drink, and sleep, and ease, in prosperity and adversity; in men's good thoughts, or bad thoughts of thee; in their praise and dispraise; in their benefits and their wrongs; their favour and their falling out; in their pleasing or displeasing thee in thy thinking and in thy speaking, and in every thing thou hast to do with! Didst thou but see all these temptations, and also see to what they tend, and whither they would bring thee, thou wouldst find matter to cure the idleness or impertinences of thy thoughts. Direct. x. The world and every creature in it, which thou daily seest, and which revealeth to thee the great Creator, might be enough to keep thy thoughts from idleness.' If sun, and moon, and stars; if heaven and earth, and all therein, be not enough to employ thy thoughts, let thy idleness have some excuse. I know thou wilt say, that it is upon some of these things that thou dost employ them: yea; but dost thou not first destroy, and mortify, and make nonsense of that on which thou meditatest? Dost thou not first separate it from God, who is the life, and glory, and end, and meaning of every creature? Thou killest it, and turnest out the soul, and thinkest only of the corpse or on the creature made another thing as food for thy sensual desires! As the kite thinketh on the birds and chickens, to devour them to satisfy her greedy appetite; thus you can think of all God's works, so far as they accommodate your flesh. But the world is God's book, which he set man at first to read; and every creature is a letter or syllable, or word, or sentence, more or less, declaring the name and will of God. There you may behold his wonderful almightiness, his unsearchable wisdom, his unmeasurable goodness, mercy and compassions; and his singular regard of the sons of men! Though the ungodly, proud and carnal wits do but play with, and study the shape, and comeliness, and order of the letters, syllables and words, without understanding the sense and end; yet those that with holy and illuminated minds come thither to behold the footsteps of the great, and wise, and bountiful Creator, may find not only matter to employ, but to profit and delight their thoughts; they may be wrapt up by the things that are seen, into the sacred admirations, reverence, love and praise, of the glorious Maker of all who is unseen; and thus to the sanctified all things will be sanctified; and the study of common things will be to them divine and holy. Direct. xI. Be not a stranger to, or neglectful disregarder of, the wonders of providence in God's administrations in the world, and thou wilt find store of matter for thy thoughts.' The dreadfulness of judgments, the delightfulness of mercies, the mysteriousness of all, will be matter of daily search and admiration to thee. Think of the strange preservation of the church; of a people hated by all the world! how such a flock of lambs is kept in safety, among so many ravenous wolves. Think of God's sharp afflictions of his offending people; of his severe consuming judgments exercised sometimes upon the wicked, when he means to set up here and there a monument of his justice, for the warning of presumptuous sinners. Go see how the wicked are deceived by befooling pleasures, and how the prosperity of fools destroyeth them; how they flourish to-day as a green bay-tree, or as the flower of the field; and then go into their sanctuary and see their end, how tomorrow they are cut down and withered, and the place of their abode doth know them no more. Go see how God delighteth to abase the proud, and to "scatter them in the imagination of their hearts; to put down the mighty from their seats, and to exalt them of low degree; to fill the hungry with good things; and to send the rich empty away m❞ "How great are his signs: and how mighty are his wonders? His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom"." "He ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." "For wisdom and might are his; and he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding. He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in darkness, and the light dwelleth with him"." "The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth; the wicked is snared in the work of his own hand." Mark how the upright are afflicted daily, and how the feet of violence trample on them; and yet how they rejoice, and m Luke i. 51-53. n Dan. iv. 3. 4 Psal.ix. 16, • Verse 32. adhere to that God who doth afflict them, and pity and pray for their miserable persecutors and oppressors; and how "all things do work together for their good".” “Wonderful are all the works of God, sought out of them that have pleasure therein." The histories of former ages, and the observation of the present, may shew thee a world of matter for thy thoughts. Direct. x11. Understand all the lineaments, and beauty of God's image upon a holy soul, the excellency and use of every grace, and the harmony of all; and thou wilt have store of profitable matter for thy thoughts.' Know the nature of every grace, and the place and order of it, and the office, use, and exercise of it; and the means and motives, the opposites, dangers and preservatives of it: know it as God's image, and see and love thy Maker and Redeemer and Regenerator in it: know how God loveth it, and how useful it is to our serving and honouring him in the world; and how deformed and vile a thing the soul is, that is without it: know well what faith is; what wisdom and prudence are; what repentance and humility, and mortification are; what hope, and fear, and desire, and obedience, and meekness, and temperance, and sobriety, and chastity, and contentation, and justice, and self-denial are; especially know the nature and force of love to God, and to his servants, and to neighbours, and to enemies; know what a holy resignation and devotedness to God are: and what are watchfulness, diligence, zeal, fortitude, and perseverance, patience, submission, and peace; know what the worth, and use, the helps and hindrances of all these are, and then your thoughts will not be idle. Direct. XIII. If thou be not a stranger to the Spirit of Grace, or a neglecter of his daily motions, and persuasions, and operations on thy heart, the attendance and improvement of them will keep thy thoughts from rusty idleness and a vagrant course.' It is not a small matter to be daily entertaining so noble a guest, and daily observing the offers and motions of so great a benefactor; and daily receiving the gifts of so bountiful a Lord, and daily accepting his necessary helps; and daily obeying the saving precepts of so great and beneficent a God. If you know how insuf VOL. III. r Rom. viii. 28. • Psal. cxi. 2. ficient you are without him, to will or to do, to perform or to think, or purpose any good, and that all your sufficiency is of him. If you knew that it is the great skill and diligence requisite in all that will sail successfully to the desired land of rest, to know the winds of the Spirit's helps, and to set all your sails to the right improvement of them, and to bestir you while such gales continue, you would find greater work than wandering for your thoughts, Direct. XIV. Be not ignorant or neglective of that frame and course of holy duty to God and man, in which all your lives should be employed, and you cannot want matter to employ your thoughts upon.' Your pulse, and breath, and natural motions, will hold on whether you think of them or not; but so will not moral, holy motion, for that must be rational and voluntary. You have all the powers of soul and body, to exercise either upon God or for God. You must know him, fear him, love him, obey him, trust him, worship him, pray to him, praise him, give thanks to him, bewail your sins, and hear his Word, and reverently use his name and day. And is not the understanding and learning how to do all this, and the seasonable, serious practice of it all, sufficient to keep the thoughts from idleness? O what a deal of work doth a serious Christian find for his thoughts, about some one of these! About praying aright, or hearing, or receiving the sacrament of Christ's body and blood aright! But besides all these, what a deal of duty have you to perform, to magistrates, pastors, parents, masters, and other superiors; to subjects, people, children, servants, and other inferiors; to every neighbour, for his soul, his body, his estate, and name; and to do to all as you would be done by. And besides all this, how much have you to do directly for yourselves; for your souls, and bodies, and families, and estates! Against your ignorance, infidelity, pride, selfishness, sensuality, worldliness, passion, sloth, intemperance, cowardise, lust, uncharitableness, &c. Is not here matter for your thoughts? Direct. xv. Overlook not that life full of particular mercies, which God hath bestowed on yourselves, and you will find pleasant and profitable matter for your thoughts.' To spare me the labour of repeating them, look back to Chap. iii. Direct. 14. Think of that mercy which brought you into the world, and chose your parents, your place, and your condition; which brought you up, and bore with you patiently in all your sins, and closely warned you of every danger which seasonably afflicted you, and seasonably delivered you, and heard your prayers in many a distress; which hath yet kept the worst of you from death and hell; and hath regenerated, justified, adopted, and sanctified those that he hath fitted for eternal life. How many sins he hath forgiven! How many he hath in part subdued! How many and suitable helps he hath vouchsafed you! From how many enemies he hath saved you! How oft he hath delighted you by his Word and grace! What comforts you have had in his servants and ordinances, in your relations and callings! His mercies are innumerable, and yet do your meditations want matter to supply them? If I should but recite the words of David in many thankful psalms, you would think mercy found his thoughts employment. Direct. xvI. Foresee that exact and righteous judgment, which shortly you have to undergo; and it will do much to find you employment for your thoughts.' A man that must give an account to God of all that he hath done, both good and evil, and knoweth not how soon, for ought he knows before to-morrow, methinks should find him something better than vanity to think on! Is it nothing to be ready for so great a day? To have your justification ready? your accounts made up? your consciences cleansed and quieted on good grounds? To know what answer to make for yourselves against the accuser? To be clear and sure that you are indeed regenerate, and have a part in Christ, and are washed in his blood, and reconciled to God, and shall not prove hypocrites and self-deceivers in that trying day! when it is a sentence that must finally decide the question, whether we shall be saved or damned: and must determine us to heaven or hell for ever: and you have so short and uncertain a time for your preparation : will not this administer matter to your thoughts? If you were going to a judgment for your lives, or all your estates, you would think it sufficient to provide you matter for your thoughts by the way! How much more this final, dreadful judgment ! Direct. XVII. If all this will not serve the turn, it is |