with that which is done, not of constraint, but willingly. In our covenanting with God, we must not be actuated by a spirit of bondage and fear, but by a spirit of adoption....a spirit of power and love, and a sound mind....Rom. yiii. 15-11 Tim. i. 7. We must join ourselves to the Lord, not only because it is our duty, and that which we are bound to, but because it is our interest, and that by which we shall be unspeakable gainers-not with reluctancy and regret, and with a half consent extorted from us, but with an entire sat isfaction, and the full consent of a free spirit. Let it be a pleasure to us to think of our interest in God as ours, and our engagement to him as his-a pleasure to us to think of the bonds of the covenant, as well as of the blessings of the covenant. Much of our com

munion with God (which is so much the delight of all that are sanctified) is kept up by the frequent recognition of our covenant with him, which we should make as those that like our choice too well to change; and as the men of Judah did, when they sware unto the Lord with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets; and all Judah rejoiced at the oath; for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire....11 Chron. xv. 14. 15. Christ's soldiers must be volunteers, not pressed men;" and we must repeat our consent to him with such joy and triumph as appears in that of the spouse-Cant. v. 16..... This is my beloved, and this is my friend.

(5.) We must do it in sincerity: this is the chief thing required in every thing wherein we have to do with God: Behold he desires truth in the inward parts. When God took Abraham into covenant with himself, this was the charge he gave him, Walk before me, and be thou perfect, that is, upright; for uprightness is our gospel perfection. Writing the covenant, and subscribing it, signing and sealing it, may be proper expressions of seriousness and resolution in the transaction, and of use to us in the review: but, if herein we lie unto God with our mouth, and flatter him

with our tongue,' as Israel did, (Psal. Ixxviii. 36.) though we may put a cheat upon ourselves and others, yet we cannot impose upon him: Be not deceived ...God is not mocked. If we only give the hand unto the Lord, and do not give our hearts to him, whatever our pretensions, professions, and present pangs of devotion may be, we are but as sounding brass, and a tinkling cymbal. What will it avail us to say we covenant with God, if we still keep our league with the world and the flesh, and have a secret antipathy to serious godliness? Dissembled piety is no disguise before God, but is hated as double iniquity. It is certain thou hast no part nor lot in the matter, whatever thou mayest claim, if thy heart be not right in the sight of God....Acts viii. 21. I know no religion but sincerity: our vows to God are nothing, if they be not bonds upon the soul.

CHAPTER VI.

Helps for Meditation and Prayer in our Preparation for the Ordinance.

MEDITATION and prayer are the daily exercise and delight of a devout and pious soul. In meditation we converse with ourselves; in prayer we converse with God: and what con onverse can we desire more agreeable and more advantageous? They who are frequent and serious in these holy duties at other times, will find them the easier and the sweeter on this occasion: the friends we are much with, we are most free with ; but if, at other times, we are not so close and constant to them as we should be, we have the more need to take pains with our own hearts, that we may effectually engage them in these services, when we approach the ordinance of the Lord's Supper.

Enter into thy closet, therefore, and shut the door of that against diversions from without; be not shy of being alone. The power of godliness withers and

declines, if secret devotion be either neglected or negligently performed. Enter into thy heart, also, and do what thou canst to shut the door of that against distraction from within. Compose thyself for business, and summon all that is within thee to attend on it; separate thyself from the world, and the thoughts of it; leave all its cares at the bottom of the hill, as Abraham did his servants, when he was going up into the mount to worship God, (Gen. xxii. 5.) and then set thyself about thy work; gird up thy loins and trim thy lamps : up, and be doing, and the Lord be with thee.

(1.) We must set ourselves to meditate on that which is most proper for the confirming of our faith, and the kindling of pious and devout affections in us. Good thoughts should be oft in our minds, and welcome there; so should our souls oft breathe towards God in pious ejaculations that are short and sudden : but as good prayers, so good thoughts must sometimes be set, and solemn; morning and evening they must be so on the Lord's day also, and before the Lord's Supper.

Meditation is thought engaged, and thought enflamed:

(1.) It is thought engaged in it the heart fastens upon, and fixes to a select and certain subject, with an endeavor to dwell and enlarge upon it: not matters of doubtful disputation or small concern, but those things that are of greatest certainty and moment: and since few of the ordinary sort of Christians can be supposed to have such a treasury of knowledge, such a fruitfulness of invention, and so great a compass and readiness of thought, as to be able to discourse with themselves for any time upon any one subject, so closely, methodically, and pertinently as one would wish, it may be advisable either to fasten upon some portion of scripture, and to read that over and over with a closeness of observation and application, or to recollect some profitable sermon lately heard, and

157445

think that over, or to make use of some books of pious meditations or practical discourses, (which, blessed be God, we have great plenty and variety of in our own tongue), and not only read them, but descant and enlarge upon them in our minds, still giving lib. erty to our own thoughts to expatiate, as they are able; but borrowing help from what we read, to re duce them when they wander, refresh them when they tire, and to furnish them with matter when they are barren. In the choice of helps for this work, wisdom and experience are profitable to direct, and no rule can be given to fit all capacities and all cases: the end may be attained in different methods.

(2.) It is thought enfiamed. To meditate, is not only to think seriously of divine things, but to think of them with concern and suitable affection. While we are thus musing, the fire must burn....Psal. xxxix. 3. When the heart meditates terror, (Isa. xxxiii. 18.) the terrors of the Lord, it must be with a holy fear: when we contemplate the beauty of the Lord, his bounty and his benignity, which is better than life, we must do it with a holy complacency, solacing our selves in the Lord our God: the design of meditation is to improve our knowledge, and to affect ourselves with those things with which we have acquainted ourselves, that those impressions of them upon our souls may be deep and durable, and that, by beholding the glory of the Lord, we may be changed into the same image.

Serious meditation before a sacrament will be of great use to us, to make those things familiar to us, which, in that ordinance, we are to be conversant with: that good thoughts may not be to seek when we are there, it is our wisdom to prepare them, and lay them ready beforehand. Frequent acts confirm a habit, and pious dispositions are greatly helped by pious meditations. Christian graces will be the better exercised in the ordinance, when they are thus trained and disciplined, and drawn out in our preparation for it.

For our assistance herein, I shall mention some few of those things which may most properly be pitched upon for the subject of our meditations before a sacrament-I say, before a sacrament, because though this be calculated here for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, yet it may equally serve us in our preparations for the other sacrament, both that we may profit by the public administration of it, and especially that we may, in an acceptable manner, present our children to it; for which service we have as much need carefully to prepare ourselves as for this. As we must in faith join ourselves to the Lord, so we must in faith dedicate those pieces of ourselves to him.

That our hearts, then, may be raised and quickened, and prepared for communion with Christ at his table,

First, Let us set ourselves to think of the sinfulness and misery of man's fallen state. That we may be taught to value our recovery and restoration by the grace of the second Adam, let us take a full and distinct view of our ruin by the sin of the first Adamcome and see what desolations it hath made upon the earth, and how it hath turned the world into a wilderness. How is the gold become dim, and the most fine gold changed! What wretched work did sin make! What a black and horrid train of fatal consequences attended its entrance into the world!

Come, my soul, and see how the nature of man is corrupted and vitiated, and lamentably degenerated from its primitive purity and rectitude-God's image defaced and lost, and satan's image stamped instead of it-the understanding blind, and unapt to admit the rays of the divine light-the will stubborn, and unapt to comply with the dictates of the divine lawthe affections carnal, and unapt to receive the impres sions of the divine love. Come, my soul, and lament the change, for thou thyself feelest from it, and sharest in the sad effects of it; for a nature thus tainted, thus