Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

contemptible: if its essence be noble, its operations are considerable. If the soul be more excellent than the body, its operations must be more excellent. To neglect our thoughts and not employ them upon God, and for God, is to vilify our noblest faculties, and deny God, who is a spirit, that spiritual service which he requires.

3. Our thoughts are commonly our most cordial, voluntary acts, and show the temper and inclination of the heart: and therefore are regardable to God that searches the heart, and calls first for the service of the heart.

4. Our thoughts are radical and instrumental acts such as they are, such are the actions of our lives. Christ tells us that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, which defile the man.

5. Our thoughts are under a law, as well as words and deeds; 'the thought of foolishness is sin' and Christ extends the law even to the thoughts and desires of the heart. And under the law it is said, 'beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart,' &c., namely, of unmercifulness towards thy brother.

ward deeds. Therefore they show more what the man is, and what is in his heart. For as Solomon saith, 'as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.'

8. Our thoughts may exercise the highest graces of God in man; and also show those graces, as being their effects. How is our faith, love, desire, trust, joy, and hope to be exercised, but by our thoughts? If grace were not necessary and excellent, it would not be wrought by the Spirit of God, called the divine nature, and the image of God. If grace be excellent, the use and exercise of it is excellent: therefore our thoughts by which it is exercised must needs have their excellency too.

6

6

9. Our thoughts must be the instruments of our improving all holy truth in scripture, and all the mercies which we receive, and all the afflictions which we undergo. What good will reading a chapter in the Bible do to any one that never thinks on it? Our delight in the law of God must engage us to meditate in it day and night.' What good shall he get by hearing a sermon that exercises not his thoughts for the receiving and digesting it? Our considering what is said, is the way in which we may expect 6. Thoughts can reach much higher than sense, that God should give us understanding in all and may be employed upon the most excellent things.' What the better will he be for any of and invisible objects; and therefore are fit instru- the merciful providences of God, who never bements to elevate the soul that would converse thinks him whence they come, or what is the use with God. Though God be infinitely above us, and end that they are given for? What good our thoughts may be exercised on him; our per- will he get by any afflictions, that never bethinks sons never were in heaven, and yet our conver-him who it is that chastises him, and for what, sation must be in heaven. How is that but by our thoughts? Though we see not Christ, yet by the exercise of believing thoughts on him, we love him, and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.' Though God be invisible, yet our meditations of him may be sweet, and we may delight in the Lord.' Say not that all this is but fanciful and delusory, as long as thoughts of things unseen are fitter to actuate and elevate the love, desires and delights of the soul, and to move and guide us in a regular and holy life, than the sense of lesser present good. The thoughts are not vain or delusory, unless the object of them be false, vain, and delusory. Where the object is great, sure, and excellent, the 10. Our thoughts are so considerable a part thoughts of such things are excellent operations of God's service, that they are often put for the of the soul. If the thoughts of vain glory, whole. A book of remembrance was written for wealth and pleasure, can delight the ambitious, them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon covetous and sensual; no wonder if the thoughts his name.' Our believing and loving God, trustof God and life eternal afford us solid high de- ing in him, and desiring him and his grace, are lights. the principal parts of his service, which are ex7. The thoughts are not so liable to be counter-ercised immediately by our thoughts: in praise feit and hypocritical as are the words and out- and prayer it is this inward part that is the soul

and how he must get them removed, and sanctified to his good? A man is but like one of the pillars in the church, or like the corpse which he treads on, or at best but like the dog that follows him thither for company, if he use not his thoughts about the work which he hath in hand, and cannot say, 'we have thought of thy lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple.' He that bids you hear, doth also bid you take heed how you hear.' You are commanded to lay up the word in your heart and soul, and to set your hearts to all the words which are testified among you: for it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life.'

[ocr errors]

On the contrary the thoughts are named as the sum of all iniquity. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. I have spread out my hands all the day long unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts.'-'O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved: how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.'

[ocr errors]

and life of all. He is a foolish hypocrite that and run in the right channel. Well therefore did thinks to be heard for his much speaking. David make this his request, Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.' I say therefore to those that insist on this irrational objection, that these very thoughts of theirs, concerning the inconsiderableness of thoughts, are so foolish and ungodly, that when they understand the evil even of these, they will know that thoughts were more to be regarded. If therefore thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thy hand upon thy mouth.'

[ocr errors]

11. A man's thoughts are the appointed orderly way for the conversion of a sinner, and the preventing of his sin and misery. David saith, I thought on mine ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.' The prodigal came to himself, and returned to his father, by the success of his own consideration. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways,' is a voice that every sinner should hear. It is he that considereth and doth not according to his father's sins, that shall not die.' Therefore it is God's desire, 'O that they were wise and understood this, and that they would consider their latter end.' It is either men's inconsiderateness, or the error of their thoughts, that is the cause of all their wickedness: 'my people doth not consider.' Paul 'verily thought, that he ought to do many things against the name of Jesus.' Many 'deceive themselves by thinking themselves something when they are nothing.'' They think it strange that we run not with them to excess of riot:' therefore they speak evil of us. Disobedient formalists consider not that they do evil when they think they are offering acceptable sacrifices to God. The very murder of God's holy ones hath proceeded from these erroneous thoughts; they that kill you shall think they do God service.' All the ambition, covetousness, injustice, and cruelty following thereupon, which troubles the world, and ruins men's souls, is from their erroneous thoughts, overvaluing these deceitful things. 'Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations.' The presumptuous and impenitent are surprised by destruction, for want of thinking of it to prevent it: in such an hour as you think not, the Son of man cometh.'

12. Lastly, The thoughts are the most constant actions of a man, and therefore most of the man is in them. We are not always reading, or hearing, or praying, or working: but we are always thinking. Therefore it doth especially concern us to see that this constant breath of the soul be sweet, and that this constant stream be pure

Though, after all this, I still confess that it is so exceeding hard a matter to keep the thoughts in holy exercise and order, that even the best daily and hourly sin, in the omissions, the disorder or vanity of their thoughts; yet for all that, we must needs conclude that the inclination and design of our thoughts must be principally for God, and that the thoughts are principal instruments of the soul, in acting in his service, and moving it towards him, and in all this holy work of our walking with God: therefore to imagine that thoughts are inconsiderable and of little use, is to unman us, and unchristen us. The labour of the mind is necessary for the attaining of the felicity of the mind: as the labour of the body is necessary for the things that belong unto the body. As bodily idleness brings unto beggary, when the diligent hand makes rich: so the idleness of the soul doth impoverish the soul, when the laborious Christian lives plentifully and comfortably, through the blessing of God upon his industry and labour. You cannot expect that God should appear to you in a bodily shape, that you may have immediate converse with him in the body. It is in the Spirit that thou must converse with God who is a Spirit. The mind sees him by faith, who is invisible to the bodily eyes. Nay, if you will have a true and saving knowledge of God, you must not liken him to any thing that is visible, nor have any corporal conceivings of him: earthly things may be the glass in which we may behold him, while we are here in the flesh. But our conceivings of him must be spiritual, and minds that are immersed in flesh and earth, are unmeet to hold communion with him: the natural man knows him not, and the carnal mind is enmity to him, and they that are in the flesh cannot please him.' It is the pure, abstracted, elevated soul, that understands by experience what it is to walk with God.

CHAP. VI.

OBLIGATIONS AND ADVANTAGES OF WALKING WITH GOD.

Having in the foregoing uses, reproved the atheism and contempt of God which ungodly men are continually guilty of, and endeavoured to convince them of the necessity and desirableness of walking with God, and in particular of improving our thoughts for holy converse with him, and answered the objections of the impious and atheistical; I shall next endeavour to cure the remnants of this disease, in those that are sincerely holy, who live too strangely to God their Father in the world. In the performance of this, I shall first show you what are the benefits of this holy life, which should make it appear desirable and delightful; and then I shall show you why believers should addict themselves to it as doubly obliged, and that their neglect of it is a sin attended with special aggravations. This is the remainder of my task.

To walk with God in a holy and heavenly conversation, is the employment most suitable to human nature; not to its corrupt disposition, nor to the carnal interest and appetite; but to nature as nature, to man as man: it is the very work that he was made for: the faculties and frame of the soul and body were composed for it by the wise Creator: they are restored for it by the gracious Redeemer. Though in corrupted nature where sensuality is predominant, there is an estrangement from God, and an enmity and hatred of him, so that the wicked are more averse to all serious, holy converse with him in prayer, contemplation, and a heavenly life, than they are to a worldly, sinful life; yet all this is but the disease of nature, corrupting its appetite, and turning it against that proper food which is most suitable to its sound desires, and necessary to its health and happiness. Though sinful habits are become as it were a second nature to the ungodly, so depraving their judgments and desires that they verily think the business and pleasures of the flesh are most suitable to them; yet these are as contrary to nature as nature, that is, to the primitive tendencies of all our faculties, and the proper use to which they were fitted by our Creator, and to that true felicity which is the end of all our parts and powers, even as madness is contrary to the rational nature, though it were hereditary.

Sect. 1. What can be more agreeable to the nature of man, than to be rational and wise, and

to live in the purest exercise of reason? Certainly there is nothing more rational than that we should live to God, and gladly accept of all that communion with him of which our natures on earth are capable. Nothing can be more reasonable than for the reasonable soul to be entirely addicted to him that did create it, that doth preserve it, and by whom it doth subsist and act. Nothing is more reasonable than that the absolute Lord of nature be honoured, and served wholly by his own: nothing is more reasonable than that the reasonable creature live in the truest dependence upon, and subordination to the highest reason; and that derived, imperfect wisdom, be subservient to, and guided by the primitive, perfect wisdom: it is most reasonable that the children depend upon the father, and the foolish be ruled by the most wise, and that the subjects be governed by the universal king, that they honour him and obey him, and that the indigent apply themselves to him that is all-sufficient, and is most able and ready to supply their wants; and that the impotent rest upon him that is omnipotent.

:

2. Nothing can be more reasonable than that the reasonable nature should intend its end, and seek after its true and chief felicity that it should love good as good, and therefore prefer the chief good before that which is transitory and insufficient. Reason commands the reasonable creature to avoid its own delusion and destruction, and to rest upon him that can continually support us, and not upon the creature, that will deceive us and undo us: to prefer the highest and noblest converse before that which is inferior, unprofitable and base, and that we rejoice more in the highest, purest, and most durable delights, than in those that are sordid and of short continuance. Who knows not that God is the chief good, and true felicity of man, the everlasting rock, the durable delight, and to be preferred before his creatures? Who might not find, that would use his reason, that all things below are vanity and vexation?

3. Nothing can be more rational and agreeable to man's nature, than that the superior faculties should govern the inferior, that the brutish part be subject to the rational; and that the ends and objects of this higher faculty be preferred before the objects of the lower that the objects of sense be made subservient to the objects of reason. If this be not natural and rational, then it is natural to man to be no man, but a beast, and reasonable to be unreasonable. Now it is evident that a holy living unto God, is but the improvement of true reason, and its employment

no pleasure in hunting or playfulness, as he had when he was a whelp. Only he is less deluded, and less vain, than other sensualists that find more pleasure in their course.

for and upon its noblest object, and its ultimate | other than a sensual life: as an old dog that hath end and that a sensual life is the exercise of the inferior brutish faculties, in predominancy above and before the rational: therefore to question whether God or the Creator should be first sought, loved, principally desired, delighted in, and served, is but to question whether we should live like men or like beasts, and whether dogs or wise men be fitter companions for us? Whether the rider or the horse should have the rule? Whether the rational or sensitive powers be superior and proper to the nature of a man?

Object. But there is a middle state of life, betwixt the sensual and the divine or holy life, which sober philosophers did live, and this is the most natural life, and most properly so called.

Answ. I deny this; there is no middle state of life, if you denominate the several states of life, from the several ends, or the several powers. I grant that the very sensitive powers in man, especially the imagination, is much advanced by the conjunction of reason, above that of a brute: I grant that the delights of the imagination may be preferred before the immediate pleasure of the senses and I grant that some little distant knowledge of God, things divine, and hopes of attaining them, may affect an unsanctified man with an answerable pleasure. But all this is nothing to prove that there is a third sort of end, or of powers, and so a third or middle state of life, specially distinct from the sensitive and the holy life. Besides, the vegetative man hath no other life or faculties, than the sensitive and the rational therefore one of these must be in predominancy or rule. Therefore he can have no middle sort or end; and therefore no middle state of life, that can be said to be agreeable to his nature. Those that seek and take up their chief felicity in riches and plenty, and provisions for the flesh, though not in present pleasing of the sense, live but the life of sensuality. A fox or dog takes pleasure when he hath eaten his belly full, to hide and lay up the rest: and so doth the bee to fill the hive, and make provision for the winter. The proud that delight in honour and applause, and making others subject to their lusts, live but the life of sensuality: a dog, a horse, and other brutes, have something of the same. They that are grave through melancholy, or because they can reach no great matter in the world, and because their old or duller spirits are not much pleased with juvenile delights, and so live retiredly, and seek no higher pleasure or felicity, but only sit down with the weeping or the laughing philosopher, lamenting or deriding the vanity of the world, do yet live no

[ocr errors]

Object. All the doubt is concerning those that place their felicity in knowledge, and those that delight in moral virtues, or that delight in studying of God, though they are no Christians.

Answ. The point is weighty, and hath often unhappily fallen into injudicious hands. I shall endeavour to resolve it as truly, clearly and impartially as I can. It is a great error against the nature of man, to say, that knowledge, as such, is fit to be any man's chief and ultimate end. It may be that act which is next the enjoying act of the will, which is it that indeed is next the end, objectively considered: but it is not that act which we call the last end. This is plain, (1.) Because the object of the understanding, which is truth, is not formally the nearest object or matter of full felicity or delight: it is goodness that is the nearest object. (2.) Therefore the office of the intellect is but introductive and subservient to the office of the will, to apprehend the verity of good, and present it to the will to be prosecuted, or embraced, or delighted in. There are many truths that are ungrateful and vexatious, and which men would wish to be no truths: there is a knowledge which is troublesome, useless, undesirable and tormenting, which even a wise man would willingly avoid, if he knew how. Morality is but preparatively in the intellect: and therefore intellectual acts, as such, are not morally good, or evil, but only participatively, as subject to the will. Therefore knowledge, as such, being not a moral good, can be no other than such a natural good only so far as it tends to some welfare or happiness, or pleasure of the possessor or some other: and this welfare or pleasure is either that which is suited to the sensitive powers, or to the rational, which is to be found in the love of God alone.

I add therefore, that even those men that seem to take up their felicity in common knowledge, indeed do but make their knowledge subservient to something else which they take for their felicity. For knowledge of evil may torment them. It is only to know something which they take to be good, that is their delight. It is the complacency or love of that good at the heart, which sets them on work, and causes the delight of knowing. If you will say that common knowledge, as knowledge, doth immediately delight, yet will it be found but such a pleasing of the imagination as an ape hath in spying

may have them in an eminent degree; but not as they are informed by the end which moralizes them. Jezebel's fast was not formally a virtue, but an odious way of hypocrisy to oppress the innocent: he that doth works of justice and mercy, to evil ends only, as for applause, or to deceive, &c. and not from the true principles of justice and mercy, doth not thereby exercise moral virtue, but hypocrisy and other vice. He that doth works of justice and mercy, out of mere natural compassion to others, and desire of their good, without respect to God, as obliging, or rewarding, or desiring it, doth perform such a natural good work, as a lamb or a gentle beast doth to his fellows, which hath not the true form of moral virtue, but the matter only. He that in such works hath some little respect to God, but more to his carnal interest among men, doth that which on the by participates of moral good, or is such, being to be denominated from the part predominant. He that doth works of justice or charity principally to please God, and in true obedience to his will, and a desire to be conformed thereto, doth that which is formally a moral good, and holy, though there may be abhorred mixtures of worse respects.

marvels, which if it have no end that is higher, is | found in any ungodly person. Materially they still but a sensitive delight; but if it be referred to a higher delight in God, it doth participate of the nature of it. Delight in general is the common end of men and brutes: but in their nature they are distinguished as sensual or rational. If you suppose a philosopher to be delighted in studying mathematics, or any of the works of God, either he hath herein an end, or no end beyond the knowledge of the creature: either he terminates his desires and delights in the creature, or else uses it as a means to raise him to the Creator. If he study and delight in the creature ultimately, this is indeed the act of a rational creature, and an act of reason, as to the faculty it proceeds from, and so is a rational contrivance for sensual ends and pleasures: but it is but the error of reason, and is no more agreeable to the rational nature, than the deceit of the senses is to the sensitive. Nor is it finally to be numbered with the operations soliciting human nature, any more than an erroneous dream of pleasure, or than that man is to be numbered with the lovers of learning, who takes pleasure in the binding, leaves, or letters of the book, while he understands nothing of the sense. But if this philosopher seek to know the Creator in and by the creatures, and take delight in the Maker's power, wisdom and goodness, which appears in them, then this is truly a rational delight, in itself considered, and beseeming a man. If he reach so far in it, as to make God his highest desire and delight, overpowering the desires and delights of sensuality, he shall be happy, as being led by the Son unto the Father: but if he make but some little approaches towards it, and drown all such desires in the sensual desires and delights, he is then but an unhappy sensualist, and lives brutishly in the tenor of his life, though in some acts in part he operate rationally as a man.

The like I may say of them that are said to place their delight in moral virtues. Indeed nothing is properly a moral good, or virtue, but that which is exercised upon God as our end, or upon the creature as a means to this end. To study and know mere notions of God, or what is to be held and said of him in discourse, is not to study to know God, no more than to love the language and phrase of holy writing, is to love God To study God, as one that is less desirable than our sensual delights, is but to blaspheme him. To study, seek and serve him as one that can promote or hinder our sensual felicity, is but to abuse him as a means to your sensuality. For the virtues of temperance, justice or charity, they are but analogically to be

So that there are but two states of life here: one of those that walk after the flesh, and the other of those that walk after the Spirit: however the flesh have several materials and ways of pleasure: even the rational actings have a carnal end, are carnal finally and morally, though they are acts of reason; for they are but the errors of reason, and defectiveness of true rationality; and being but the acts of erroneous reason as captivated by the flesh, and subservient to the carnal interest, they are themselves to be denominated carnal: so even the reasonable soul as biassed by sensuality, and captivated thereto, is included in the name of flesh in scrip

ture.

How much moral good is in that course of piety or obedience to God, which proceeds only from the fear of God's judginents, without any love to him, I shall not now discuss, because I have too far digressed already.

All that I have last said, is to show you the reasonableness of living unto God, as being indeed the proper and just employment of the superior faculties of the soul, and the government of the lower faculties. For if any other, called moralists, seem to subject the sensual life to the rational, either they do but seem to do so; the sensual interest being indeed predominant, and their rational operations subjected thereto :

« ZurückWeiter »