SECT. 2.

AND first, we are obliged to this government of thoughts, because we may transgress the divine Law by them, as well as by the transactions of the outward man. 'Twas a fun­damental slaw in the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, and indeed of the generality of the whole Jewish Nation, that they thought an external obedience to the Law, which exempted them from all tem­poral penalties due to the violation of it, sufficient to denominate them righteous, without any regard had to the innocency of their hearts and affections. 'Tis no strange thing in­deed that the Heathens generally, who were left to discover the divine [Page 7] Nature with the naked eye of their own faculties, should content them­selves with such an external righte­ousness, or obedience as this, which reached the outward man only, but 'tis a very surprizing consideration that the Jews themselves should take up with it, who knew their Law to have been enacted by a God, that is a searcher of hearts, who re­quires the service of the spirit, and will be lov'd and obey'd with all the powers and faculties of the mind. But yet thus it was with that slow and carnal people: they had very little concern upon them for the ob­servance of the Precepts, that related to the regulating the motions of the inner man, for there being no penalties expresly annexed to them, they look­ed on them as advice rather than pre­cept, Grat. in Matth. 25. or at worst, that the guilt, contra­cted by their mental sins, was so done away by their sacrifices, that God would remember them no more. They understood little or nothing beyond the political Covenant, the terms whereof chiefly influenc'd their obedience, and so took up with [Page 8] such a political righteousness, as con­sisted in the obedience of the civil Laws of the Jewish Common-weal; hence it is that Trypho the Jew, dispu­ting with Justin Martyr, says, that the Gospel Precepts, meaning those that command the obedience of the heart and affections, seem'd to him incapa­ble of observance; and that Josephus reprehends Polybius the Historian, for ascribing the death of Antiochus to sacriledge intended, tho' not com­mitted by him, [...], ‘For as long, saith he, as he did not actually execute his intenti­ons, he deserv'd no punishment;’ and that this was the old received notion of obedience, appears plainly enough from our Saviours correcting this misprision, in the 5th. of St. Mat. ye have heard, saith he, ver. 21. that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not kill; if a man did not a­ctually murder another, he was thought to have kept within the bounds of the eight Commandment, as indeed he did, as to the temporal penalty annex'd to the violation of [Page 9] it, which was then principally re­garded; but our Lord tells them plainly, Verse 22. that the guilt in this particular, lies as deep as the very beginnings, the first efforts and sallies of an angry mind towards a foolish quarrel that may end in blood, in which sense St. John affirms, that whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, is already so, tho his sword be still unsheath'd, and he has stab'd him only in effigie; again, says he, to the same purpose, at the 27th. ver. ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit a­dultery, if a man did but refrain from the actual embraces of a forbidden bed, how keenly soever he debauch'd by the strength of an impure imagi­nation, yet he was, for all that in their notion of obedience, a chast and modest man still, but our Sa­viour tells them a rape may be com­mitted in the fancy, and adultery by a wanton glance. And that this Jewish notion of obedience, is not yet altogether antiquated under Christianity, seems but too evident from that trite proverbial saying a­mongst [Page 10] us; that thoughts are free; as if when men durst not let loose their hands, or their tongues, to work wickedness, yet they might give their desires and imaginations their full swing; and muse, and wish, and contrive, and please themselves with the Invention and Images of those things which they think it not safe to put in execution; whereas, on the contrary, the Laws of our Lord prescribe to our affections, set bounds to our fancies, regulate our desires, direct our intentions, go­vern our wishes, strike at sin in em­brio, and check the first voluntary motions and tendencies of the mind to evil. Voluntary, I say, because 'tis hard to imagine that those mo­tus primò primi, as the Schools speak, those first stirrings of Con­cupiscence which come not within the verge and compass of the Will, should fall under the lash and cen­sure of the Law; a Souldier is not punished for having an enemy to en­counter, but for not doing his duty to repel his assaults, if, instead of watching and repressing his motions, [Page 11] he rather entertains him, then, but not till then, let the Law go upon him. God will certainly punish no man for an imperfection that is not in his power to prevent, and which he did not himself voluntarily con­tract, will not call us to an account for being proper Subjects of the O­perations of his Grace, but for mis­using it, and will not require it at any mans hands that he has the Seeds of evil scatter'd in his composition, but for suffering them to fructifie in the soil. However, it must still be own'd that as to all the irregular motions of the inner man, that fall under the disposal of our Wills, God hath concluded them all under sin, that, by the wicked man's forsaking his thoughts, the numberless vain thoughts that fly up and down his mind; he might the more abundantly pardon, Is. 55. v. 7. accordingly the same Prophet tells us of those that err Is. 29. 24. in spirit, Solomon of those that err in imagining evil, Prov. 14. 22. and Micah denounces woe to the devisers 21. of iniquity. Hence the same wise King of Israel tells us in one place, [Page 12] that the thought of foolishness is sin; Prov. 24. 9. Prov. 14. 22. Prov. 15. 26. in another place, that they err who devise evil; in a third, that the thoughts of the wicked are an abomina­tion to the Lord; as his Father David had before observ'd of some that their inward parts were very wickedness, Psal. 5. 9. Psal. 58. 2. and tells us of others that in their heart work wickedness, hence again it is that St. Peter requires Simon Magus to repent of the thoughts of his Acts 8. 22. heart (for what is the subject of our Repentance but our Sins,) that St. Paul requires us to bring into 2 Cor. 10. 4. captivity every thought to the obedi­ence of Christ, which supposes that of themselves they are naturally rebellious; that our Saviour reprehends the Pharisees for thinking Matt. 9. 4. Matt. 15. 18, 19. Matt. 5. evil, and affirms of evil thoughts that they defile the man, as well as when they shoot forth into the ex­terior actions of murder, adultery, &c. The very intention and desire whereof he elsewhere equals with overt transgressions of the kind. The reason of all is, that God being the Father of the Spirits of all flesh, and the Kingdom of his Son a [Page 13] spiritual Kingdom too, 'tis congru­ous both to the divine Nature, and ours, which is a stricture of his, that his Laws bear sway in our spiritual part, in our hearts and souls, our wills and affections; for would we have an infinitely glorious Spirit serv'd by dull flesh and blood only, and not rather like himself, in spi­rit and in truth, with those prime productions, those first born Sons of the immortal Nature in us? Has God made us men, and would we pay him but the spiritless ho­mage of the animal part of us? Has he implanted a noble and im­mortal principle of life and motion in us, and shall it not share in our obedience to him, and consequently in the guilt of the transgression of his Laws? He is the natural Lord of both Soul and Body, has bought them with a Price, and therefore all the Reason in the World the Obe­dience we pay him should be com­mensurate to the extent of his Pur­chase; so that if we have any just abhorrence of Sin in the true Lati­tude of the Divine construction of [Page 14] it, we must govern our Thoughts, as well as observe measures in our words and actions.

SECT. 3.

BUT I shall farther evince the ob­ligations that lie upon us to order our Thoughts aright, from such con­siderations as seem to enhance the guilt of mental sins above those of the outward Man. For

I. THO' it be an argument that sin has acquired an arbitrary power over us, and that the Law in our members has got the ascendent over the Law of our minds, when the seeds of evil thoughts shoot forth into criminal words and actions, and in this respect the off-spring is worse than the Parent, that is, 'tis worse to speak and do evil than barely to think it, yet consider the outward acts of sin separately and apart by themselves, abstracted from those previous cogitations that give them birth, and then the sins of the mind [Page 15] are infinitely more criminal, for is it not worse to prostitute an im­mortal Soul to sin and folly then a mouldering Caroase? the one is in the nature of the Artificer that models and contrives the sin, the other but as the instrument as it were in its hand, and who reckons the murdering sword as faulty as he that dar'd to sheath it in his brother? the one is as the mother of the spu­rious brat, or the womb wherein lust first conceives till the heart grow big and the reckoning of the sin be out; the other only comes and mid­wives it into the world, and brings, forth that which brings forth death, and who ever thought these two equally criminal? nay, set aside the guilt that derives from the corrup­tion of the mind, and why should the worst actions of the outward man be reputed any more sinful than those of the horse and the mule that have no understanding? for sin is properly in the Soul only; the proper subject both of it, and of that grace which corrects it.

[Page 16] II. OUR Thoughts are always first in the transgression, and so in respect of precedency, are more inexcusable than outward actions; they are ring-leaders in the rebellion of sin against God, and persons of that Character are generally made, as exemplary in their punishment as they are in their crime; these are the first begotten of their Father the Devil, the eldest Sons of ori­ginal corruption, the might and the beginning of the strength of sin in us. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, &c. There the Son of vi­olence first layes his scene of blood, the Extortioner of oppression, the Adulterer of the forbidden bed, and so of the rest, for a man first devises mischief, in the Psalmists language, and then puts himself in a way that is not good, and abhorreth not evil: nay they are not only thus the De­vils puny Counsel, that open the Cause and make a Motion in behalf of sin, but they are perpetually soliciting, abetting and pleading its Cause at the Bar of a debauch'd fancy and a bribed understanding, [Page 17] where many times they unhappily carry it; for 'tis no wonder that a corrupt Judge should give it on their side. Thus do our Thoughts cater and make Provision for the Flesh to fullfil the lusts thereof, bring and recommend the beloved Object to the Heart till it dotes and commits actual Folly with it; thus they lay in fuel for our Sins, and not only enkindle, but blow up the fire into open flaming wickedness; and there­fore:

III. SINS of Thought are more criminal than outward Trans­gressions, in as much as the guilt of the one derives from the other, for all Thoughts are Errors as it were, of the first concoction, which affect nature in all her subsequent opera­tions of life. Thoughts are as the Principal, outward acts but as Ac­cessories. The one is in the nature of the cause, the other of the ef­fect, for out of the abundance of the heart does both the mouth speak and the hands act, and out of it, says the wise man, are the issues of life, [Page 18] and I add of death too And who can blame the streams for their necessa­ry partaking of the pollutions of their fountain? Thoughts then are the principle of spiritual life, or spi­ritual death in us, that great lead­ing wheel within the engine, which as when it moves regularly, it cau­ses the outward hand of our words and actions to point right, so when tis out of course, it puts all in the like disorder with it; for our actions will be of a piece with our thoughts, and no one acts like a wise man, who thinks like a fool. O genera­tion of vipers, says our Lord to the Pharisees, how can ye, being evil, think good things? for, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? who can bring good words or deeds out of foolish, wandering, and un­hallow'd thoughts? for, how shall a man reap there where he has not sow'd? can he from weeds reap grain, gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

IV. IF we govern not our thoughts, they will govern us, or, [Page 19] to speak more properly, will leave us without any true government of our selves, they are natural mo­vers that need no winding up, but are incessant in their motion to­wards good or evil, and therefore if we take not care to determine them to proper objects, they will run out upon any that come in their way, will haunt and dog us to the table, to the bed, to the closet, to the Church, will be per­petually intruding, interposing, and interrupting us in our duty, will either intercept all good motions, or distract and confuse us in the performance of them, and to be sure, will be most busie and impertinent at the time of our religious services, when we are to compose our Souls to the severest sobriety and in­tenseness of Meditation.

V. THE peculiar malignity of evil Thoughts is farther visible in this, that they render the outward act of sin more or less criminal, ac­cording as they have been more [Page 20] or less active in the contrivance of it: for every previous reasoning, premeditation, and debate, enhan­ces its guilt and inflames its punish­ment, as that which argues a more studied and deliberate contempt of the supreme Legislator, and there­fore it was that the murder of Ʋriah was more charged upon David than his adultery with Bathsheba. He took a great deal of thought about the one, but in the other thoughts took him.

VI. SINS of Thought have this particular aggravation above outward breaches of the Law, that they are committed upon less temp­tation than these, and the weaker the temptation, the more power­ful is the strength of sin in us. The two great leading Passions of the Soul that determine us to, or deter us from, outward acts, are our hopes, or our fears, which carry many times so fatal and so strong a byas with them, that they incline us to evil, even con­trary [Page 21] to the checks and reluctancies of our own minds.

ILL times may scare men into those actual complyances, which left to themselves, they abhor, and the impending danger, which, as it bore a mighty stroke in the commission of the sin, so, tho it cannot justifie it, yet will it make some abatement of its guilt, but Thoughts are, in this sence, free, free from all external compulsion, nor prisons can confine them, nor fire nor sword force them into a complyance; So that if they joyn in the act, they are perfect 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? [Page 22] 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, [Page 23] 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 [Page 24] envy, or what you will, 'twas 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 [Page 25] 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 [...]onsidered that God [Page 26] 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 [Page 27] 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. 'TIS 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 [Page 28] 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, [Page 29] 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, and excel another, by how much he is the better Master of his thoughts, and can lay them out to more generous purposes; if therefore we have any just sense of the dignity of our humane Nature, and would advance and improve that part of us which is properly the Man, we must ma­nage those thoughts by which we manage all things else.

SECT. 1.

HAVING thus endeavour'd to lay before Men the Ob­ligations they are under to order their thoughts aright, I shall in the next place point out several of those Infirmities, Irregularities, and Defects, that are incident thereto, whereby it will more particularly appear, how Vain, and Frivolous, and Sinful they are. The Multiplicity of Objects and the great Variety of those mo­tions whereby the mind entertains her self with them, renders it next to impossible to take in this argument in such a Latitude as to be able to descend to minute par­ticulars; I shall therefore content my self to instance in some more general defects and weaknesses of the thinking Power in us, leaving it to every Man, who expects a more exact draught of them, to [Page 31] attend to the motions of his own mind and to follow the jant of his thoughts after those Objects that keep them most company.

I. ALL Thoughts of our hearts are undoubtedly vain that are em­ployed about criminal objects, as the gratification of any of our lusts, &c. For the sinfulness of the object imparts its guilt to the act of the mind that is conversant about it, no man can think of accomplishing a revenge, a fraud, a murder, &c. And be inno­cent.

is the voice of both Pagan and Christian Theology. St. Paul. Rom. 13. requires us not to make pro­vision, as we render it, for the slesh, to fullfil the lusts thereof, [...], Says the ori­ginal i. e. not to contrive, or pro­ject [Page 32] before hand how to accom­plish our wicked intentions, for our thoughts always lay the plot before it thickens into the last scene of actual execution, but this head is so plain that I need not longer insist upon it.

II. THOSE Thoughts must needs be very vain and foolish whose subject matter is vain and trifling: 'tis not every ones portion, to have their minds fraught with solid and substantial lading, some carry nothing but ballast, dull heavy conceptions, others carry too great a sail, are over light and aery; others trade only in toys, in news, fancies, fashions, Apes and Peacock feathers; neither na­ture nor education has furnished all men, with proper materials, for their thoughts to work upon; and therefore, since the common activity of their minds will not suffer them to be wholly idle, what wonder if they take up with un­manly arguments, and converse [Page 33] in their Thoughts, with their dogs or their horses, with the passages of the Theatre, the imaginary ex­ploits of some Hero in a Romance, or the like, thinking to no pur­pose rather than not think at all.

III. As such Thoughts as these are materially vain, because their Objects are nothing worth, so o­ther Thoughts may be said to be formally so, i. e. When tho' the mat­ter of them is good, yet the man­ner and turn of the heart in think­ing of them is not as it should be. Thus, the same numerical Prayer may be a sweet smelling savour from one man's mouth, and an abomination from anothers, where, tho the matter of the ser­vice is one and the same, yet the different turn of heart and mind makes it, formally considered, a quite different performance. So, again, a wicked man may think of the same God, with a good one, where tho' the matter of his [Page 34] Thoughts be equally good, with the others, yet his thoughts are vain, because without Spiritual Life, and Vigour in them, whilst, by reason of such Qualifications, the others are accepted; and 'tis very possible for a wicked Man to have a Thousand materially good thoughts: and yet go to Hell in the midst of them: He may think of God and yet he never have the more service of him; he may think of Repentance, and yet continue the same impenitent Man he was; he may think of Death and Judgment, and yet his life be never the better. 'Tis hard if in such a vast Lottery of Thoughts, as is played at in our minds, a very wicked Man have not now and then a good chance; and yet if he is not renewed in the Spirit of his mind, and both the Principle and Course of his Acti­ons, better'd by them, they are none of his own Thoughts, but Injections properly, with which his Soul is haunted; and such think­ing of good things will be so far [Page 35] from abating a Man's Guilt, that they will inhaunce his Punishment. In fine, as every thought of sin is not sinful (for a Man may think of it with Abhorrence) so neither do's every Thought of Piety and Religion, come under the Cha­racter it pretends to. For where the heart is carnal and vain, it de­secrates every good motion thrown into it, from without, and like a vitiated Stomach, instead of afford­ing solid nutriment to the Soul, turns all it meets with into the morbifie matter of Sin.

IV. 'TIS a great vanity of our thinking Power, to leave the plain beaten Road of profitable and sub­stantial Knowledge, for the nar­row, crooked Paths of Vice and useless Speculations. The Word and Works of the Almighty, toge­ther with the Operations of our own minds, the wonders of the greater and lesser World, afford more so­lid stuff for our Thoughts to work upon than the widest capacity was [Page 36] ever able to go through with; and yet such is the natural activi­ty of our minds, and the fruitless Curiosity of some Men's, that they choose to refine upon them, com­monly beyond usefulness, often be­yond Sense, affect Sciences falsly so call'd, and spin cobweb Notions out of their own Brains, fit only to catch flies with. Thus has the insipid Nicety of the Schools man­gled, and even crucified the Word of God, putting on it a crown of Thorns too, the barbarous Spi­nosities of their own Inventions; and made the plain intelligible Doctrine of believing in God, and living well, a torture and rack to the Brains of the learned, and Consci­ences of the Ignorant. They have thinn'd the doctrine of Jesus into the fineness and air of the metaphy­sicks of Aristotle, and made their Schools as great an Asylum for the Disputers of this World, as their Chur­ches are for the murderer, or other malefactor. And how should men gather grapes of such thorns, and [Page 37] figs of such thistles as these: Such brambles of dispute may tear and rent one's mind in passing through them, but can never edify it.

V. 'TIS another vain thought to imagine we can bring about our projects without having God in our thoughts, or by contrary means to what he has appointed; thus the Jews, as God complains by Jere­mie in the beginning of his Pro­phesie, had forgotten him daies with­out Number, and were alwaies pro­jecting with themselves, without taking him into the consult, by what means they might stave off or elude the captivity threatned them; in neglect of that only means of sincere repentance he prescribed them; upon which account it is, that he requires Jerusalem, to wash her heart from wickedness, that she might be saved, and asks how long her Jerem. 4. 14. vain thoughts shall lodge within her. They not only feigned to themselves that Jerusalem, the City royal of The Almighty Monarch of the [Page 38] World was Impregnable, that the Temple of the Lord there was a suffi­cient Sanctuary to them, against all their Enemies; and that it was impossible for Abraham's Seed to be in Bondage, to any Power upon Earth (in all which vain imaginations they were confirm'd by the false Prophets that abound­ed most when the State was most corrupt) but that if they were at any time attack'd by the Chalde­ans, they would strengthen them­selves in the strength of Pharaoh, by entring into a Confedracy with Egypt; tho God' had denounc'd several woes long before against that Project. And how common a thing it is for Men to leave the mighty Counseller out of the Ca­binet, to trust in an arm of flesh, and pursue the Maze and Laby­rinth of their own devices, in ac­complishing the designs they have upon the Anvil: We need no other, and can have have no better argument to convince us than our own Experience of the wicked pro­jects [Page 39] this day set on foot by the grand Incendiary of Europe. There is no Subject doubtless, whereon our Thoughts are more busily im­ployed, than in framing and con­triving those designs we have un­der the Sun; And yet, which proves the extream Vanity of 'em, for the most part to little or no purpose. For, Man's goings are of the Lord, how much soever he thinks them of himself, and how then, as the wise King asks the question, can a Man understand his own Ways? We project, devise, propose Ends, prosecute, apply Means; and yet all the while are managed, acted, and, as often as the divine Wisdom pleases, over­ruled and defeated, by an invisible Hand behind the Curtain; for, I know, O Lord, saies the Prophet Jeremy, that the way of Man is not Jer. 10. 23. in himself, 'tis not in Man that walketh to direct his own Steps. And in Isaiah he has particularly decla­red Is. 30. 1, 2. Wo to them who take Coun­sel but not of Him, who ask, but [Page 40] not at his Mouth, the practice of States-men amongst his own Peo­ple in the case before mention'd, and for which reason, as he there threatens, he afterwards made the strength of Pharaoh (wherein they trusted) their Shame, and their V. 3. Trust in the shadow of Egypt their Confusion. For in the excellent Language of the Apostle upon this 1 Cor. 3. 19, 20. Argument: The Wisdom of this World is foolishness with God: For, it is written, he taketh the wise in their own Craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the Thoughts of the wise that they are vain.

VI. THERE is another vani­ty of Thought, which our Lord himself takes such express Notice of, and that in his excellent Ser­mon on the Mount, that it must not here be disregarded by us; and that is an intemperate Solici­tude and Anxiety of Thought, for the things of this present Life; the vanity whereof he evinces with a force of Argument, and [Page 41] Strain of words, like himself, tru­ly Divine, and which will there­fore abundantly superecede, any far­ther illustration of the matter: For, First, he argues a majori ad minus. Is not Life more than Meat, Mat. 6. 23. and the Body than Raiment? i. e. Will not he, think you, who first kindled in you the vital flame, furnish you with fuel to keep it in? Will not he who gave you a body; give you a covering to it? Then Secondly, he reasons from instances of God's Providence to Creatures, of a nature far inferi­or to Man, from his feeding the V. 26. V. 28. Fowls of the Air; and his cloathing the Lillies of the Field. Thirdly, he shews the vanity of this Anxi­ety of Thought, from its insigni­ficancy and ineptitude, to the at­tainment of what we propose to our selves from it, for which of V. 27. you, sayes he, by taking thought can add one Cubit to his Stature, or, as others expound the place, can with all his anxiety, add the least proportion to his Age, or extend [Page 42] the period of his Life. And then as he adds, in St. Luke's relation of the passage, if ye are not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye Thought for the rest? If ye are not sufficient of your selves to preserve your Lives till to Morrow, why so infinitely busie to make provision for them? Fourthly, he tells 'em plainly, that for his followers to lay out their Thoughts so immo­derately about the affairs of this Life, is to be still upon the same level with a gentil Spirit, for after V. 32. all these things do the Gentiles seek, besides that your Heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these Things: And he is not so unnatural a Parent as to let his Children go destitute of the neces­sary accommodations of humane life. Thus has our Lord himself in an ample and extraordinary Manner, expos'd the vanity of [...] this misim­ployment of our Thoughts to our hands, and we shall have occasi­on to insist farther on the argu­ment hereafter.

[Page 43] VII. THERE is a certain dulness or stupidity incident to the thinking Power, when the mind does not go, but, like a clock with the plummets off, stands still, is heavy and dumpish, and has no distinct conceptions of any objects let into it, but nodds and and falls asleep, as it were, and runs into another World, as Men in dreams do. And this, I conceive, is generally occasion'd, where it is not owing to a natural Defect, either by guilt within, or troubles and dangers from without. First, Guilt within, is alwaies apt to con­fuse our Reasonings, choak and break in upon our Apprehensions of things, and strangle our Thoughts; it alwaies lies Cross and Heavy in our mind and deads that Chearful­ness and Alacrity of thinking that Innocence naturally gives it. And then, Secondly, for Dangers and Dis­asters, they fix the mind upon the contemplation of the Object that Frights or Disquiets it, render a [Page 44] Man's Spirit dead, as it were, within him, congeal his Powers, make them stiff and destitute of motion, so that a man has not for that time the command of his Rea­son to look about and provide fit means to escape the danger that threatens him.

VIII. 'TIS another miscarriage in the management of our thoughts when we propose no one good and fixed End of Life, for the supream Object of our Pursuit. Some have working imaginations never idle, alwayes stickling, but as good ne­ver a whit as never the better, as the Phrase is. For it is not e­nough for a Man to have this or that particular End in his View, as opportunity presents, and his 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 [Page 45] 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.

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 [Page 46] 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, [Page 47] 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 [Page 48] 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 [Page 49] 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 'tis criminal too, in as [Page 50] 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 [Page 51] 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 [Page 52] 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 again, but range every Field, and and pursue every game that comes in the interim in their way, or like some restless birds, they no soon­er light upon one object than they presently take wing and fly off to another, by which means there hap­pens many times so quick a Suc­cession, or rather indeed such a tumultuary Jumble of Ideas in our heads, that we lose our selves as in a Maze, get into a Laby­rinth of our own making, and can hardly remember the goal from which our thoughts first star­ted, so that if we look'd them over again, and could but trace them in their rambles and excursions from one Object to another, we should find them many times no more coherent than our Dreams, [Page 53] or the rovings, and extravagant ap­prehensions of Mad-men, and per­haps the main difference betwixt the Mad-man in Bedlam, and the other musing in his Study lies in this, that the one is so foolish as to utter his Conceptions as they throng into his head, and the o­ther so wise as to conceal them.

NOW there may be several causes of this Imperfection; if we will trace it up to its spring head, we must go as far back as the Fall of Adam for it, when the mind leaving the pursuit of the chief and supream Good, about which it re­gularly moved as about its proper Center, and proposing to it self the acquest of infinite other false and fictitious Goods in its stead, it be­came, like a wandring Star, plane­tary and erratic in its Motions.

AGAIN we may find another cause of this in our own Composi­tion; we are all fearfully and won­derfully made up of two very dif­ficult [Page 54] parts, Soul and Body, and yet so that the Operations of the Soul do in a great measure depend upon the temperament of the Body; now the great Instruments in our ratio­nal, as well as animal Operations, are those subtle parts of the bloud call'd Spirits, which in the very con­stitution of some Persons, those espe­cially of a sanguine Complexion, be­ing of a fine and light Contexture, do necessarily cause a like Levity of the mind in thinking, for we cannot possibly help apprehending after their Motions and Impressi­ons.

AND as this volatility of mind is natural to some Constitutions, so may several accidents produce it in others, a blow upon the Head, a distemper in the Brain, or intem­perance may put the bloud into such a preternatural fermentation, and so agitate and confuse the Spi­rits that there will necessarily en­sue a like Levity and Confusedness of the mind in thinking.

BUT that which carries the most general and principal stroke in this affair is certainly the wan­tonness of our imaginations, which is often presenting our understand­ings with fine Pictures and Images of things, which inveigle our minds to run a gadding after them, set the Spirits agog, divert the main stream of our Thoughts from their primary channel, and let them run out, like water spilt upon the ground, upon foreign and improper objects. So that even the most thoughtful men many times are not able to direct one line of Thoughts streight on, but lose sight of the subject they at first be­gan with. For imagination is a busie restless sort of power thats seldom or never idle, but most of all ex­erts its activity when the Under­standing is lazy and out of imploy­ment. No sooner does the tempt­ing object from without, honour, or pleasure, or profit, make its way through the doors of our senses to our understanding, but this facul­ty [Page 56] like a Master of the Ceremo­nies, ushers it in, harangues upon its Excellencies, and desires it may have audience; if a Man hankers after honour, and his temper is ambitious, the imagination present­ly lifts him up to one of the high­est Pinacles of the Court, shews him all the Kingdoms of greatness, together with Followers, Depen­dants, Attendants, Retinue, and the other glories of them, so that the Man's Thoughts are always mounting, making ladders, as it were, to himself, and contriving how to climb higher. So, again if an object of profit has possess'd the mind, the fancy presently be­gins to survey the land, to set off the value and conveniency of Goods laid up for many years, and falls a telling over the money, as it were, before yours eyes, to ingage you in its pursuit, and makes your Thoughts, in the Prophets language, go after your covetousness. So, again, if the Idea of a pleasurable object has stoln in at your eyes, the same faculty [Page 57] presents you with more charms than any one else can see in it, summons all the senses to bear wit­ness to the several gratifications it affords them, and recommends the object so long till your deluded Thoughs, play the adulterer and commit folly with it, and in all these cases, like a flattering Painter draws the Picture of the object far more beautiful and exact than ever the original could pretend to and by these means breaks off the connexi­on of our Thoughts, cuts them short of the object they should pursue and renders them light and desultory.

NOW this defect, as far as 'tis purely casual, or as far as 'tis na­tural, owing to our complex'd con­stitution of Soul and Body, cannot be criminal, but then comes cer­tainly under that denomination, and is sin to us, where the natural infirmity is countenanc'd and in­dulg'd, especially in divine worship, [Page 58] or the defect is voluntarily acqui­red by intemperance or the like.

AND now that we are upon this Head it may not be improper here to subjoyn other vanities of our Thoughts that are principally owing to the same cause of a wan­ton and ludicrous imagination: for indeed this power carries a mighty stroke with us, influen­cing, in a great measure, their de­termination of the judgment, the choice of the will, the pursuit of the affections, and in consequence of all these, the execution of our bo­dily powers.

SECT. 2.

AND here I shall first take no­tice of that error of Thought it occasions in us, when we apply our selves to the consideration of spiritual and immaterial substan­ces. For being used to think by the intervention of Ideas from our [Page 59] senses, which are conversant only about material objects; the imagi­nation, which receives these im­pressions from our senses, is apt to draw the same gross Images of im­material beings, as of Spirits, An­gels, and of God himself; and we being used to view the objects we think of as they are represented in the looking glass of fancy, are apt foolishly to conclude, that the originals resemble those Pictures of them, and so make no distinction in our conceptions betwixt mate­rial and immaterial objects; hence it is that we conceive Angels to be like young Boys, and the great God like a grave old Man; that very vanity of imagination, as the Apostle terms it, of which the Gentil World stood guilty, in chang­ing the glory of the incorruptible God Rom. 1. 21, 23. into an Image made like corruptible Man, &c.

II. WE shall consider that vanity which Fancy imparts to our Thoughts in relation to [Page 60] sensual and voluptuous objects; for hereby Men frame and figure to themselves those unlawful en­joyments which 'tis not in their power to put in execution, courting, and addressing, and complemen­ting, and making fine speeches in their minds to speculative idols of their own framing; fond Ixions that embrace the Clouds and va­pours of their own lusts, filthy waking dreamers that defile, not the flesh only, but when that's out of imployment, commit incest with the Daughters of their own imagi­nation; an argument of great de­pravity of Soul this, for Men to make procurers of their Thoughts, to prostitute their very Spirits, and put out Conscience, that Candle of the Lord, that all may appear like Night about them, whilst they commit their deeds of darkness, their imaginary rapes, whoredomes and debaucheries. We have the voice of Scripture for it, that this spiritual wickedness is adultery, without any farther progress in the fact. But

III. THERE is yet a worse vanity of the Thoughts, if possible, in relation to the same voluptuous Objects, and that is a repetition of these sinful Pleasures of the Mind, when they are past and gone, and have been really transacted. When men are not satisfi'd with the harvest they have already reap'd, but must have a latter Marth, as it were a second crop of delight in their Thoughts and imaginations; must renew their filthy scene in their own bosomes, erect a stage there, and their Fancies act over again the same brutal Comedies again, with fresh satisfaction. The fault this, generally, of overgrown and disabled sinners, dry trees that have green leaves, tho' they are past bearing fruit, Men whose vices have left them, not through supernatu­ral Grace, but natural Infirmity, who lamenting not their Sins, but their Impotence, endeavour, by the strength of an impure Imaginati­on yet living in them, to conjure up the Ghost of their old departed [Page 62] Lusts, to make the dry bones live, and give their dead Sins a Resur­rection from one grave, whilst they themselves are ready to drop into another.

SO, again, this mental repe­tition of sinful acts is seen in se­veral other Cases, as when a man has overreach'd and defrauded his Brother in any kind, he is apt in­wardly to applaud himself for the villany, to walk over those steps, again in his mind, by which he circumvented him, and repeat the dishonesty with as much satisfaction as he committed it; so Men that are of bitter and implacable Spirits, will act over their revenge again in their Thoughts, make the wounds already given their Adversary, bleed afresh, in their own minds, and stab him once more in Essigie, and so of other Vices.

NOW a Man must be arriv'd at a very high measure of Impeni­tency and Impiety, who thus in­dulges. [Page 63] One would think it were enough for Men to commit the outward acts of Sin with greedi­ness; but to repeat them with de­light again, is to approve of them upon mature advice, and boldly to declare against all Relentings and Re­pentances, which ever look with horror, not with satisfaction, upon our by past evil Actions. The great Apostle makes it an argument of a very wicked disposition, not onely to commit Sin, but to take pleasure likewise in those who do so, and if there be any difference in the case, 'tis certainly the worse to be pleas'd with ones self for so do­ing. For every such after game of internal complacency is a fresh com­mission of the Sin, stains the Soul with a new guilt, and that so much the deeper, by how much 'tis the more criminal to ingage, not only the powers of the body to commit Sin, but the faculties of the Soul likewise to view and contemplate and repeat it.

IV. ANOTHER Vanity of Thoughts, chargeable upon a wild and ungovern'd Imagination, is ob­serveable in Men's framing fine Schemes, and Images, and suppositi­ons of things, and then pleasing them­selves with them, as if they were Realities, and they actually enjoy­ed them. For the Fancy has a sort of power of Creation, and can hold up the Images of Idols of its own making, fictitious Ho­nours, Riches, &c. till the foolish Heart falls down and worships them. Thus you shall have Men placeing themselves in some high Posture, or eminent Station, or plentiful Fortune, and then amu­sing themselves with ten Thousand idle Projects, how they would be­have themselves in such Circum­stances; what figure they should make, what interest they would drive on, &c. Cutting out as much work for themselves, as if they were in the actual possession of the Fools Paradice, they have invent­ed. These and the like imagina­tions [Page 65] are the frequent entertainment of melancholy and hypocondraick Persons, and perhaps the best of Men are apt now and then to fall into these sort of awaking Dreams; our minds are apt to spread wider than our Conditions, and we will now and then, when our understandings are not better imployed, be figuring as busily to our selves, what we would do, if invested with such an honour, possessed of such an Estate, &c. as if we were actually Masters of them. Thus our Fancies project shadows, and we take them for substance; we first build Castles in the Air, and then our Thoughts proudly strut through every room of the imaginary Build­ing; we frame an Idol, and then fall down and worship it, whilst our Idol, in the Apostles definition of it, is nothing.

NOW this is not only a vani­ty and a weakness in our Thoughts, but a Sin too. First because God hath provided better Objects for the entertainment of our Thoughts, [Page 66] than such Chimeras. And,

2. BECAUSE that when our minds thus strowl and stray be­yond the Circumstances the Divine Providence has placed us in, it ar­gues a sort of dissatisfaction in us, with our present Condition, which is ever criminal.

V. AS 'tis a great vanity of the mind thus to imploy its Thoughts, in imaginary Suppositions, or in drawing Pictures, as it were, of things, and then taking them for Realities, and Originals; so is it likewise a Weakness and Fondness in the thinking Power, owing like­wise to a busie Imagination, to dwell upon, and be ever contem­plating a Man's own real Enjoy­ments, whether of Body, Mind, or Fortune. We are certainly our own greatest Flatterers, and should never be impos'd upon by others in this kind, did we not first delude and impose upon our selves. When God has blest Men with great a­bilities [Page 67] of Mind, large Fortunes, or the like, they are always view­ing themselves in the flattering Looking-Glass of their own Fancies, (like those who spend half their time in dressing) or many times it proves a magnifying Glass, that represents their Enjoyments or Per­fections, in far larger Dimentions than what they have in Reality. Thus the Men of parts will be ever and anon amusing and pleasing themselves with their own Notions and Productions whereby, as they are apt to over rate their own ac­quisitions and abilities, so are they inclin'd to undervalue and depre­ciate those of other Men. For whilst our Thoughts thus dwell upon our own Perfections, they are apt at the same time to sit in Judgment too upon the suppos'd imperfections of other Men, and thereupon fall immediately upon making Comparisons, and to be sure bring in the verdict on their own sides. Thus, again, in the case of large Revenues, Men, like [Page 68] the rich Fool in the Gospel, are ever and anon taking an imagi­nary Survey of their Estates, an Inventory, as it were, of their Goods, telling them over, as Chil­dren do their Counters, or cove­tous Men their old Gold, when they sing the soft Requiem to their Souls of Goods laid up for many Years, take thine Ease, eat, drink, and be merry. Thus, a­gain, in case of Reputation, for Sanctity of Life, the stiff superci­lious Pharisee pleas'd himself migh­tily, you may conceive, with the thoughts of his own imaginary Pi­ety, and the vogue he had amongst the People upon that account, when his Gravity was pleas'd to thank God that he was not as other Men. Now, I don't think, that 'tis abso­lutely sinful in it self, to view one's own enjoyments of Fortune, abilities of Mind, and other good Qualifications, and to give one's self the Advantage, if it fairly ap­pear on one's side, upon a just Com­parison (tho' great Care in the [Page 69] mean while ought to be had, that the mistaken Charity of self-love delude us not, in covering a mul­titude of our own Imperfections). for a sober and temperate Person, For instance, when he compares himself with the Drunkard, or the chaste Man with the Adulter­er, or the knowing educated Man with the Rustic, cannot but think themselves placed as far above the cheap and sorbid Level of the o­thers, as the cleanness and sair Pro­spect of the top of the Hill is above the Mire and Dirt at the Bottom. It not being indeed in the power of Men's faculties so to stifle the evi­dence of their Conceptions, as to baulk all sense of Advantage which they find upon the Comparison. But here then lies the Vanity and Sin­fulness of this Procedure of our Thoughts, that our hearts are not thereby rais'd to a Thankfulness to Almighty God, as the free Donor of such Gifts, Abilities, and Graces, but we are apt to terminate our Thoughts within our selves, where [Page 70] they work, and ferment, and leven all our good Qualifications, by huffing us up with Pride.

VI, ANOTHER Vanity of our Thoughts, owing to the same cause of an ungoverned Imaginati­on, is seen in their forwardness and impatience of enjoying those Ob­jects we conceive agreeable to us; like a kind Friend, or eager Lover, that cannot stay at Home till the Person he longs for arrives, but takes horse to meet him, and bid him welcome on the Road; for how often do our Thoughts anti­cipate the Revenues, as I may say, of our actual Enjoyments, and, Chamelion like, live upon the airy hopes of Fruition: Whence the reason of that common Observati­on, that Expectation generally has the better of it, and Men meet not with that Satisfaction in the things they expected. For besides the Emptiness and Nullity that there naturally is in the enjoy­ments of this World (they never [Page 71] being design'd to fill up the large Capacities of the heart of Man) our Fancies are always represent­ing to us things more eligible than they are in themselves, and our Thoughts have gone so often out before hand to meet, and converse with their beloved Object, that they have enjoyed, and deflowr­ed it already, and so have fore­stal'd the satisfaction of Possession.

SECT. 4.

WE will now, in the next place, instance in those desects which are observeable of our Thoughts in relation to holy Things, and the exercises of Devotion.

AND the first weakness of our thinking Power that I would take notice of on this head, is the enthusi­asm to which it is subject, when we cannot govern and command our Thoughts, cannot keep them or­derly and within the bounds of So­briety, [Page 72] but they grow wild, and fly out into Imaginations of Visi­ons, Revelations, immediate Con­ferences with the Deity, extraor­dinary Gifts, &c. whilst, general­ly, perhaps always in the latter Ages of the Church, such preten­sions derive not from that superna­tural and divine Principle, to which they are ascribed, but, to say no worse of them here, from causes purely Natural, as Constitution, Meditation, Discipline, Education, Distemper, &c. For, as for Con­stitution, who has not heard of the undoubted Effects of natural Melancholy in this kind. What strange imaginary Scenes Men of this dark Complexion have so strongly figured to themselves, as firmly to believe their Reali­ty, tho' as Rediculous and In­existent as any in their Dreams. And as for Contemplation, which improves the former temper, what studious Person has not observ'd, how wild and ungovernable his Thoughts grow upon Profound me­ditation, [Page 73] especially if dwelling upon a noble subject, and exalted by a soli­tary Retirement. And then 'tis obvi­ous to imagine; how a Man, during these confus'd Transports of his Soul, may be apt to ascribe the Respon­ses of his own bewildred Reason, as others do those of their natural Conscience, to some extraordinary Principle without and above them. This doubtless, together with a frightful gloomy Discipline (not to mention the advantage the Devil takes of such Occasions) is the only rational hypothesis where­by to solve those Visions, and su­pernatural Conferences with the Divinity, pretended to by the en­thusiastic Messalians of old, the rapturous and extatick Frensies of the famous Founder of the Jesuits and some of his Disciples, and, in short, all the legendary trash, treasured up for the advancement of the Romish Superstition. For there's no doubt to be made but that a­bundance of Zeal and Bigotry in Devotion, a contemplative Life, [Page 74] the privacy of a Cloister or a Cell, together with a meloncholly Tem­per, which it either finds, or makes, has made their Prophets Fools (as Hosea speaks) and their spiritual Hos. 9. 7. Men mad: For too much think­ing has made more Mad-men than too little. If from these we de­scend to preternatural causes of these counterfeit Operations of God's Spirit, Distempers, Experience will inform us what Raptures and Vi­sions are incident to hysterical and hypocondraick Persons. No less an Enthusiast than Mahomet himself is said to have owed all his pretend­ed Divinity to that sacred Disease, as the Ancients call'd it, an Epilepsy. Casaubon Of Enthusiasm, tells us of those who through a hurt in their Brain have fancied themselves actu­ally in Paradise; and of others, that amidst the Transports of their Visions and Revelations, have died of that which produced them, a Feaver. And as to a certain ex­traordinary Gift, pretended to still by some People, I believe, I could [Page 75] shew, that a Treasure of scripture Phrases, a voluble Tongue, and a warm Temper, gradually heated and inflamed by the impetus of of delivery, together with a good assurance before Men, and an odd sort of familiarity with God, has actually done the feat with the greatest Masters of the Talent.

II. WE may observe a natural Aversion in our Thoughts to pi­ous Meditation. When any ob­ject presents it self that carries Pleasure, or Profit, or the gratifi­cation of any of our sensual Ap­petites along with it, O how gree­dily do our thoughts caress, embrace, and bid it ten thousand welcomes! But when God, or Religion, or Death, or Judgment, or any such grave and serious Subject prossers it self to our Thoughts, how apt are they to slink away, hang back, and be shy, and after, it may be, a very short Enterview, and a cold En­tertainment, dismiss those Objects, make them stand by and give way [Page 76] to such as are more entertaining and diverting? The one's a well­come Guest and old Acquaintance, the other meets with the formal Reception of a Stranger, or as of a Visitant that is not agreeable. When we wind up our minds to the highest Pin of Meditation on these Subjects, our Thoughts, after a very little stay there, presently fall down again, we are im­patient and uneasie under the Stretch, and care not perhaps how soon Business, or Company, or the like, step in and set us at Liber­ty; so averse naturally are our Thoughts, unless God has sancti­fied our Hearts, to converse with holy Objects.

III. OUR Thoughts, in regard of holy Duties, are apt to mistime and misplace themselves, when, tho' they may be materially lawful and good in themselves, yet, they intrude impertinently, at a time not proper for them, when they are not call'd upon, and have no [Page 77] business in the mind, like an over officious friend, who, tho' he means well, yet mars a matter through the unseasonableness of his interpo­sal. To every thing, says Solomon there is time and season, and 'tis the right ordering of things, as to time, as well as place, that renders them proper, and decent, and agreeable. A Souldier may mean very well, and do some acceptable Service by leaving his Rank, or quitting the Post assign'd him, and yet, for all his Success, he becomes a trans­gressor; and may be call'd to an account for so doing: And just so it is with our Thoughts, I mean particularly in our religious Per­formances; they may be truly good in themselves, yet if they are forreign to the matter in hand, step in unseasonably, and break their Ranks, they are Criminals. So that when we are at our De­votions, 'tis not enough to bar out all sinful and worldly Conceits from crowding in upon us, but we must stave off all other thoughts [Page 78] that relate not to the matter in hand; for tho' a Thought, for in­stance, or purpose of doing some good Work be in it self Divine, yet tis a question whether or no the Spirit that suggests it at that time be Divine, because it tends then only to distract us, and mar the per­formance we are about, as colour misplaced in the face doth the beauty: so then, Gods worship, must be performed, not only externally, but internally too, in decency and or­der, and we must not offer that great Majesty who made all things, in weight and measure, a tumul­tuary jumble of Thoughts in our homage to him. But as, in the words of the Apostle; He that is ingaged in the Ministry must wait on his Ministring, and he that teacheth on Teaching, and he that Ex­horteth on Exhortation, &c. So he that is at his Prayers, must attend to his Prayers, to the particular Petition before him; he that is giving Thanks to his Thanksgiv­ing; he that is at Confession to [Page 79] his Confessing, &c. directing all his Thoughts streight upwards to­wards Heaven; and he that is at Sermon, ought, for that time, to apply his whole Thoughts to what is offer'd, and if any other thoughts, howsoever lawful and good, pre­tend to interpose, must bid them come another time, for that he is now otherwise ingag'd, and not at leisure.

IV, 'TIS another sinful Infir­mity in our thinking Power, that tho we are willing to entertain pious Objects in our Hearts, yet we care not to dwell long upon them, so that they leave not those prints and impressions behind them that stick and abide by us, per­sume not the heart with that due Fragrancy and Savour they ought to leave behind them, when they are past and gone; for tho we may not be so bad as those, of whom it may be affirmed, with the Psalmist, that God is not in all their Thoughts, yet of well [Page 80] disposed minds it may be said that he is not much at a time there: 'Tis long ere we can get sight of him through the optick glass of Contemplation, and when we do, our hands shake, or somthing in­terposes, so that ever and anon we lose sight of him again, and this Levity of mind, as it is seen in our Contemplations upon any Ob­jects, so more especially in the performance of holy Duties: We set forth in Prayer, it may be ve­ry well, with a due Composure of mind and an humble Sense of our obligations to God, and De­pendance on Him; but perhaps e're we are got half way on with our work, our Thoughts, which set out with our Lips, have given them the slip, and left them to go on by themselves, whilst they in the interim have rambl'd perhaps from one corner of the Earth to another, and made the grand Tour of the World: When we should earnestly seek God by Prayer, and our Souls and Spirits should ascend [Page 81] straight upwards in direct Bays of fervent devotion, behold them tossed like a dried leaf before the wind, or as an empty cask upon the waves; for, instead of good, evil is present with us, and we cannot do the things that we would; but the World and the Devil knock at the Door of our hearts, step in, and desire to speak with our Thoughts, divert them from their business, and make a Man's heart go after his covetousness, as the Prophet speaks, after his pleasures, his sins or his secular imployments: any thing that was forgot before will be sure then to present it self to the mind and sue for Attend­ance. Nay many times foreign Thoughts come about us, like Bees, as David speaks of his enemies, in whole swarms together, and with their humming noise distract our attention; or, like Abrahams Fowls, in flocks, to peck at and deform our Sacrifice. And thus, again, it is in that other Branch of Religious duty, hearing of the word, for no [Page 82] doubt but any Man, upon a just recollection of his Thoughts, will find they were out of Church seve­ral times whilst his Person was there; at home, in the Shop, or the Cosser, or indeed any where, but where they should have been; in fine either out of Doors, or at play perhaps within, as much as the Children generally are with­out. But then take any other sort of objects, pleasurable, or pro­fitable, or honourable, and your Thoughts shall dwell, and hover, and brood over them, all the day, said I, nay, in the Night too, di­sturb your repose, and awake you; for the abundance of the rich, to use the wise Man's instance, will not suffer him to sleep. And so it is of any other worldly project, gratify­ing Men's Lusts, compassing a re­venge, or the like: of the latter of which the same wise Man speaks; they sleep not except they have done mischief, and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall. So intent are Men's Thoughts, so closely do [Page 83] they fasten upon these earthly sen­sual, and many times Devilish con­cernments, whilst they are present­ly weary, and frisk off from any thing that is sacred, and sober, and serious.

NOW this wandring in Pray­er and other holy duties is resolva­ble into several causes. As

I. INTO our complex'd con­stitution of Soul and Body. Whilst our Souls are lodg'd in these pitiful tenements of Clay, they cannot help being affected with the incon­veniences of their Habitation. They are confined to the use of Bodily Spirits in their most abstracted operations, and every considerable disorder in the blood and Spirits does therefore of necessity produce a proportionable disorder in the Soul in thinking, and being sur­rounded with such variety of ob­jects and business, whilst we live in this material World, which through the intervention of our senses, leave [Page 84] their Ideas in the Head behind them, the eye of the mind can no more help looking upon them, when they are jogg'd and thrown in its way, than the eyes of our bodies can help seeing when they are open, or our ears hearing the sounds that strike them. All this is natural and necessary, as the unavoidable result of the dependance of the Soul in its most spiritual operations upon the frame and contexture of our Bodies during their conjunction: and we may as well think of cea­sing to be what we are, and of casting the Man in a new mould as of a total prevention of this infirmi­ty of our Constitution. And this being so, we must expect to meet with it in our Prayers, as well as in other business of our Lives; tis in Heaven alone, where the facul­ties of both Soul and Body shall be inlarged and refined, and we shall have but one Object of our Thoughts, God, who shall be all in all, that our Souls shall cleave in­separably to him without the least [Page 85] avocation. All which may serve to qualify, by the by, the seru­ples and vexations incident to some tender minds, who are apt per­haps to entertain too hard thoughts of themselves, because they can­not so manage their Thoughts that they shall regularly attend upon Gods Service, without breaks and chasms in them, without falling off now and then, and straying from their present business: For 'tis im­possible, in the very nature of things, our Composition, totally to prevent the first beginnings, or sallies of the Mind towards wan­dring, for the Spirits, by whose intervention we perform these men­tal Operations, will not bear so rigid a fixation; all we can do in the case, and that we must do, is to keep a strict eye upon our Thoughts, to drive away the Fowls that light upon our Sacrifice, to endeavour continually to check and controul and stop them in their ca­reer to other objects, and when at any time they have given us the [Page 86] slip, to call them upon the first dis­covery home again to their business, and regret our weakness; and if we thus both bewail, and labour to reme­dy those exursions of our Thoughts which we cannot totally hinder, they are not our sin, but infirmity, which will never affect our main state.

II. DISTRACTING Thoughts in Prayer are very much owing to that natural aversion we observ'd in us to things spiritual and Divine, for such imployment of our Thoughts being therefore a sort of preternatural force upon them, the spring that bends them Heaven-ward will be apt to relax, and give way to the contrary tendency of our minds downwards, so that leaving those un­welcome objects they presently fall back again into the company of the old familiars of their thoughts.

III. OUR distractions proceed, in a great measure, from an over­active and ungovern'd imagination: 'tis the quick-silver part in our [Page 87] mettal, that runs glibly up and down, and shoots, as it were, in our minds, like Meteors in the Air, traversing our devotions with ten thousand frivolous and foolish con­ceits, presenting us with those fine Schemes and Images of things, rich­es, honour, or the like, till the di­stracted wandring Man, instead of his Maker, worships all the while perhaps the Idol of his own and the Devils making. But we have discours'd the extravagancies of this Faculty before.

IV. DISTRACTIONS in Prayer proceed frequently from an intempe­rate love of the World and the cares that attend its enjoyments; which so often ingross our hearts, that we no sooner set about holy du­ties than they justle the one thing needful out of our minds, and make Mary's good part stand by, and Luk. 10. 42 give way to Martha's concern for the World and the family. 'Tis cer­tainly one of the most ridiculous, and yet most general frailties inci­dent [Page 88] to our corrupt nature, to use this World as if neither we, nor the fashion of it were to pass away; which is just as if a Traveller, with business of infinite importance on his Hand, should loyter and take up with his Inn on the Road, with­out ever farther pursuing the end of his journey. And possibly most of the sins that are committed in the World are fairly resolvable into a too passionate fondness for it. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon, is a saying that carries a greater force of truth in it, than possibly most Men are aware of. For their prin­ciples of action are opposite, their interests are opposite, and they re­quire a quite different frame of mind in their respective Votaries: and we know who has told us no less truly than roundly, that if any Man love the World the love of God is not in him; for it ties down our apprehen­sions to things mean, and trivial, and base; and stifles and chokes our desires of such as are spiritual and Divine; it extinguishes all ho­ly [Page 89] fervour of Spirit, estranges from God, and puts out that sacred flame of love for him, which is the very life and Soul of our devotions to him; it crowds into the Church and Closet with us, and like the Sons of Zerviah, is too hard for David; so that many times, with Demas, we for­sake the Lord in our Thoughts, even whilst we pretend to do him ho­mage, having lov'd this present World, whose thorns (i. e. its cares and ri­ches) choak the seeds, in our Saviours Luk. 8. 7. 14. estimate, of all the good that is sown amongst them; and there­fore it is, that when God required the male Children of the Jews thrice a year to attend upon his service at Jerusalem, he promised that no Man should desire their Land when they Ex. 34. 24. should go up to appear before the Lord their God, thrice in the year; for the fears and jealousies that might other­wise have seiz'd them, would have divided their hearts betwixt God and their families at home, and so have blasted the fruits of so laborious and universal a journey: and upon [Page 92] the same account it is, that the Apostle advises single persons, that were able to receive it, to continue rather in that state, in times of difficulty and distress, that they might attend upon the Lord without those distractions of mind, that are almost unavoidably inci­dent to persons deeply intangled in secular concernments.

V. ANY reigning and prevail­ing Lust will both obstruct and distract our Devotions; for where our treasure is there will our hearts be also, and especially, at the time of our religious Services, will be apt to run out of the Closet and the Church to meet and chat with their best Beloved: We may indeed at such junctures be proof against the Courtship of other in­ferior temptations, and therefore the Devil takes especial Care then to set the Sin of our bosom on work, to imploy the favourite Lust for our Diversion. And this is so usual a stratagem to decoy our [Page 91] hearts from our Services, that we may hereby certainly discover our 2 Cor. 10. 5. darling topping Lust, the [...] of our depraved Hearts, that which all the others pay obedience to, and do it homage, for that to be sure is it which pretends the greatest interest in us, and thereupon di­sturbs us most in holy Duties.

VI. OUR distractions in Pray­er frequently proceed from those Objects that strike our senses during the Service. For 'tis not in the compass of our powers to give any distinct and tolerable attendance to several and perhaps contrary Ob­jects at the same time, so that the Ideas of those we let in at such junctures, at the doors of our Sen­ses, turn the mind out of its way, and divert it from the prosecution of its proper business. An open and erect ear to every sound will make discord in the brain, and va­grant eyes will cause a wandring heart: if Dinah like they gad abroad to see the Daughters of the Land, [Page 92] tis odds but they meet with objects in their jant that will commit a rape upon them. And therefore, we should, either, with Job, make a covenant with our senses when we engage in holy duties, let our eyes look right on, as Solomon speaks, and our eye lids look straight before us, or, shut up their Doors as much as possible, to exclude the foreign di­sturbers of our attention, for nothing possibly promotes fixation of Thought more than the closing of our eyes; experience tells us the darkness is an undoubted help to intense me­ditation, and the Arabian Proverb imports, that when the five Windows those of the sense are shut up, the House of the mind is then fullest of light: I might assign here several other negative causes, as I may stile them, of this defect, as the want of a true love of God, want of a devout habit of mind, want of preparation of the heart, before we enter upon religious duties, &c. But these will fall better under the last general Head of discourse, the [Page 93] regiment or government of our Thoughts upon these and other oc­casions; and therefore,

VII. AND lastly, There is no doubt to be made but that the di­stractions and wandrings of our Thoughts in Prayer, are, in a great measure, owing to the machinati­ons and experiments of the Devil upon us; for tho' in these ordinary cases we at present speak of, 'tis a difficult, and perhaps unnecessary task to discover, whether the Devil or our own Thoughts are first in the transgression (for they are both ready enough to joyn in the confe­deracy against us) and doubtless Men are apt many times to charge the inbred corruptions of their own depraved nature to the account of that infernal Spirit, and so paint him blacker, if possible, than he is; And it were besides an overnice and fruitless enquiry, to search into those artifices and methods whereby he may rationably be supposed to withdraw our attention from our [Page 94] Prayers; for we cannot well de­termine how far he may be con­cern'd in the use of any of those means of distraction we have hi­therto mentioned, as the love of the World, the wandring of the senses, the painted scenes of the ima­gination, and the importunities of any reigning and prevailing lust. Nor can we with any certainty de­fine what feats he is able to perform upon such occasions, by outward disturbances and inward injections; for we can guess but darkly at the operations of Spirits, how far or by what way they can insinuate and communicate their motions to our minds; yet who so considers how instrumental he is in other sins, as in David's numbring the people: Ju­das's 1 Chron. 21. 1. Joh. 13. 27. Acts. 5. 3. betraying his Master: Ananias's lying to the Holy Ghost, &c. more particularly, how much we are many times pester'd with foreign and improper Thoughts during our approaches to the Throne of grace, whilst we find a great ease and freedom in our minds when they [Page 95] are ingaged in worldly Business, or in any other philosophical or indifferent Contemplation: And who so reflects farther how much it is his interest to spoil and break off our Commerce with Heaven, and blast the Fruit of all our Prayers, since this visibly advances the in­terests of his Kingdom, must grant, in the general, that he is doubtless particularly concern'd in the wan­dring of our Thoughts during di­vine Service. Accordingly we find that where St. James requires us to draw nigh to God, he bids us at Jam. 4. 7, 8. the same time, resist the Devil, which is a plain evidence, that when we come to stand before the Lord, Satan stands at our right hand, in the Prophet Zachary's Language, Zac. 3. 1. ready to resist us; And our Savi­our himself in the parable of the Sower and the Seed, tells us plain­ly, that the Devil, or, in St. Ma­thews Luk. 8. Matth. 13. Language, the wicked One, taketh away the Word out of some Mens Hearts lest they should believe and be Saved. They are the hear­ers [Page 96] by the Way side, our Lord there speaks of, such as in Chri­sostom's exposition advert not, nor attend to what is deliver'd, your careless supine Auditors, who while the Preacher toils, Christ speaks by him, and the Holy Ghost is ready to co-operate, are amusing themselves with ten thousand incoherent and foreign imaginations: and what the Devil is so ready to do at Sermons, he will think it much more his interest to do at Prayers, and there­fore, methinks, it should be a pow­erful inducement to engage men to a serious attention on both those oc­casions, to consider that whilst they are led aside with those vain imagi­nations, that interrupt their attend­ing to what they themselves say to God, or others speak to them in his Name, the Devil all the while, if we'l believe our Lord himself, is busie with them, lays close siege to their Hearts, and makes them more effectually serve him, than the Lord that bought them. Not that I look upon every such assault and even [Page 97] Success of the Tempter upon us, as an argument of an irreligious temper and reprobate Mind: For the Devil, who is all Spirit, can hold out the fiege against us, longer than we, who dwell in houses of Clay, can sustain his Incursions, the ve­ry Infirmity of our Composition, where tho the Spirit may be wil­ling yet the flesh is weak, will necessarily make our minds nod, take them off their guard now and then, and consequently give the Tempter an anavoidable advan­tage over us, yet if these wan­drings of our Spirits are grievous to our Minds upon recollection, if we hence learn what unprofita­ble Servants we are, even in our best Performances, and humble our selves hereupon in the sight of God, begging him to whip those Thieves, that steal away our Thoughts, out of the Temples of our Souls, we shall not stand chargeable with the Robberies they commit upon us, but as the motions of the good Spirit, when rejected, do so much [Page 98] the more inhaunce Men's guilt, so will the injections of the evil One, when guarded against, as far as may be, and resisted, be sanctified, through the divine Mer­cy, to our greater advantage. In fine, this wandring of the mind in holy Duties, tho in its best Con­struction 'tis a great Unhappiness, yet will be only so far imputed for Sin to us, as it is voluntary in its Cause, and in our own power to remedy, and is, in its Progress, whence soever it derives, indulged and complyed with.

SECT. 5.

WE proceed now to another more terrible sort of Thoughts, wherewith the Minds of Men are many times unhappily infested. For it is not unusual, for some tempers especially, to be assaulted with abundance of odd, extravagant, and horrid Thoughts breaking in upon them, in spite [Page 99] of all Guard and Opposition. Thus you shall have some, those parti­cularly of musing heads and me­lancholly Dispositions, press'd upon now and then with Atheistical and Blasphemous C [...]gitations, tempted either, with David, to deny God, Ps. 73. 2. from a consideration of the unequal Dispensation of his Providence in the World, or some other such illo­gical Topick; or else, through the pressure of their Afflictions, or the like, to think hardly of him, to de­ny him in his Attributes, to charge him foolishly, and to curse him and die. Others you shall have pos­sess'd with dismal [...] of th [...]r having sinned the [...]in again [...] the holy Ghost, of their being Repro­bates, cast off of God, without the verge of his Mercy, and seal'd up for destruction. Others, Lastly, there are hurried on in their minds to the commission of some great and crying Sins, even against the bent of their own Propensions; and that, sometimes as far as self Murder it self, &c.

NOW these Thoughts being all of 'em a kin, and of the self same Family, I shall not go about to treat of them severally and apart, but together and in the following Method.

I. I shall endeavour to shew that there is some difficulty in stateing their proper Rise and O­rigine. But that,

II. 'TIS of great use to know it, and therefore

III. IN order thereunto, I shall assign some Marks and Cha­racteristies, whereby it may be known when they are of their Fa­ther the Devil.

IV. I shall shew, that howso­ever troublesom and afflicting they are, they do not affect nor endan­ger our main State.

V. and Lastly, I shall endeavour to prescribe the regulation of them.

[Page 101] I. IT must be owned there is some difficulty in the enqui­ry into the rise and origine of these horrid Thoughts, and 'tis hard to know many times whether they are the genuine Issue of our own corrupt Nature, or spurious Brats falsly father'd on us by the De­vil. For he can inject as much and more than our Corruptions can suggest, and yet possihly, on the other hand, they are able of themselves, to carry us on to those excesses that look diabolical, and when they joyn hand in hand, 'tis hard to know whether of the two first made the Motions or proves the abler Solicitor of their common cause of Sin: Out of the Heart, says our Saviour, proceed evil Thoughts, Murders, Adulteries, &c. there they are conceived, who­soever begets them. And St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, re­solves Rom. 1. 24. some of those black Crimes, for which he brands the heathen World, into the Lusts of their own Hearts, and yet at the same time [Page 102] [...] to understand, that the P [...]ince of the power of the Air wrought in all such Children of Diso­bedience And indeed as the Do­ctrine Eph. 2. 2. of divine and humane Con­currence in the progress of true Pi­ety is very plain, and legible, in the Scriptures, so as that we are said, for instance, to be washed and sanctified by the Spirit of God, and 1 Cor. 6. 11. yet are required to cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the Flesh and Spirit: So are the same sins in 2 Cor. 7. 1. different places charged upon the Devil, and our own Hearts too. As, David's numbring the people 1 Chron. 21. 1. v. 8. is ascribed to Satan, and yet the King takes it to himself: Just as it is said of Ananias lying to the holy Ghost, that Satan put him on it, and yet that he conceived it in his Acts. 5. 3, 4. Heart.

NOW tho it be somwhat diffi­cult, as we have seen, to know the true Parent of these hideous Thoughts we speak of. yet,

[Page 103] II. IT is of no small use and concernment to meet with some satisfaction in the Matter; for the sad Experience, I believe, of many, especially hypocondraick Persons, tells us, (the darkness of whose humor is best fitted to receive such black Impressions,) how apt the grand Enemy of our peace is to throw these fiery Darts into our Hearts, and then to accuse us of their burning within us, to com­mit a rape upon our Spirits and then lay the Child at our Doors, whereby he many times creates such infinite Disquiet of Thought, Horror of Conscience, and Asto­nishment of all the Powers and Faculties of tendor Minds, that they are apt to look upon them­selves as rejected of God, deliver'd up to Satan, and in such a despe­rate and forlorn Condition, that the violent hand perhaps is some­times thought of to put a Period to the comfortless and wretched Life; and therefore, I say, it may be of excellent Use, on this Argu­ment, [Page 401] for the Support and Encou­ragement of these unhappy Persons, to point out such criterious and characteristies, whereby the buffe­tings of Satan, as we render it, 2 Cor. 12 7. may be in some measure distinguish­ed from the genuine productions of our own Minds, and those generally assign'd by Divines are such as follow.

I. THEY are the Devil's Thoughts, not ours, when the mat­ter of them surpasses the suggesti­ons of our natural Corruption: for Nature her self, unless turn'd per­fectly Diabolical, shrinks, and gives back at those outragiously wick­ed Motions, that pass now and then in some Men's Minds, and there to be sure they are the as­saults of the Devil upon them, to Vex, Disquiet, and Confuse their Spirits, tho he chance to prove unable to prevail with them. An evil Heart, 'tis true, may through its own inherent Wickedness, con­jure up those frightful Spectres of [Page 105] Thoughts, that would scare and a­maze other Persons, but that 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, [Page 106] 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 'tis 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

[Page 107] III. INDICATION that they proceed from [...] for tis 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 [Page 108] 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 Ʋrbanus 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 [Page 109] 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 'tis 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; [Page 110] 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, [Page 111] because unavoidable to be subject to the inroads of these black blas­phemous Thoughts upon our minds, no more than 'tis 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 [Page 112] 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 them; but if the Devil, who lays siege to us, throw them in, we are no farther con­cern'd, then to take the best care we can to put them out, to suppress and hinder their spreading: For, that which is from within only defiles a Man, not that which is thrown in from without; if we are purely passive [Page 113] in the matter and joyn not with the Devil's Suggestions, so long they are his Thoughts, let him look to them, they are none of ours, we have nothing to do with them.

III. IT would be considered that these frightful Thoughts de­rive many times more from an ill habit of Body than of Mind, more from poor Blood and a bad Spleen than from indisposition of Soul and falsness of Heart. Me­lancholly, whether Natural, or ac­quired by Sickness, Losses, Afflicti­ons, &c. (and such Persons are most infested with these horrid Thoughts) is of it self apt to fill Mens heads with infinite Crotch­ets, the blackest Conceits, and sad­dest Surmises, it creates the Ima­ges of Apparitions, Mormoes, and Spectres, and then inclines the poor deluded Man to take them for Realities. Whilst; alas! his malady is generally better cured by good Air, wholsom Diet, and [Page 114] Chalybeats, then by all the reci­pes of Divinity: And then what reason has a Man to be troubled in Mind, or dejected in Spirit, more for this than any other Distemper, why is poor Blood and a melancholy Disposition a surer mark of the divine Displeasure, than the burnings of a Feaver, or the shiverings of an Ague?

IV. IT may be added for the support and encouragement of these dejected Spirits, that their malady is rarely incident, but to religious Dispositions, and pious Minds, that live under tender Sense of their Duty, and an awful dread of the divine Displeasure. Were they in those bonds of Iniquity, and that state of Reprobation they fi­gure to themselves they would never be so happy as to experiment any of these spiritual conflicts in their bosoms. Non timeo hos pingues, said Caesar of Dolobella, and his roar­ing Crew, but sober Brutus and Cassius stuck in his Stomach; the Devil [Page 115] like him, never troubles his head with your supine unwary Sinners, who are amusing their heads with a thousand wicked projects that ad­vance the interests of his Kingdom, for he might chance to jog them out of their sleep of sin, and awaken them to repentance, and so out-wit himself, should he fright them by these terrible injections: and there­fore if Ephraim is joyned to Idols, if Hos. 4. 17. Men are deeply ingaged in notori­ous sins, he too says, like God, let him alone. For why should the Prince of darkness be thought so weak a States-man as to make war upon those who have already sub­mitted to his government, and sworn homage to him? But then he uses all the black art of his infer­nal Suggestions to stop, and vex, or disquiet the Religious Man in his holy course. 'Twas righteous Job that he would fain have prevail'd with to curse God to his face; and 'twas the Holy Jesus that was Job. 1. 11. & 2. 5. tempted by him to that horrid blasphemy of renouncing the wor­ship [Page 116] of the great God, and substi­tuting him in his stead. So that, upon the whole, Temptations of this nature being rather an argument of a pious than irreligious temper, ought, in just construction to be so far from Ministring sorrow, that they may afford even matter of comfort and rejoycing to those that are exercised therein.

V. AND Lastly, Tho it must be confest that these black injecti­ons, may be sometimes, like other judgments, the Chastisement of our sins, as of our carnal security for instance, of neglect of our Thoughts, grieving the holy Spirit, &c. yet they are even then only the evil of punishment, as any other infliction may be, not of sin to us, unless we like, comply with, and approve them; and when they have once gained the design, for which our heavenly Father sent them on his Children, as suppose the awaken­ing them to a more through Re­pentance than they have yet arriv'd [Page 117] at, taking off their inclinations to the enjoyments of this present Life, teaching them a more perfect Recumbency upon God, abating their Pride, least they should be, with St. Paul, above measure exal­ted, 2 Cor. 12. 7. &c. then he takes off his af­flicting hand, restrains the Tem­pter, quiets the mind, and speaks Peace to his People.

SECT. 1.

THUS much of the second part of our Subject, the Defects, Failures, and Infirmities incident to our Thoughts. We are now arriv'd at the third and last, which is to prescribe some rules for the Government and Manage of them. And thus I will endeavour to do.

I. WITH Relation particular­ly to these horrid Thoughts we have just now treated of.

[Page 118] II. WITH Relation to the sinful infirmities of our Thoughts in religious Duties.

III. AND Lastly, I shall lay down such Rules as concern the go­vernment of our Thoughts in general.

First, I shall endeavour to shew, how we are to behave our selves with particular relation to these horrid Thoughts we have just now treated of. And,

1. THERE is no doubt to be made, but that Prayer, which is so proper a means to the attainment of every good and perfect Gift, and so powerful an Amulet against all the Evils we labour under, will be of special Use in the case be­fore us, Is any among you afflicted, says St. James, let him pray, and what greater affliction, and conse­quently, more pressing occasion to Prayer than those Perplexities of Mind we speak of; for when can it be more opportune to call in [Page 119] the Aid of Heaven, than when we are thus immediately assaulted by Hell? What fitter to quench these fiery Darts of the Wicked than the Shield of Faith in God express'd Eph. 6. 16. by our importunate Applications to him for Relief? For then must it be more especially acceptable to God, to testifie an entire Depen­dance on, and Confidence in him, when he seems most of all to hide his Face from us in Displeasure. For if we thus pour out our Sup­plications before him, hungring and thirsting after the Assistances of his Spirit, and the Testimony of our Consciences, to support us in these spiritual Conflicts, he has pro­mised, and therefore no doubt but in his own good time, he will shine upon us with the Light of his Countenance, and yeild us Re­freshment: Will put his hook in­to the Nose, and his bridle into the Lips of the Tempter, turn him back, by the way by which he came, and give Ease to those who have suffered so much in them­selves, [Page 120] for fear only of having of­fended him.

II. ANOTHER proper reme­dy in this case, is to avoid idleness and solitary retirements; it must indeed be own'd, in my opinion, that Solitude is a mighty help to elevation of Mind, application of Thought, recollection of Spirit, and consequently to true private Devotion; which might be the Reason, I presume, why our Lord himself, on this occasion, added somtimes even the darkness of the Night, to the 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, tis 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 [Page 121] 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 'tis 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 [Page 122] 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. 'TIS 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 [Page 123] 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 'tis true in this case [Page 124] 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 [Page 125] 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 [Page 126] 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 [Page 127] Pray yonder. 'Tis 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, [Page 128] 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, 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, Twas 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 [Page 129] 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; tis, 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. [Page 130] 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, 'tis 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 [Page 132] 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 [Page 133] 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 Supplican [...]s? For so he N [...]mb. 17 4. [Page 134] 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 [Page 135] 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, 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 Ʋzzah; of Lev. 10. 2. 2 Sam. 6. 6. [Page 136] the Bethshemites; and of the Church 1 Sam. 6. 19. 1 C [...]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 [Page 137] 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 [Page 138] 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 [Page 139] 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 [Page 140] 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. 'Tis 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 [Page 141] 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 Parade, which the Pharisaic Vota­ries so much affected, but no doubt to better the Performance, by with­drawing, as much as may be, from those Impressions of worldly Ob­jects, that are wont so fatally to persecute and distract us. Any thing that requires application of Mind carries the necessity of Retirement along with it: How much more that Performance, to the full dis­charge whereof the utmost Stretch of our humane Capacities is ina­dequate: All which is by no means to be understood in prejudice to the [Page 143] Publick Prayers of Religious Assem­blies; where the regular Gravity and Decorum of the Worship, the united Zeal and Devotion of the Worshippers, the Sacredness of the Word that is read, the Importance of the Duty, the Dreadfulness of the Place, &c. all conspire to wing the Devout Soul with divine Ele­vations, to fix it upon God, and give it a Solitude in the great Con­gregation.

AND thus much for those re­medies that may be proper to cure the Distraction and Flatness of our Thoughts in Gods Service.

SECT. 3.

WE are now arrived at the last division of our Sub­ject, which is to direct to such means, as may be proper for the government of our Thoughts in ge­neral. i. e. on whatsoever Subject they are exercised.

AND here not to insist upon that Catholicon of Prayer we have already mentioned, that which being a Soveraign and Universal Remedy against all the Evils we labour under, must consequently be of excellent Use against the exorbitancies of our Thoughts; I would advise, in the

I. PLACE, to open the Scene of the Day with good and savory Thoughts in the Morning: To make the strength and first born of our Conceptions every day holy to the Lord; when I awake, says holy David, I am present with thee; God ever took place in his thoughts, and was the earliest Theme of his Meditations. For, in the Morning, says he, in another place, I will di­rect my Prayer unto thee, and will look up; we must, like him, if we would with him, learn to hate vain thoughts, consecrate our most spright­ly and sparkling Meditations to him, who giveth his beloved sleep, and yet himself neither slumbrs nor sleeps. For there is no doubt to be made, but [Page 145] that a Mind well seasoned and tin­ctured with good Thoughts in the Morning, will, with ordinary care, retain its Smack and Fragrancy all the day; but if we let the World or the Devil in first, 'tis great odds but they keep possession all the day, come home too, and go to bed with us in the Evening.

II. SINCE so much of the va­nity of our Thoughts is owing to the Imagination, as we have seen before at large, it will be highly proper to restrain that extravagant Power with­in its due bounds, to confine it home, and not suffer it to run out, ramble, and gad so far abroad amongst variety of Objects, that we cannot at our pleasure call it back again; to take care however that it make not false Reports of things, and im­pose upon our Reason with fictitious and Romantic exaggerations of them, to draw out our Thoughts in the dance after it, but that we learn ju­diciously to distinguish betwixt the intrinsic value of things, and the [Page 146] extravagant Representations of a ly­ing Imagination.

III. SINCE our Minds receive the Ideas and Images of most things originally from our Senses; since it is by these avenues that outward ob­jects make their way to our Hearts, our Ears being, as it were, the gates by which the objects from without desire to speak with our Thoughts, and our Eyes as windows to our Minds, through which they gaze upon them: It concerns us to set Waiters at these Cinque Ports of our Senses, to seize upon all contraband Goods, and scarch all Comers, as the Governour of a Fortress will take care to guard its Avenues, and exa­mine Passengers, especially strange Faces, least it be insensibly betray­ed, or surprised into the hands of an Enemy, under the appearance and vizor of a Friend: not that the senses are of themselves any way criminal, for they discharge but their respective Offices, according to the Laws of their Creation: Nor that [Page 147] all, or most of the Images of things, they let in, are noxious and sinful, (for what harm had the wedge of Gold or Babylonish Garment in them, when Achan look'd upon them, coveted, and took them; and is not the fair Face drawn, and melodious Voice tun'd by the finger of God, who can do no Evil?) But they become an occasion of Sin by the doteing of the Heart upon them; and there­fore it is we must guard our Senses, to deprive that of the matter of its Crimes, and let its foolish Fire go out for want of fuel fit to keep it in. And yet how contrary to this is the practice of the World, where our Eyes are every day expos'd to the infection of wanton Pictures, light Dresses, natural and artificial Beau­ties, to the redness of the Wine when it gives its colour in the glass, and to a thousand criminal Examples, and our Ears stand all the day open to amorous Romantic Stories, ob­scene Jests, Back-bitings, and Re­vilings, and most times to flat and insipid Discourses, that neither mi­nister [Page 148] Morality, nor Grace, nor Rea­son to the Hearers, so that our Souls return home at night infected with the vain Air of the courses of the day, and full charged with toys and ten thousand Amusemnets, which leave such sensible Impressions be­hind them, that we are still hanker­ing after those Objects, that gave us so agreeable a Diversion, our Minds become unwilling Inhabitants of their tenements of Clay, and little better perhaps than Captives taken by Satan at his Will. The Tree was pleasant to the Eye, and then the poor Woman inveigled by her Sense, could not forbear to take and eat of the Fruit: So that we had need go and learn what that means, touch not, taste not, handle not; had need not gaze on a Maid, in the advice of the wise Son of Syrach, least we fall by those things that are precious in her, and our Eyes be full of Adultery; had need, in this Sense too, take heed how we hear, and turn (in Solomons advice) from the presence of a foolish Man, when we perceive not in him the Prov. 14. 7. [Page 149] lips of Knowledge, or wise and profi­table Discourse. Had, the Royal David, with Job, made a covenant with his Eyes, both he and Bathsheba had preserv'd their Innocence, and Ʋriah his Life; but Alas! the King kept no Life-guard there (as I may properly call it) where it seems it was most needful, and so the Man after God's Heart, suffered his own to walk, in Jobs Expression, after his Eyes, his steps turn'd out of the Way, and he was deceiv'd by a Wo­man. And therefore if we would take one primary Step towards the government and good discipline of our Thoughts, we must, as far as we are able amidst that variety of objects that perpetuelly surround us, turn away our Eyes from beholding Vanity, and our Ears from hearken­ing unto Folly, must shut the gates against the Enemies of our Peace, and not enter into parley with them, least they beck and smile upon our Thoughts, give them good Words, call them out, and they, and our affections, that are consequent [Page 150] upon them, tempt us to yeild and surrender our Innocence.

IV. THEREFORE, in con­sequence of this, it will be necessa­ry to make a right choice of the company we keep; which has ma­ny times, so unreasonable an Awe o­ver the modesty of humane Na­ture in its propensions towards Good▪ that like St. Paul's Person, in the 7th. to the Romans, by reason of it, the good that we would, we do not. For 'tis a hardy well resolv'd Piety, that ventures to exert in bad Con­versation, but the evil which we would not, that we do: For the byas of our own propensions natural­ly inclines us to follow criminal before good Examples. And there­fore if we would effectually preserve our Innocence, we must not only let no profane or lewd Conversati­on proceed out of our own Mouths, but must be deaf to all that's vented by others. For, believe me, there's a strange malignity in bad converse to poyson and infect even the best [Page 151] Dispositions: A sort of effluvia, as a learned Person of our own speaks, from the Spirits of Men as well as from their Bodies; with the Clean thou shalt be Clean, and with the Fro­ward thou shalt learn Frowardness, for Lewdness has but a short and ea­sie Passage from the Ear to the Heart. And therefore what King Solomon advises in relation to the angry and furious Man, that we make no friendship with him, least we Prov. 22. 23 24. learn his ways, and get a snare to our Soul, is equally applicable to any o­ther instance of bad Acquaintance; for he that touches pitch shall be defi­led therewith, says the Son of Sy­rach; and can a Man, says the wise King, take fire in his Bosom, and his cloaths not be burnt, can he go upon hot Coals, and his feet not be burnt? Will evil Communication let your Manners go as good as it found them? Or, is it not rather verified by the experience of every ordina­ry observer of himself, that when we meet with an agreeable, how­soever dangerous or destructive Con­versation, [Page 152] we carry it home along with us, suck it in, and our Thoughts chew the cud so long upon it, ma­ny times in our most private Retire­ments, that we assimilate the vici­ous nutriment into a part, as it were, of our very Composition. And therefore the best way to secure our Thoughts from Infection, is, to practise with the Adder, to shut our Ears against the voice of such Char­mers, charm they never so agreea­bly to our own corrupt Inclinations. To accept no Person against our own Soul, and not let the Reverence of any Man cause us to fall, but to exchange Eccl. 4. 22. the Communion of Devils for that of Saints; whose Examples and sa­lutarie Discourses may season our Minds, and, as Iron sharpens Iron, rub off the rust we have contracted, and give an edge to our Spirits.

V. AND as Men should be thus choice in their company in order to the preservation of their Thoughts, so likewise the same care would be had of those Books, upon which they [Page 153] now and then imploy their vacant hours. It will not be a vanity to affirm that no Nation in the World ex­ceeds our own for variety of good Books, publish'd in our own Language, and adapted to all Capacities; and yet, so far of late Years have we suckt in the French Air, that, as some have laboured the Introduction of their Government amongst us, tho the most uneasie and tyrannical in Christendom, so others have as greedily imitated them in their Vi­ces, and made their Vanities classi­cal and authentick: I mean particu­larly their Plays, Operas, Farces, Romances, and other such like curi­ous Cobweb Work of idle Brains; in so much that a Man may say on this Occasion, with King Solomon; the Heart of him that hath Ʋnderstan­ding seeketh Knowledge, but the mouth of Fools feeds on Foolishness. Such Fools amuse and please themselves with the remembrance of idle and fictitious Stories, with the amours of one Romantic Hero, and the brave imaginary Exploits of another: And [Page 154] thus the head is fill'd with Froth in­stead of Brains, and the Thoughts, Camelion-like, live on the Air, on that indeed which is not, as having no other Being but what a fruitful In­vention, and a roving Fancy gives it. I say then, that for the better or­dering Men's Thoughts, it will be requisite that they lay out their vacant hours to better purpose, particularly on those infallible Re­cords of eternal Wisdom that are able to make them wise unto Salvation, and endeavour to fraight their heads with Piety, and Sense, instead of Fumes and Feathers. For what Men read, if it fall in with their own foolish and corrupt Inclinations, leaves lasting Impressions behind it, and, generally, the worst thing that passes in Conversation, either with the Living or the Dead, sticks the longest by us, and affords most food for the Thoughts to feed upon, and 'tis well, after all, if such Persons proceed yet no farther, and turn not the well told legendarie Tales that they Read, into true and [Page 155] real History by their Practice.

VI. THEN since the Vanity of Thoughts is so much owing to the ill Supplies they meet with, partly from idle Books, partly from as idle Conversation, it will be further re­quisite to furnish the mind with good materials, for it to exert and descant on. Since the crudities of the Soul like those of the Stomach proceed so much from those ill Juices which have vitiated its tone and digestion; we must provide it better food and more wholesom diet, to recover its taste, its due crassis, and constitu­tion; for the Soul as well as the Body is apt to participate of the Na­ture of that which affords it its u­sual Nourishment. And, here we have as large a Table spread for our mental Repast, as the wonders con­tain'd in God, in Nature, and in Grace can furnish. View the first of these in his Almighty Power, where­by, as he spake the World out of Nothing, so he can, not only think, but return it into Nothing again: [Page 156] In his Immensity, whereby he fills all Places, and is contained of None: In the Unity and Simplicity of his Nature, a whole without parts: In his Understanding to which the Truth of all things before they had a Being, was as broad noon day to him, or rather he to them, their Essences being all displayed in, and derived from his own: In his Will, the immediate Efflux or first Born of his Understanding, and yet co-evous with its Parent: View him in the Justice of his Judgments, in the Wis­dom of his Providence, and in his Goodness towards the Children of Men. Whoso is wise will consider these Ps. 107. 13. things, and they shall understand the lov­ing kindness of the Lord: Or look over, in the next place, the Book of Na­ture, the Heaven's the work of his Fin­gers, the Moon and the Stars which he hath ordained: Those Immense fire Works, whose motion is as regular Ps. 8. 3. as rapid, and are but as the twilight of the everlasting Day, and of that Light which is inaccessible: Read him further yet in the amazing In­stance [Page 157] of his Grace, when he recon­ciled the World to himself in Christ, let the Mystery of Godliness be ever present to thy Mind; God manifest in 1 Tim. 3. 16. the Flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of Angels, preach'd unto the Gentiles, believed on in the World, received up into Glory. But it cannot be ima­gin'd that I should enter into the de­tail of those innumerous Objects that afford proper Matter for the Con­templation and Improvement of our Thoughts; and therefore the suc­cinct Advice of the Apostle will ap­positely take place here: Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever are honest, whatsoever things are iust, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report,: If there be any Vir­tue or if there be any Praise think on these Things. For, the Truth and Reason of all is, the Spirit of a Man is an active restless Principle of in­ternal Motion, that will not be wholly idle, but will be doing, tho it be nothing to the purpose, rather than do just nothing at all. And [Page 158] therefore unless you furnish it with good stuff to work upon, it will take up with that which is next at hand at all adventures; so that if we would bring forth good things, in our Saviours Language, we must, with his good Man, have a good treasure in our Hearts: (How precious are thy Thoughts to me, O God, says holy Da­vid, how great is the sum of them) not Ps. 139. 17. a small inconsiderable Stock of Pie­ty and Knowledge, but a Treasure, a good Fond, or Bank, for our Thoughts to trade with, and then we shall increase with the increase of God. King Solomon requiring us to bind the divine Law continually upon our Hearts, adds, that when we go it shall lead us: When we sleep Prov. 6. 22. it shall keep us, and when we awake it shall talk with us. i. e. It will entertain our Thoughts, and bear them Company, when we are a­lone, or, as it's said upon the same Occasion, when we walk by the way, Deut. 6. 7. when we lie down, and when we rise up: Times generally of the great­est Retirement. But now without [Page 159] this good Society at Home, our Thoughts will certainly seek out for new Acquaintance; gad abroad for fellowship with some other Objects; and ten to one in their jant fall into bad Company: Associate with the Lusts of the Flesh, the Lust of the Eye, or the Pride of Life; and get those ill haunts that our Minds per­haps may never after have the pow­er to abandon,

BUT because neither Nature nor Education has furnish'd all Men with equal matter for their Thoughts, and there are different sizes in Un­derstanding as well as in Stature, therefore

VII. ONE would advise to a more comprehensive Expedient for the government of Thoughts which every one is capable of using, and that is for Men to be diligent and in­dustrious in that Calling or Station wherein Providence has placed them; to do, as the wise King advises, with all their might what their hands find to [Page 160] do. For this confines the stream of our Thoughts to their proper Chan­nel, and hinders them from over­flowing their Bank; this hedges in the ramblers, and keeps them to their own Inclosure, who, if left unconfi­ned, would, like Jeremy's wild Ass snuff up the Wind, and observe no measures. God who is the Father of the Spirits of all Flesh, knew that he had made them active restless things, and therefore to imploy and find them work, to keep them do­ing as they ought, when they are not immediately ingaged in his Ser­vice, he design'd Men their respect­ive Callings and Professions, and six parts of time in seven for them to take up their Thoughts and imploy them, and if they are not thus in­gaged about their own Business, 'tis odds, but that like St. Paul's busie Bodies, they wander from House to House, mind other Men's, and med­dle with many Matters; which may in time cause as great Combustions without, as they do disorder the Head within. Let our Thoughts [Page 161] then keep within their own lines, and make no incroachments hitherto, within the circle of our own pro­per business and Station, let their proud waves go, and no farther. Let his Thoughts who is appointed to the Ministry wait on his Mini­string, his, who is to teach, on teach­ing, &c.

VIII. IT were advisable for Men's better ordering their Thoughts, to make choice, as far as they can, of such imployments and course of life, as is most suitable to their genius, and abilities of Mind, for that always sits the easiest on them, and their Thoughts more Naturally fall in with their business and abide by it; Whereas if Men's imploys lie cross the grain of their inclina­tions, their Thoughts will be per­petually running after something else, at which they are not so awkard, or if they aspire at things to which their strength bears no proportion; matters too high for them, and above the sphere of their activity; the [Page 162] weight of the burden will render them painful and uneasie; make them stagger too and fro like a drun­ken Man, and bring them to their wits end, besides the damage they may occasion to the publick; as Phaeton endeavouring to mount his Fathers Chariot, the manage­ment whereof he did not under­stand, was thereby thrown out of Heaven, and had like to have set the World on fire.

IX. NEXT to this it may be pro­per to subjoyn the advice of endea­vouring to contract rather then en­large our secular affairs, instead of spreading them wider, to reduce them to as tight and narrow a compass as we can, that we may the better attend to the improvement of our own Minds; an acquisition infi­nitely beyond the most pompous temporal attainment. For what are honours, riches, pleasures, all the World, to a brave refined and accom­plished Mind? Now multiplicity of business is a mighty obstruction [Page 163] to this mental improvement. He that thinks of many things thinks of nothing, as he that would go several ways stands still; it distracts and divides our Thoughts, like water mixt with wine, debilitates and di­lutes them; that River will neither be so deep, nor so serviceable for Trade, that is divided into a great many little channels, as that which flows altogether in its own natural bed. Thus it is with our Thoughts, if we let them out at every little chink, which the concerns of the World, make in them, they'l be but shallow Thoughts, and mar the improvement of our Minds. A Ray collected into a point is far more intense than one variously refracted. As God do's not love idle, so neither over busie people: Martha's fault was not that she was imployed in ill but in many things, which justled for that time the good part out of 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 [Page 164] 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 [Page 165] 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 [Page 166] 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.

[Page 167] 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 [Page 168] 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 'tis 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 [Page 169] 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 [Page 170] 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 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 [Page 171] 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 [Page 172] 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 [Page 173] 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. 4 [...]. 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 [...]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 [Page 174] 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 [Page 175] 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 [Page 176] 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.