goes out is intimate to every unclean or otherwise sinful Thought to every unlawful Desire to every malicious and revengeful Wish to whatsoever in a word is transacted in that Cabinet Councel let us endeavour after such an habituated Thought of God as may mix him not in our actions onely but in all the movements of our Minds Let the consideration of his Presence ingage us to keep strict Discipline there to Order and Govern and Manage our Thoughts aright as what are all open and naked in his Sight for surely the Lord is with them tho perhaps we are not aware of it I shall shut up the whole with the excellent Collect of our Church relating to this Purpose ALMIGHTY GOD unto whom all Hearts be open all Desires known and from whom no Secrets are hid cleanse the Thoughts of our Hearts by the Inspiration of thy Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnifie thy Holy Name through Christ our Lord. Amen FINIS