Volume 1 / Part 7 — CHAPTER VI. (continued 2)

Direct. XVII. Obey all that God revealeth to you in your meditations, and turn them all into faithful practice; and make not thinking the end of thinking. Else you will but do as the ungodly and disobedient in their prayers, who offer to God the "sacrifice of fools, and consider not that they do evil," Eccl. v. 1, 2. Away with the sin, and do the duty, on which you think.

Direct. XVIII. Think not that the same measure of contemplation and striving with their own affections, is necessary to all; but that an obediential, active life may be as acceptable to God, when he calleth men to it, as a more contemplative life. This leadeth me necessarily to give you some directions about the difference of these ways.

Tit. 4. The Difference between a contemplative Life, and an obedient, active Life, with Directions concerning them.

This task will be best performed by answering those questions which here need a solution.

What is a contemplative life.

Quest. 1. What is a contemplative life? and what is an active, obediential life?

Answ. Every active christian is bound to somewhat of contemplation; and all contemplative persons are bound to obedience to God, and to so much of action as may answer their abilities and opportunities. But yet some are much more called to the one, and some to the other; and we denominate from that which is most eminent and the chief. We call that a contemplative life, when a man's state and calling alloweth and requireth him to make the exercises of his mind on things sublime and holy, and the affecting of his heart with them to be his principal business, which taketh up the most of his time. And we call that an active, obediential life, when a man's state and calling requireth him to spend the chief part of his time in some external labour or vocation, tending to the good of ourselves and others. As artificers, tradesmen, husbandmen, labourers, physicians, lawyers, pastors and preachers of the gospel, soldiers and magistrates, all live an active life, which should be a life of obedience to God. Though among these, some have much more time for contemplation than others. And some few there are that are exempt from both these, and are called to live a passive, obediential life; that is, such a life in which their obedient bearing of the cross, and patient suffering, and submission to the chastising or trying will of God, is the most eminent and principal service they can do him, above contemplation or action.

Quest. II. Must every man do his best to cast off all worldly and external labours, and to retire himself to a contemplative life as the most excellent?

Answ. No: no man should do so without a special necessity or call; for there are general precepts on all that are able, that we live to the benefit of others, and prefer the common good, and as we have opportunity do good to all men, and love our neighbours as ourselves, and do as we would be done by, (which will put us upon much action), and that we labour before we eat.[309] And for a man unnecessarily to cast off all the service of his life, in which he may be profitable to others, is a burying or hiding his master's talents, and a neglect of charity, and a sinning greatly against the law of love. As we have bodies, so they must have their work, as well as our souls.

Who are called to a contemplative life.

Quest. III. Is a life of contemplation then lawful to any man? and to whom?

Answ. It is lawful, and a duty, and a great mercy to some, to live almost wholly, yea altogether, in contemplation and prayer, and such holy exercises. And that in these cases following: 1. In case that age hath disabled a man to be serviceable to others by an active life: and when a man hath already spent his days and strength in doing all the good he can; and being now disabled, hath special reason to improve the rest of his (decrepid) age, in more than ordinary preparations for his death, and in holy communion with God. 2. So also when we are disabled by sickness. 3. And when imprisonment restraineth us from an active life, or profiting others. 4. And when persecution forceth christians to retire into solitudes and deserts, to reserve themselves for better times and places; or when prudence telleth them, that their prayers in solitude may do more good, than at that time their martyrdom were like to do. 5. When a student is preparing himself for the ministry, or other active life, to which a contemplative life is the way. 6. When poverty, or wars, or the rage of enemies disableth a man from all public converse, and driveth him into solitude by unavoidable necessity. 7. When the number of those that are fit for action is so sufficient, and the parts of the person are so insufficient, and so the need and use of them in an active life so small, that, all things considered, holy, impartial prudence telleth him, that the good which he could do to others, by an active life, is not like to countervail the losses which he should himself receive, and the good which his very example of a holy and heavenly life might do, and his occasional counsels, and precepts, and resolutions, to those who come to him for advice, being drawn by the estimation of his holy life: in this case, it is lawful to give up oneself to a contemplative life; for that which maketh most to his own good and to others, is past doubt lawful and a duty. "Anna departed not from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayer night and day," Luke ii. 36, 37.[310] Whether the meaning be, that she strictly kept the hours of prayer in the temple, and the fasting twice a week, or frequently, or whether she took up her habitation in the houses of some of the officers of the temple, devoting herself to the service of the temple; it is plain that either way she did something besides praying and fasting; even as the widows under the gospel who were also to "continue in prayer and supplication night and day," 1 Tim. v. 5, and yet were employed in the service of the church, in overseeing the younger, and teaching them to be sober, &c. Tit. ii. 4, which is an active life. But however Anna's practice be expounded, if this much that I have granted would please the monastics, we would not differ with them.

Quest. IV. How far are those in an active life to use contemplation?

How far contemplation is necessary.

Answ. With very great difference. 1. According to the difference of their callings in the world, and the offices in which they are ordinarily to serve God. 2. And according to the difference of their abilities and fitness for contemplation or for action. 3. According to the difference of their particular opportunities. 4. According to the difference of the necessities of others which may require their help. 5. And of their own necessities of action or contemplation. Which I shall more particularly determine in certain rules.

1. Every christian must use so much contemplation, as is necessary to the loving of God above all, and to the worshipping of him in spirit and in truth, and to a heavenly mind and conversation, and to his due preparation for death and judgment, and to the referring all his common works to the glory and pleasing of God, that "Holiness to the Lord" may be written upon all, and all that he hath may be sanctified, or devoted with himself to God.

2. The calling of a minister of the gospel, is so perfectly mixed of contemplation and action, (though action denominate it, as being the end and chief,) yet he must be excellent in both. If they be not excellent in contemplation, they will not be meet to stand so much nearer to God than the people do; and to sanctify him when they draw near him, and glorify him before all the people: nor will they be fit for the opening of the heavenly mysteries, and working that on the people's hearts which never was on their own. And if they be not excellent in an active life, they will betray the people's souls, and never go through that painful diligence, and preaching in season, and out of season, publicly, and from house to house, day and night with tears, which Paul commandeth them, Acts xx.; and Epist. Tim.

3. The work of a magistrate, a lawyer, a physician, and such like, is principally in doing good in their several callings, which must not be neglected for contemplation. Yet so, that all these, and all others, must allow God's service and holy thoughts their due place, in the beginning, and middle, and end of all their actions. As magistrates must read and meditate, day and night, in the word of God, John i. 8, 10. So the eunuch, Cornelius, &c. Acts viii. and x.

4. Some persons in the same calling, whose callings are not so urgent on them, by any necessities of themselves or others, and who may have more vacant time, must gladly take it for the good of their souls, in the use of contemplation, and other holy duties. And others that are under greater necessities, urgencies, obligations, or cannot be spared from the service of others, (as physicians, lawyers, &c.) must be less in contemplation, and prefer the greatest good.

5. Public necessities or service may with some be so great as to dispense with all secret duty both of prayer and contemplation (except short mental ejaculations) for some days together. So in wars it oft falls out that necessity forbiddeth all set or solemn holy service for many days together (even on the Lord's day). So a physician may sometimes be tied to so close attendance on his patients, as will not allow him time for a set prayer. So sometimes a preacher may be so taken up in preaching, and exhorting, and resolving people's weighty doubts, that they shall scarce have time for secret duties, for some days together (though such happy impediments are rare). In these cases to do the lesser is a sin, when the greater is neglected.

6. Servants, who are not masters of their time, must be faithful in employing it to their masters' service, and take none for holy duty from that part which they should work in; but rather from their rest so far as they are able; intermixing meditations with their labours when they can: but redeeming such time as is allowed them, the more diligently, because their opportunities are so rare and short.

7. The Lord's day, (excepting works of necessity,) and such vacancies as hinder not other work, (as when they travel on the way, or work, or wake in the night, &c.) are every man's own time, which he is not to alienate to another's service, but to reserve and use for the service of God, and for his soul, in holy duties.

8. Some persons cannot bear much contemplation, especially melancholy and weak-headed people; and such must serve God so much the more in other duties which they are able for; and must not tire out and distract themselves, with striving to do that which they are not able to undergo. But others feel no inconvenience by it at all, as I can speak by my own experience: my weakness and decay of spirits inclining me most to a dulness of mind, I find that the most exciting serious studies and contemplations, in the greatest solitude, are so far from hurting me by any abatement of health, or hilarity, or serenity of mind, that they seem rather a help to all. Those that can thus bear long solitude and contemplation, ought to be the more exercised in it, except when greater duties must take place. But to melancholy persons it is to be avoided as a hurt.

9. To the same persons, sometimes their own necessities require contemplation most, and sometimes action; and so that which is at one time a duty, may at another time be none.

10. A mere sinful backwardness is not to be indulged. A diseased disability (such as comes from melancholy, weak-headedness, or decay of memory) must be endured, and not too much accused; when Christ excused worse in his disciples, saying, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." But a sinful backwardness in cases of absolute necessity, is not at all to be endured, but striven against with all your power, whatever it cost you: as to bring yourselves to so much serious consideration, as is necessary to your repentance and unfeigned faith, and godly conversation, this must be done whatever follow; though the devil persuade you that it will make you melancholy or mad; for without it, you are far worse than mad.

11. The most desirable life, to those that have their choice, is that which joineth together contemplation and action; so as there shall be convenient leisure for the most high and serious contemplation, and this improved to fit us for the most great and profitable action. And such is the life of a faithful minister of Christ: and therefore no sort of men on earth are more obliged to thankfulness than they.

12. Servants, and poor men, and diseased men, and others, that are called off from much contemplation, and employed in a life of obedient action, yea, or suffering, by the providence of God, and not by their own sinful choice, must understand, that their labour and patience is the way of their acceptable attendance upon God, in the expense of most part of their time. And though it is madness in those that hope God will accept of their labours, instead of true faith and repentance, and a godly life; (for these must go together, and hinder not each other;) yet, instead of such further contemplations as are not necessary to the being of a godly life, a true christian may believe that his obedient labours and sufferings shall be accepted. If you set one servant to cast up an account, and another to sweep your chimney or channels, you will not accept the former, and reject the latter, for the difference of their works; but you will rather think that he hath most merited your acceptance, who yielded without grudging to the basest service. And doubtless it is an aggravation of acceptable obedience, when we readily and willingly serve God in the lowest, meanest work. He is too fine to serve him, who saith, I will serve thee in the magistracy or ministry, but not at plough or cart, or any such drudgery.[311] And if thou be but in God's way, he can make thy very obedience a state of greater holiness and safety, than if thou hadst spent all that time in the study of holy things, as you see many ungodly ministers do all their lifetime, and are never the better for it. It is not the quality of the work, but God's blessing, that makes it do you good. Nor is he most beloved of God, who hath rolled over the greatest number of good thoughts in his mind, or of good words in his mouth, no, nor he that hath stirred up the strongest passions hereabouts; but he that loveth God and heaven best, and hateth sin most, and whose will is most confirmed for holiness of life. He that goeth about his labour in obedience to God, may have as much comfort as another that is meditating or praying. But neither labour nor prayer is matter of comfort to an ungodly, carnal heart.

Yea, if decay of memory or natural ability take you off both action and contemplation, you may have as much acceptance, and solid comfort, in a patient bearing of the cross, and an obedient, cheerful submission to the holy will of God.

Tit. 5. Directions to the Melancholy about their Thoughts.

It is so easy and ordinary a thing for some weak-headed persons, to cast themselves into melancholy, by over-straining either their thoughts or their affections, and the case of such is so exceeding lamentable, that I think it requisite to give such some particular directions by themselves.[312] And the rather because I see some persons that are unacquainted with the nature of this and other diseases, exceedingly abuse the name of God, and bring the profession of religion into scorn, by imputing all the effects and speeches of such melancholy persons to some great and notable operations of the Spirit of God, and thence draw observations of the methods and workings of God upon the soul, and of the nature of the legal workings of the spirit of bondage. (As some other such have divulged the prophecies, the possessions and dispossessing of hysterical women, as I have read, especially in the writings of the friars.) I do not call those melancholy, who are rationally sorrowful for sin, and sensible of their misery, and solicitous about their recovery and salvation, though it be with as great seriousness as the faculties can bear; as long as they have sound reason, and the imagination, fantasy, or thinking faculty is not crazed or diseased: but by melancholy I mean this diseased craziness, hurt, or error of the imagination, and consequently of the understanding, which is known by these following signs (which yet are not all in every melancholy persons).[313]

1. They are commonly exceeding fearful, causelessly or beyond what there is cause for: every thing which they hear or see is ready to increase their fears, especially if fear was the first cause, as ordinarily it is. 2. Their fantasy most erreth in aggravating their sin, or dangers, or unhappiness: every ordinary infirmity they are ready to speak of with amazement, as a heinous sin; and every possible danger they take for probable, and every probable one for certain; and every little danger for a great one; and every calamity for an utter undoing. 3. They are still addicted to excess of sadness: some weeping they know not why, and some thinking it ought to be so: and if they should smile or speak merrily, their hearts smite them for it, as if they had done amiss. 4. They place most of their religion in sorrowing and austerities to the flesh. 5. They are continual self-accusers, turning all manner of accusation against themselves, which they hear, or read, or see, or think of: quarrelling with themselves for every thing they do, as a contentious person doth with others. 6. They are still apprehending themselves forsaken of God, and are prone to despair: they are just like a man in a wilderness, forsaken of all his friends and comforts, forlorn and desolate: their continual thought is, I am undone, undone, undone! 7. They are still thinking that the day of grace is past, and that it is now too late to repent or to find mercy. If you tell them of the tenor of the gospel, and offers of free pardon to every penitent believer, they cry out still, Too late, too late, my day is past; not considering that every soul that truly repenteth in this life is certainly forgiven. 8. They are oft tempted to gather despairing thoughts from the doctrine of predestination, and to think that if God have reprobated them, or have not elected them, all that they can do, or that all the world can do, cannot save them; and next they strongly conceit that they are not elected, and so that they are past help or hope: not knowing that God electeth not any man separately or simply to be saved, but conjunctly to believe, repent, and to be saved; and so to the end and means together; and that all that will repent and choose Christ and a holy life, are elected to salvation, because they are elected to the means and condition of salvation, which, if they persevere, they shall enjoy. To repent is the best way to prove that I am elected to repent. 9. They never read or hear of any miserable instance, but they are thinking that this is their case. If they hear of Cain, of Pharaoh given up to hardness of heart, or do but read that some are vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, or that they have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, hearts and understand not, they think, This is all spoken of me; or, This is just my case. If they hear of any terrible example of God's judgments on any, they think it will be so with them. If any die suddenly, or a house be burnt, or any be distracted, or die in despair, they think it will be so with them. The reading of Spira's case causeth or increaseth melancholy in many; the ignorant author having described a plain melancholy, contracted by the trouble of sinning against conscience, as if it were a damnable despair of a sound understanding. 10. And yet they think that never any one was as they are. I have had abundance in a few weeks with me, almost just in the same case, and yet every one say that never any one was as they. 11. They are utterly unable to rejoice in any thing; they cannot apprehend, believe, or think of any thing that is comfortable to them. They read all the threatenings of the word with quick sense and application, but the promises they read over and over, without taking notice of them, as if they had not read them; or else say, They do not belong to me: the greater the mercy of God is, and the riches of grace, the more miserable am I that have no part in them. They are like a man in continual pain or sickness, that cannot rejoice, because the feeling of his pain forbiddeth him. They look on husband, wife, friends, children, house, goods, and all without any comfort; as one would do that is going to be executed for some crime. 12. Their consciences are quick in telling them of sin, and putting them upon any dejection as a duty; but they are dead to all duties that tend to consolation; as to thanksgiving for mercies, praises of God, meditating on his love, and grace, and Christ, and promises: put them never so hard on these, and they feel not their duty, nor make any conscience of it, but think it is a duty for others, but unsuitable to them. 13. They always say that they cannot believe, and therefore think they cannot be saved: because that commonly they mistake the nature of faith, and take it to be a believing that they themselves are forgiven and in favour with God, and shall be saved; and because they cannot believe this, (which their disease will not suffer them to believe,) therefore they think that they are no believers: whereas saving faith is nothing but such a belief that the gospel is true, and Christ is the Saviour to be trusted with our souls, as causeth our wills to consent that he be ours and that we be his, and so to subscribe the covenant of grace. Yet while they thus consent, and would give a world to be sure that Christ was theirs, and to be perfectly holy, yet they think they believe not, because they believe not that he will forgive or save them. 14. They are still displeased and discontented with themselves; just as a peevish, froward person is apt to be with others: see one that is hard to be pleased, and is finding fault with every thing that he sees or hears, and offended at every one that comes in his way, and suspicious of every body that he sees whispering; and just so is a melancholy person against himself; suspecting, and displeased and finding fault with all. 15. They are much addicted to solitariness, and weary of company for the most part. 16. They are given up to fixed musings, and long, poring thoughts to little purpose: so that deep musings and thinkings are their chief employments, and much of their disease. 17. They are much averse to the labours of their callings, and given to idleness; either to lie in bed, or sit thinking unprofitably by themselves. 18. Their thoughts are most upon themselves, like the millstones that grind on themselves, when they have no grist: so one thought begets another: their thoughts are taken up about their thoughts: when they have been thinking irregularly, they think again what they have been thinking on: they meditate not much on God, (unless on his wrath,) nor heaven, nor Christ, nor the state of the church, nor any thing without them (ordinarily); but all their thoughts are contracted and turned inwards on themselves: self-troubling is the sum of their thoughts and lives. 19. Their thoughts are all perplexed like ravelled yarn or silk; or like a man in a maze, or wilderness, or that hath lost himself and his way in the night: he is poring and groping about, and can make little of any thing, but is bewildered, and moidered, and entangled the more; full of doubts and difficulties, out of which he cannot find the way. 20. He is endless in his scruples: afraid lest he sin in every word he speaketh, and in every thought, and every look, and every meal he eateth, and all the clothes he weareth: and if he think to amend them, he is still scrupling his supposed amendments: he dare neither travel, nor stay at home, neither speak, nor be silent; but he is scrupling all; as if he were wholly composed of self-perplexing scruples. 21. Hence it comes to pass that he is greatly addicted to superstition; to make many laws to himself that God never made him; and to insnare himself with needless vows, and resolutions, and hurtful austerities; "touch not, taste not, handle not;" and to place his religion much in such outward, self-imposed tasks;[314] to spend so many hours in this or that act of devotion; to wear such clothes, and forbear other that are finer; to forbear all diet that pleaseth the appetite, with much of the like. A great deal of the perfection of popish devotion proceeded from melancholy, though their government come from pride and covetousness. 22. They have lost the power of governing their thoughts by reason; so that if you convince them that they should cast out their self-perplexing, unprofitable thoughts, and turn their thoughts to other subjects, or be vacant, they are not able to obey you: they seem to be under a necessity or constraint; they cannot cast out their troublesome thoughts; they cannot turn away their minds; they cannot think of love and mercy; they can think of nothing but what they do think of, any more than a man in the tooth-ache can forbear to think of his pain. 23. They usually grow hence to a disability to any private prayer or meditation; their thoughts are presently cast all into a confusion, when they should pray or meditate; they scatter abroad a hundred ways; and they cannot keep them upon any thing: for this is the very point of their disease; a distempered, confused fantasy, with a weak reason which cannot govern it. Sometimes terror driveth them from prayer; they dare not hope, and therefore dare not pray: and usually they dare not receive the Lord's supper; here they are fearfulest of all; and if they do receive it, they are cast down with terrors, fearing that they have taken their own damnation, by receiving unworthily. 24. Hence they grow to a great averseness to all holy duty: fear and despair make them go to prayer, hearing, reading, as a bear to the stake; and then they think they are haters of God and godliness, imputing the effects of their disease to their souls; when yet at the same time, those of them that are godly, would rather be freed from all their sins, and be perfectly holy, than have all the riches or honour in the world. 25. They are usually so taken up with busy and earnest thoughts, (which being all perplexed, do but strive with themselves, and contradict one another,) that they feel it just as if something were speaking within them, and all their own violent thoughts were the pleadings and impulse of some other; and therefore they are wont to impute all their fantasies, either to some extraordinary actings of the devil, or to some extraordinary motions of the Spirit of God: and they are used to express themselves in such words as these, It was set upon my heart, or it was said to me, that I must do thus and thus; and then it was said, I must not do this or that; and I was told I must do so or so. And they think that their own imagination is something talking in them, and saying to them all that they are thinking. 26. When melancholy groweth strong, they are almost always troubled with hideous, blasphemous temptations, against God, or Christ, or the Scripture, and against the immortality of the soul; which cometh partly from their own fears, which make them think most (against their will) of that which they are most afraid of thinking: as the spirits and blood will have recourse to the part that is hurt. The very pain of their fears doth draw their thoughts to what they fear. As he that is over-desirous to sleep, and afraid lest he shall not sleep, is sure to wake, because his fears and desires keep him waking: so do the fears and desires of the melancholy cross themselves. And withal, the malice of the devil plainly here interposeth, and taketh advantage by this disease, to tempt and trouble them, and to show his hatred to God, and Christ, and Scripture, and to them. For as he can much easier tempt a choleric person to anger, than another, and a phlegmatic, fleshly person to sloth, and a sanguine or hot-tempered person to lust, and wantonness; so also a melancholy person to thoughts of blasphemy, infidelity, and despair. And ofttimes they feel a vehement urgency, as if something within them urged them to speak such or such a blasphemous or foolish, word; and they can have no rest unless they yield in this, and other such cases, to what they are urged to. And some are ready to yield in a temptation to be quiet: and when they have done, they are tempted utterly to despair because they have committed so great a sin: and when the devil hath got this advantage of them, he is still setting it before them. 27. Hereupon they are further tempted to think they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost; not understanding what that sin is, but fearing it is theirs, because it is a fearful sin: at least they think they shall not be forgiven; not considering that a temptation is one thing, and a sin another; and that no man hath less cause to fear being condemned for his sin, than he that is least willing of it, and most hateth it. And no man can be less willing of any sin, than these poor souls are of the hideous, blasphemous thoughts which they complain of. 28. Hereupon some of them grow to think that they are possessed of devils: and if it do but enter into their fantasy how possessed persons used to act, the very strength of imagination will make them do so too: so that I have known those that would swear, and curse, and blaspheme, and imitate an inward alien voice, thinking themselves that it was the devil in them that did all this. But these that go so far are but few. 29. Some of them that are near distraction, verily think that they hear voices, and see lights and apparitions, that the curtains are opened on them, that something meets them, and saith this or that to them, when all is but the error of a crazed brain and sick imagination. 30. Many of them are weary of their lives, through the constant, tiring perplexities of their minds; and yet afraid of dying: some of them resolutely famish themselves: some are strongly tempted to murder themselves, and they are haunted with the temptation so restlessly, that they can go no whither but they feel as if somewhat within them put them on, and said, Do it, do it; so that many poor creatures yield, and make away with themselves. 31. Many of them are restlessly vexed with fears of want, and poverty, and misery to their families; and of imprisonment or banishment; and lest somebody will kill them; and every one that they see whisper, they think is plotting to take away their lives. 32. Some of them lay a law upon themselves that they will not speak, and so live long in resolute silence. 33. All of them are intractable, and stiff in their own conceits, and hardly persuaded out of them, be they never so irrational. 34. Few of them are the better for any reason, conviction, or counsel that is given them: if it seem to satisfy, and quiet, and rejoice them at the present, to-morrow they are as bad again: it being the nature of their disease, to think as they do think; and their thoughts are not cured while the disease is uncured. 35. Yet in all this distemper, few of them will believe that they are melancholy; but abhor to hear men tell them so, and say it is but the rational sense of their unhappiness, and the forsakings and heavy wrath of God. And therefore they are hardly persuaded to take any physic or use any means for the cure of their bodies, saying that they are well, and being confident that it is only their souls that are distressed.

This is the miserable case of these poor people, greatly to be pitied, and not to be despised by any. I have spoken nothing but what I have often seen and known. And let none despise such, for men of all sorts do fall into this misery; learned and unlearned, high and low, good and bad, yea, some that have lived in greatest jollity and sensuality, when God hath made them feel their folly.

The causes of it are, 1. Most commonly some worldly loss, or cross, or grief, or care, which made too deep an impression on them. 2. Sometimes excess of fear upon any common occasion of danger. 3. Sometimes over-hard and unintermitted studies, or thoughts, which screw up and rack the fantasy too much. 4. Sometimes too deep fears, or too constant, and serious, and passionate thoughts and cares about the danger of the soul. 5. The great preparatives to it, (which are indeed the principal cause,) are a weak head, and reason, joined with strong passion, which are oftest found in women, and those to whom it is natural. 6. And in some it is brought in by some heinous sin, the sight of which they cannot bear, when conscience is but once awakened.

When this disease is gone very far, directions to the persons themselves are vain, because they have not reason and free-will to practise them; but it is their friends about them that must have the directions. But because with the most of them, and at first, there is some power of reason left, I give directions for the use of such.

Direct. I. See that no error in religion be the cause of your distress: especially understand well the covenant of grace, and the riches of mercy manifested in Christ. Among others, it will be useful to you to understand these following truths.

Special truths to be known for preventing causeless troubles.

1. That our thoughts of the infinite goodness of God, should bear proportion with our thoughts concerning his infinite power and wisdom.

2. That the mercy of God hath provided for all mankind so sufficient a Saviour, that no sinner shall perish for want of a sufficient satisfaction made for his sins by Christ, nor is it made the condition of any man's salvation or pardon, that he satisfy for his own sins.

3. That Christ hath in his gospel covenant (which is an act of oblivion) made over himself with pardon and salvation, to all that will penitently and believingly accept the offer. And that none perish that hear the gospel, but the final, obstinate refusers of Christ and life.

4. That he that so far believeth the truth of the gospel, as to consent to the covenant of grace, even that God the Father be his Lord and reconciled Father, and Christ his Saviour, and the Holy Ghost his Sanctifier, hath true, saving faith, and right to the blessing of the covenant.

5. That the day of grace is so far commensurate or equal to our lifetime, that whosoever truly repenteth and consenteth to the covenant of grace, before his death, is certainly pardoned, and in a state of life: and that it is every man's duty so to do, that pardon may be theirs.

6. That Satan's temptations are none of our sins, but only our yielding to them.

7. That the effects of natural sickness or diseasedness, are not (in themselves) sins.

8. That those are the smallest sins (formally) and least like to condemn us, which we are most unwilling of, and are least in love or liking of.

9. That no sin shall condemn us which we hate more than love, and which we had rather leave and be delivered from than keep: for this is true repentance.

10. That he is truly sanctified who had rather be perfect in holiness of heart and life, in loving God, and living by faith, than to have the greatest pleasures, riches, or honours of the world; taking in the means also by which both are attained.

11. That he who hath this grace and desire may know that he is elect; and the making of our calling sure by our consenting to the holy covenant, is the making of our election sure.

12. That the same thing which is a great duty to others, may be no duty to one, who by bodily distemper (as fevers, phrensies, melancholy) is unable to perform it.

Direct. II. Take heed of worldly cares, and sorrows, and discontents. Set not so much by earthly things, as to enable them to disquiet you; but learn to cast your cares on God. You can have less peace in any affliction which cometh by such a carnal, sinful means. It is much more safe to be distracted with cares for heaven than for earth.

Direct. III. Meditation is no duty at all for a melancholy person, except some few that are able to bear a diverting meditation, which must be of something furthest from the matter which troubleth them; or except it be short meditations like ejaculatory prayers. A set and serious meditation will but confound you, and disturb you, and disable you to other duties. If a man have a broken leg, he must not go on it till it is knit, lest all the body fare the worse. It is your thinking faculty, or your imagination, which is the broken, pained part; and therefore you must not use it about the things that trouble you. Perhaps you will say, That this is to be profane, and forget God and your soul, and let the tempter have his will. But I answer, No; it is but to forbear that which you cannot do at present, that by doing other things which you can do, you may come again to do this which you now cannot do: it is but to forbear attempting that, which will but make you less able to do all other duties. And at the present, you may conduct the affairs of your soul by holy reason. I persuade you not from repenting or believing, but from set, and long, and deep meditations, which will but hurt you.

Direct. IV. Be not too long in any secret duty which you find you are not able to bear. Prayer itself, when you are unable, must be performed but as you can; short confessions and requests to God must serve instead of longer secret prayers, when you are unable to do more. If sickness may excuse a man for being short, where nature will not hold out, the case is the same here, in the sickness of the brain and spirits. God hath appointed no means to do you hurt.

Direct. V. Where you find yourselves unable for a secret duty, struggle not too hard with yourselves, but go that pace that you are able to go quietly. For as every striving doth not enable you, but vex you, and make duty wearisome to you, and disable you more, by increasing your disease: like an ox that draweth unquietly, and a horse that chafeth himself, that quickly tireth. Preserve your willingness to duty, and avoid that which makes it grievous to you. As to a sick stomach, it is not eating much, but digesting well, that tends to health; and little must be eaten when much cannot be digested; so it is here in case of your meditations and secret prayers.

Direct. VI. Be most in those duties which you are best able to bear; which, with most, is prayer, with others hearing, and good discourse. As a sick man whose stomach is against other meats, must eat of that which he can eat of. And God hath provided variety of means, that one may do the work, when the other are wanting. Do not misunderstand me; in cases of absolute necessity, I say again, you must strive to do it whatever come of it. If you are backward to believe, to repent, to love God and your neighbour, to live soberly, righteously, and godly, to pray at all; here you must strive, and not excuse it by any backwardness; for it is that which must needs be done, or you are lost. But a man that cannot read may be saved without his reading; and a man in prison or sickness may be saved without hearing the word, and without the church communion of saints: and so a man disabled by melancholy, may be saved by shorter thoughts and ejaculations, without set and long meditations and secret prayers; and other duties which he is able for will supply the want of these. Even as nature hath provided two eyes, and two ears, and two nostrils, and two reins, and lungs, that when one is stopped or faulty, the other may supply its wants for a time; so it is here.

Direct. VII. Avoid all unnecessary solitariness, and be as much as possible in honest, cheerful company. You have need of others, and are not sufficient for yourselves; and God will use and honour others, as his hands, to deliver us his blessings. Solitariness is to those that are fit for it, an excellent season for meditation and converse with God and with our hearts; but to you, it is the season of temptation and danger. If Satan tempted Christ himself, when he had him fasting and solitary in a wilderness; much more will he take this as his opportunity against you. Solitude is the season of musings and thoughtfulness, which are the things which you must fly from, if you will not be deprived of all.

Direct. VIII. When blasphemous or disturbing thoughts look in, or fruitless musings, presently meet them, and use that authority of reason which is left you, to cast them and command them out. If you have not lost it, reason and the will have a command over the thoughts as well as over the tongue, or hands, or feet. And as you would be ashamed to run up and down, or fight with your hands, and say, I cannot help it; or to let your tongue run all day, and say, I cannot stop it; so should you be ashamed to let your thoughts run at random, or on hurtful things, and say, I cannot help it. Do you do the best you can to help it? Cannot you bid them be gone? Cannot you turn your thoughts to something else? Or cannot you rouse up yourself, and shake them off? Some by casting a little cold water in their own faces, or bidding another do it, can rouse themselves from melancholy musings as from sleep. Or cannot you get out of the room, and set yourself about some business which will divert you? You might do more than you do, if you were but willing, and know how much it is your duty.

Direct. IX. When you do think of any holy things, let it be of the best things; of God, and grace, and Christ, and heaven; or of your brethren, or the church: and carry all your meditations outward; but be sure you pore not on yourselves, and spend not your thoughts upon your thoughts. As we have need to call the thoughts of careless sinners inwards, and turn them from the creature and sin, upon themselves; so we have need to call the thoughts of self-perplexing, melancholy persons outwards; for it is their disease to be still grinding upon themselves. Remember that it is a far higher, nobler, and sweeter work to think of God, and Christ, and heaven, than of such worms as we ourselves are. When we go up to God, we go to love, and light, and liberty; but when we look down into ourselves, we look into a dungeon, a prison, a wilderness, a place of darkness, horror, filthiness, misery, and confusion. Therefore, though such thoughts be needful, so far as without them our repentance and due watchfulness cannot be maintained, yet they are grievous, ignoble, yea, and barren, in comparison of our thoughts of God. When you are poring on your hearts, to search whether the love of God be there or no, it were wiser to be thinking of the infinite amiableness of God; and that will cause it, whether it were there before or not. So instead of poring on your hearts, to know whether they are set on heaven, lift up your thoughts to heaven, and think of its glory, and that will raise them thither, and give you and show you that which you were searching for. Bestow that time in planting holy desires in the garden of your hearts, which you bestow in routing and puzzling yourselves in searching whether it be there already. We are such dark, confused things, that the sight of ourselves is enough to raise a loathing and a horror in our minds, and make them melancholy; but in God and glory there is nothing to discourage our thoughts, but all to delight them, if Satan do not misrepresent him to us.

Direct. X. Overlook not the miracle of love which God hath showed us in the wonderful incarnation, office, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and reign of our Redeemer; but steep your thoughts most in these wonders of mercy, proposed by God to be the chief matter of your thoughts. You should in reason lay out many thoughts of Christ and grace, for one that you lay out on your sin and misery. God requireth you to see your sin and misery, but so much as tendeth to magnify the remedy, and cause you to accept it. Never think of sin and hell alone; but as the way to the thoughts of Christ and grace. This is the duty even of the worst. Are your sins ever before you? Why is not pardoning grace in Christ before you? Is hell open before you? Why is not the Redeemer also before you? Do you say, Because that sin and hell are yours, but Christ, and holiness, and heaven, are none of yours? I answer you, It is then because you will have it so: if you would not have it so, it is not so. God hath set life first before you, and not only death. He hath put Christ, and holiness, and heaven in his end of the balance; and the devil puts the pleasure of sin for a season in the other end. That which you choose unfeignedly is yours; for God hath given you your choice. Nothing is truer than that God hath so far made over Christ and life to all that hear the gospel, that nothing but their final obstinate refusal can condemn them:[315] Christ and life are brought to the will and choice of all, though all have not wills to accept and choose him. And if you would not have Christ, and life, and holiness, what would you rather have? and why complain you?

Direct. XI. Think and speak as much of the mercy which you have received, as of the sin you have committed; and of the mercy which is offered you, as of what you want. You dare not say that the mercy you have received, is no more worthy to be remembered and mentioned, than all your sins. Shall God do so much for you, and shall it be overlooked, extenuated, and made nothing of? as if his mercies had been a bare bone, or barren wilderness, which would yield no sustenance to your thoughts. Be not guilty of so great unthankfulness. Thoughts of love and mercy would breed love and sweetness in the soul; while thoughts of sin and wrath only breed averseness, terror, bitterness, perplexity, and drive away the heart from God.

Direct. XII. Tie yourselves daily to spend as great a part of your time in your prayers, in the confessing of mercy received, as in confessing sin committed; and in the praises of God, as in the lamenting of your own miseries. You dare not deny but this is your duty, if you understand your duty; thanksgiving and praise are greater duties than confessing sin and misery. Resolve then that they shall have the largest share of time. If you will but do this much, (which you can do if you will,) it will in time take off the bitterness of your spirits; and the very frequent mention of sweeter things, will sweeten your minds, and change their temperature and habit, as change of diet changeth the temperature of the body. I beseech you, resolve, and try this course. If you cannot mention mercy so thankfully as you would, nor mention God's excellencies so holily and praisefully as you would, yet do what you can, and mention them as you are able. You may command your time, (what shall have the greatest share in prayer,) though not your affections; you will find the benefit very great, if you will but do this.

Direct. XIII. Overvalue not the passionate part of duty, but know that judgment, will, and practice, a high esteem of God and holiness, a resolved choice, and a sincere endeavour, are the life of grace and duty, when feeling passions are but lower, uncertain things. You know not what you do, when you lay so much on the passionate part; nor when you strive so much for deep and transporting apprehensions; these are not the great things, nor essentials of holiness. Too much of this feeling may distract you. God knoweth how much you are able to bear. Passionate feelings depend much upon nature. Some persons are more sensible than others; a little thing goeth deep with some: the wisest and weightiest persons are usually least passionate; and the weakest hardly moderate their passions. God is not an object of sense, and therefore more fit for the understanding and will, than the passions, to work upon. That is the holiest soul which is most inclined to God, and resolved for him, and conformed to his will; and not that which is affected with the deepest griefs, and fears, and joys, and other such transporting passions; though it were best, if even holy passions could be raised at the will's command, in that measure which fitteth us best for duty. But I have known many complain for want of deeper feeling, who if their feeling (as they called their passion) had been more, it might have distracted them. I had rather be that christian that loathes himself for sin, resolveth against it, and forsaketh it, though he cannot weep for it; than one of those that can weep to-day, and sin again to-morrow, and whose sinful passions are quickly stirred, as well as their better passions.

Direct. XIV. Make not too great a matter of your own thoughts; and take not too much notice of them; but if Satan cast in molesting thoughts, if you cannot cast them out, set light by them, and take less notice of them. Making a great matter of every thought that is cast into your mind, will keep those thoughts in your mind the longer. For that which we are most sensible of, we most think on; and that which we least regard, we least remember. If you would never be rid of them, the way is to be still noting them, and making too great a matter of them. These troublesome thoughts are like troublesome scolds, that if you regard them, and answer them, will never have done with you; but if you let them talk, and take no notice of them, nor make any answer to them, they will be weary and give over. The devil's design is to vex and disquiet you; and if he see you will not be vexed and disquieted, he will give over attempting it. I know you will say, Should I be so ungodly as to make light of such sinful thoughts? I answer, Make not so light of them as to be indifferent what thoughts are in your mind, nor so as to take the small sin to be none; but make so light of them as not to take them for greater nor more dangerous sins than they are; and so light of them as not to take distinct, particular notice of them, nor to disquiet yourselves about them; for if you do, you will have no room in your thoughts for Christ and heaven, and that which should take up your thoughts; but the devil will rejoice to see how he employeth you in thinking over your own thoughts, or rather his temptations; and that he can employ you all the day in hearkening to all that he will say to you, and in thinking of his motions instead of thinking on the works of God. There are none of God's servants without irregularities and sin of thoughts, which they must daily ask forgiveness of, and rejoice to think that they have a sufficient Saviour and remedy, and that sin shall but occasion the magnifying of grace; but if they should excessively observe and be troubled at every unwarrantable thought, it would be a snare to take them off almost all their greater duties. Would you like it in your servant, if he should stop in observing and troubling himself about every ordinary imperfection in his work, instead of going on to do it?

Direct. XV. Remember that it is no sin to be tempted, but only to yield to the temptation; and that Christ himself was carried about and tempted blasphemously by the devil, even to fall down and worship him; and yet he made these temptations but an advantage to the glory of his victory. Take not the devil's sin to be yours. Are your temptations more horrid and odious than Christ's were? What if the devil had carried you to the pinnacle of the temple as he did Christ? Would you not have thought that God had forsaken you, and given you up to the power of Satan? But you will say, that you yield to the temptation, and so did not Christ. I answer, It cannot be expected that sinful man should bear a temptation as innocently as Christ did? Satan found nothing in Christ to comply with him; but in us he findeth a sinful nature! Wax will receive an impression when marble will not. But it is not every sinful taint that is a consent to the sin to which we are tempted.

Direct. XVI. Consider how far you are from loving, delighting in, or being loth to leave these sinful thoughts; and that no sin condemneth, but that which is so loved and delighted in, as that you had rather keep than leave it. Would you not fain be delivered from all these horrid thoughts and sins? Could you not be willing to live in disgrace, or want, or banishment, so you might but be free from sin? If so, why doubt you of the pardon of it? Can you have any surer sign of repentance, or that your sin is not a reigning, unpardoned sin, than that it is not loved and desired by you? The less will, the less sin, and the more will, the more sin. The covetous man loveth his money, and the fornicator loveth his lust, and the proud man loveth his honour, and the drunkard loveth his cups, and the glutton loveth to satisfy his appetite; and so love these that they will not leave them. But do you love your disturbing, confused, or blasphemous thoughts? Are you not so weary of them, as to be even weary of your lives because of them? would you not be glad and thankful never to be troubled with them more? And yet do you doubt of pardon?

Direct. XVII. Charge not your souls any deeper than there is cause with the effects of your disease. Indeed remotely a man that in distraction thinks or speaks amiss, may be said to be faulty, so far as his sin did cause his disease; but directly and of itself, the involuntary effects of sickness are no sin. Melancholy is a mere disease in the spirits and imagination, though you feel no sickness; and it is as natural for a melancholy person to be hurried and molested with doubts, and fears, and despairing thoughts, and blasphemous temptations, as it is for a man to talk idly in a fever when his understanding faileth; or to think of and desire drink, when his fever kindleth vehement thirst. And how much would you have a man in a fever accuse himself for such a thirst, or such thoughts, desire, or talk? If you had those hideous thoughts in your dreams, which you have when you are awake, would you think them unpardoned sins, or rather unavoidable infirmities? why your distemper makes them to be to you but almost as dreams.

Direct. XVIII. Be sure that you keep yourself constantly employed (as far as your strength will bear) in the diligent labours of a lawful calling; and spend none of your precious time in idleness. Idleness is the tide-time of the tempter: when you are idle, you invite the devil to come and vex you. Then you can have while to hearken to him, and think on all that he will put into your minds, and then to think over all those thoughts again! When you have nothing else to do, the devil will find you such work. Then you must sit still and muse; and your thoughts must be stirring in the mud of your own distempers, as children lie paddling in the dirt. And idleness is a sin, which God will not favour. He hath commanded you to "labour six days, and in the sweat of your brows to eat you bread; and he that will not labour is unworthy to eat," 2 Thess. iii. Remember that time is precious, and doth haste away, and God hath given you none in vain. Therefore, as you are troubled for other sins, make conscience of this sin, and waste not one quarter of an hour's time in your idle, unprofitable musings. It is just with God to make your sin itself to be your punishment, and your own idle thoughts to chastise you daily, when you will not get up and go about your lawful business. Nor will pretences of prayer, or any devotion, excuse your idleness, for it is against the law of God. Above all that I have said to you, let me entreat you therefore to obey this one direction. I have known despairing, melancholy persons cured by setting themselves resolutely and diligently about their callings (and changing air and company, and riding abroad.) If you will sit musing in a corner, and sin against God by idleness and loss of time, and increase your own miseries withal, rather than you will rouse up yourself, and ply your business, your calamity is just. Say not, that you have little or nothing to do; for God hath made it the duty of all, be they never so rich, to labour in such employment as is suitable to their place and strength.

Direct. XIX. Do but mark well how much the devil gets by keeping you in sad, despondent thoughts; and then you may easily see that it cannot be your duty, nor best for you, which is so gainful and pleasing to the devil. By keeping you in these self-perplexing doubts and fears, he robs God of the thanks and praise which you owe him for all his mercies. These highest duties you cast aside, as if they did not belong to you. You give not God the honour of his most miraculous mercy, in our redemption; nor do you study, or relish, or admire, or magnify the riches of grace in Jesus Christ! You have poor, low thoughts of the infinite love of God, and are unfit to judge of it or perceive it, being like a choleric stomach, which puts a continual bitterness in the mouth, which hinders it from tasting any sweetness in their meat. It hereby unfitteth you for the love of God, and more inclineth you to hate him, or fly from him as an enemy, while the devil representeth him to you as one that hateth you; it loseth your time; it depriveth you of all your willingness to duty, and delight in duty, and maketh all God's service a burden and vexation to you. It is very contrary to the spirit of adoption, and to the whole frame of evangelical worship and obedience. And will you, under pretence of being more humbled, and sorrowful, and sensible, thus gratify Satan, and wrong God and yourselves.

Direct. XX. Trust not to your own judgment, in your melancholy state, either as to the condition of your souls, or the choice and conduct of your thoughts or ways; but commit yourselves to the judgment and direction of some experienced, faithful guide. You are no fit judges of your own condition, nor of the way of your duty, in this dark, distempered condition that you are in. Either your mind and imagination is well or ill: if it be well, why complain you of all those disturbances, and confusions, and disability to meditate and pray? If it be ill, why will you be so self-conceited as to think yourselves able to judge of yourselves, with such a distempered fantasy of mind? It is one of the worst things in melancholy persons, that commonly they are most wise in their own eyes, and stiff in their own conceits, when their brains are sickest, and their understanding weakest; and that they are confident, and unruly, and unpersuadable, as if they were proud of those pitiful understandings, and thought nobody knows so well as they. Oh! say they, you know not my case! Am not I liker to know your case, who have seen so many score in that case, than you are that never knew it in any but yourself? A man that stands by may better know the case of a man that is in a dream, than he can know his own. You say that others feel not what you feel! no more doth the physician feel what a man in a fever, or falling-sickness, or distraction feeleth; and yet by the report of what you say you feel, and by what he seeth, he far better knoweth your disease, the nature and the cure of it, than you that feel it. Therefore as a wise man, when he is sick, will trust himself, under God, to the direction of his physician and the help of his friends about him, and not lie wrangling against their help and counsel, and wilfully refuse it, because they advise him contrary to his feeling; so will you do, if you are wise; trust yourself with some fit director; and despise not his judgment either about your state, or about your duty. You think you are lost, and there is no hope: hear what he saith that is now fitter to judge. Set not your weak wit too wilfully against him. Do you think he is so foolish as to mistake? should not humility make you rather think so of yourself? Be advised by him about the matter of your thoughts, the manner and length of your secret duties, and all your scruples that you need advice in. Will you answer me this one question? Do you know any body that is wiser than yourself? and fitter to judge of your condition and advise you? If you say, no; how proud are you of such a crazed wit! If you say, yea; then believe and trust that person, and resolve to follow his direction. And I would ask you, were you not once of another judgment concerning yourself? If so, then were you not as sound and able to judge, and liker to be in the right than you are now.

Direct. XXI. My last advice is, to look out for the cure of your disease, and commit yourself to the care of your physician, and obey him; and do not as most melancholy persons do, that will not believe that physic will do them good, but that it is only their soul that is afflicted; for it is the spirits, imagination, and passions, that are diseased, and so the soul is like an eye that looketh through a coloured glass, and thinks all things are of the same colour as the glass is. I have seen abundance cured by physic; and till the body be cured, the mind will hardly ever be cured, but the clearest reasons will be all in vain.

Tit. 6. Directions for young Students, for the most profitable ordering of their studying Thoughts.

Direct. I. Let it be your first and most serious study to make sure that you are regenerate, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and justified by faith in Christ, and love God above all, as your reconciled Father, and so have right to the heavenly inheritance.

For, 1. You are nearest to yourselves, and your everlasting happiness is your nearest and your highest interest: what will it profit you to know all the world, and to lose your own souls? to know as much as devils, and be for ever miserable with devils?

2. It is a most doleful employment to be all day at work in Satan's chains! to sit studying God and the holy Scriptures, while you are in the power of the devil, and have hearts that are at enmity to the holiness of that God and that Scripture which you are studying! It is a most preposterous and incongruous course of study, if you first study not your own deliverance. And if you knew your case, and saw your chains, your trembling would disturb your studies.

3. Till you are renewed you study in the dark, and without that internal sight and sense, by which the life, and spirit, and kernel of all that you study must be known. All that the Scripture saith of the darkness of a state of sin, and of the illumination of the Spirit, and of the marvellous light of regenerate souls, and of the natural man's not receiving the things of the Spirit, and of the carnal mind that is enmity against God, and is not subject to his law, nor can be;[316] all these and such other passages are not insignificant, but most considerable truths from the Spirit of truth. You have only that light that will show you the shell, and the dead letter, but not the soul, and quickening sense, of any practical holy truth. As the eye knoweth meat which we never tasted, or as a mere grammarian, or logician, readeth a law book, or physic book, (who gather nothing out of them that will save a man's estate or life,) so will you prosecute all your studies.

4. You are like to have but ill success in your studies, when the devil is your master, who hateth both you, and the holy things which you are studying. He will blind you, and pervert you, and possess your minds with false conceits, and put diverting, sensual thoughts into you, and will keep your own souls from being ever the better for it all.

5. You will want the true end of all right studies, and set up wrong ends; and therefore whatever be the matter of your studies, you are still out of your way, and know nothing rightly, because you know it not as a means to the true end. (But of this anon.)

Direct. II. When you have first laid this foundation, and have the true principle and end of all right studies, be sure that you intend this end in all, even the everlasting sight and love of God, and the promoting his glory, and pleasing his holy will; and that you never meddle with any studies separated from this end, but as means thereto, and as animated thereby.

If every step in your journey is but loss of time and labour, which is not directed to your journey's end; and if all that you have to mind or do in the world, be only about your end or the means; and all creatures and actions can have no other moral goodness, than to be the means of God your ultimate end; then you may easily see, that whenever you leave out God as the end of any of your studies, you are but sinning, or doting; for in those studies there can be no moral good, though they may tend to your knowledge of natural good and evil. And when you think you grow wise and learned men, and can dispute and talk of many things, which make to your renown, while your "wills consent not to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrine which is according to godliness; you are proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railing, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, supposing that gain is godliness: from such turn away," 1 Tim. vi. 3-6. As there is no knowledge but from God, so it is not knowledge but dotage if it lead not unto God.

Direct. III. See therefore that you choose all your studies according to their tendency to God your end, and use them still under the notion of means, and that you estimate your knowledge by this end, and judge yourselves to know no more indeed, than you know of God and for God: and so let practical divinity be the soul of all your studies.

Therefore, when life is too short for the studies of all things which we desire to know, make sure of the chief things, and prefer those studies which make most to your end; spend not your time on things unprofitable to this end; spend not your first and chiefest time on things unnecessary to it; for the near connexion to God the end, is it that ennobleth the matter of your studies. All true knowledge leads to God; but not all alike: the nearest to him is the best.[317]

Direct. IV. Remember that the chief part of your growth in knowledge, is not in knowing many smaller things, of no necessity; but in a growing downwards in a clearer insight into the foundation of the christian faith, and in taking better rooting than you had at your first believing; and in growing upward into a greater knowledge of God, and into a greater love of him, and heavenly-mindedness, and then in growing up to greater skill, and ability, and readiness to do him service in the world.

Know as much as you can know of the works of God, and of the languages and customs of the world; but still remember, that to know God in Christ better, is the growth which you must daily study: and when you know them most, you have still much more need to know better these great things which you know already, than to know more things which you never knew. The roots of faith may still increase, and the branches and fruits of love may be still greater and sweeter! As long as you live, you may still know better the reasons of your religion, (though not better reasons,) and you may know better how to use your knowledge. And whatever you know, let it be that you may be led up to know God more, or love him more, or serve him better.

Direct. V. With fear and detestation watch and resolve against all carnal, worldly ends; and see that your hearts be not captivated by your fleshly interest; nor grow to a high esteem of the pleasures, or profits, or honours of this world, nor to relish any fleshly accommodations, as very pleasant and desirable: but that you take up with God and the hopes of glory as your satisfying portion, and follow Christ as cross-bearers, denying yourselves, and dead to the world, and resolved and prepared to forsake all for his sake.

These are words that you can easily say yourselves; but these are things that are so hardly learned, that many of the most learned and reverend perish for want of being better acquainted with them (and I shall never take that man to be wisely learned, that hath not learned to escape damnation). Christ's cross is to be learned before your alphabet. To impose the cross is quickly learned, but to learn to bear it is the difficulty. To lay the cross on others is to be the followers of Pilate; but to bear it when it is laid on us, is to be the followers of Christ. If you grow corrupted with a love of honour, and riches, and preferment, and come to the study of divinity with a fleshly, worldly mind and end, you will but serve Satan while you seem to be seeking after God, and damn your souls among the doctrines and means of salvation, and go to God for materials to chain you faster to the devil, and steal a nail from divinity to fasten your ears unto his door. And you little know how Judas's gain will gripe and torment the awakened conscience! and how the rust will witness against you, and how it will eat your flesh as fire, James v. 3.

Direct. VI. Digest all that you know, and turn it into holy habits, and expect that success first on yourselves, which if you were to preach you would expect in others. Remembering that knowing is not the end of knowing; but it is as eating to the body, where health, and strength, and service are the end.[318]

Every truth of God is his candle which he sets up for you to work by; it is as food that is for life and action. You lose all the knowledge which ends in knowing. To fill your head and common-place book is not all that you have to do. But to fortify, and quicken, and inflame your hearts. Good habits are the best provision for a preacher. The habits of mind are better than the best library. But if the habits of heavenly love, and life in the heart, do not concur, the heart and life of a preacher and a scholar are wanting still, for all your knowledge. Study Paul's words, 1 Cor. viii. 1, "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth." If he had said that knowledge edifieth others, and charity saveth ourselves, he would have said nothing that is strange. But even as to edification charity hath the precedency.

Direct. VII. Yea, see that you excel the unlearned as much in holiness as you do in knowledge: unless you will persuade them that your knowledge is a useless, worthless thing; and unless you would be judged as unprofitable servants.

Every degree of knowledge is for a further degree of holiness: ten talents must be improved to ten more. They that know and do not, are beaten with many stripes. The devil's scholars look on the godly that are unlearned with hatred and disdain, and preach to their discouragement and disgrace, and strive to set and keep true godliness in the stocks. But Christ's ministers love holiness wherever they see it, and are ashamed to think that the unlearned should be more holy and heavenly than they; and strive to go beyond them as much in the use and ends of knowledge, as in knowledge itself; and with Austin lament, that while the unlearned take heaven by violence, the learned are thrust out into hell, as thinking it is their part to know and teach, and other men's to practise.

Direct. VIII. Cast not away a moment of your precious time in idleness, or impertinencies; but follow your work diligently, and with all your might.

I mean not that you should overdo, and overthrow your brains and bodies, nor forbear such sober exercise as is most necessary to your health; for a sick body is an ill companion for a student, and much more a crazed brain. But time-wasters are lovers of pleasure or idleness, more than of knowledge and holiness: and wisdom falleth not into idle, sluggish, dreaming souls. If you think it not worth your painfullest and closest studies, you must take up with idle ignorance, and go abroad with swelling titles and empty brains, as the deceivers and the scourgers of the church.

Direct. IX. Keep up a delight in all your studies, and carry them on not in an unwilling weariness: and, if it be not by notable error in matter or method, gratify your delight with such things as you are best pleased with, though they bring some smaller inconvenience; because else your weariness may bring much more.

I know that a delight in sin and vanity is not to be gratified; and force must be used with a backward mind in case of necessity and weight. But if it be but in the variety of subjects, and the choice of pleasing studies which are profitable, though simply some other might be fitter, something is to be yielded to delight. But especially the heart must be got to a delight in holy things: and then, time will be improved; the memory will be helped; much will be done; and you will persevere; and it will preserve the mind from temptations to needless recreations, and from the deadly plague of youthful lusts, when your daily labour is a greater pleasure to you.

Direct. X. Get some judicious man to draw you up the titles of a threefold common-place book: one part for definitions, axioms, and necessary doctrines; another part for what is useful for ornament and oratory; and another for references as a common index to all the books of that science which you read: for memory will not serve for all.

Ordinarily students have not judgment enough to form their own common-place books till they are old in studies, and have read most of the authors which they would remember; and therefore the young must here have a judicious helper. And when they have done, injudiciousness will be apt to fill it with less necessary things, and to make an unmeet choice of matter, if they have not care and an instructor.

Direct. XI. Highly esteem a just method in divinity, and in all your studies; and labour to get an accurate scheme or skeleton, where at once you may see every part in its proper place. But remember that if it be not sound, it will be a snare; and one error in your scheme or method will be apt to introduce abundance more.[319]

It is a poor and pitiful kind of knowledge, to know many loose parcels, and broken members of truth, without knowing the whole, or the place and the relation which they have to the rest. To know letters and not syllables, or syllables and not words, or words and not sentences, or sentences and not the scope of the discourse, are all but an unprofitable knowledge. He knoweth no science rightly that hath not anatomized it, and carrieth not a true scheme or method of it in his mind. But among the many that are extant, to commend any one to you which I most esteem, or take to be without error, is more than I dare do.

Direct. XII. Still keep the primitive, fundamental verities in your mind, and see every other truth which you learn as springing out of them, and receiving their life and nourishment from them: and still keep in your minds a clear distinction between the truths of several degrees, both of necessity, and certainty, always reducing the less necessary to the more necessary, and the less certain to the more certain, and not contrarily.[320]

If God had made all points of faith, or Scripture revelation, of equal necessity, our baptism would not only have mentioned our belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; nor should we ever have seen the ancient creed, nor the ten commandments. And if all points were of equal evidence, and plainness, and certainty to us, we should not have some so much controverted above others: "Some things" in Scripture are "hard to be understood," but not "all things," 2 Pet. iii. 16. To pretend that any truth is more necessary than it is, doth tend to uncharitableness and contention: and to say that any is less necessary than it is, doth tend to the neglect of it, and to the danger of souls. To pretend any point to be more plain and certain than it is, doth but show our pride and ignorance. But to set up uncertain and unnecessary points, and make a religion of them, and reduce things certain or necessary to them, this is the method of turbulent heretics.

Direct. XIII. Take nothing as universally necessary in religion, which was not so taken in the days of the apostles, and primitive church; and take that for the safest way to heaven which the apostles went who certainly are there: value the apostolical purity, simplicity, charity, and unity; and follow not them that by being wise and pious overmuch, corrupt our sacred pattern by their additions, and fill the church with uncharitableness and strife.

If it were not a thing too evident that dominion and riches go for religion with them, and gain for godliness, and honour and money instead of argument, it would be a most stupendous wonder that so many learned men should be found among christians in the world, to hinder the peace and unity of the church, as do it vehemently and implacably in the church of Rome; when so easy a thing, and so reasonable, would unite almost all the christian world, as is the requiring no more as necessary to our union, than what was made necessary in the days of the apostles, and the obtruding nothing as necessary to salvation, which the apostles and primitive church were saved without. This easy, reasonable thing, which no man hath any thing of seeming sense and weight to speak against, would end all the ruinating differences among christians.

Direct. XIV. Be desirous to know all that God would have you know, and be willing to be ignorant of all that God would have you ignorant of; and pry not into unrevealed things; and much less make them the matter of any uncharitable strife.

Abundance of contentious volumes between the Dominicans, and Jesuits, and many others, are stuffed with bold inquiries, wranglings, or determinations of unsearchable mysteries, utterly unknown to those that voluminously debate them, and never revealed in the word or works of God. Keep off with reverence from concealed mysteries. Talk not as boldly of the divine influx, and the priority, posteriority, dependence or reason of God's decrees, as if you were talking of your common affairs. Come with great reverence when you are called of God to search into those high and holy truths, which he hath revealed. But pretend not to know that which is not to be known. For you will but discover your ignorance and arrogance, and know never the more, when you have doted about questions never so long.

Direct. XV. Avoid both extremes, of them that study no more but to know what others have written and held before them, and of them that little regarded the discoveries of others. Learn all of your teachers and authors that they can teach you; but make all your own, and see things in their proper evidence; and improve their discoveries by the utmost of your diligence; abhorring a proud desire of singularity, or to seem wiser than you are.

Most students through slothfulness look no further for knowledge than into their books; and their learning lieth but in knowing what others have written, or said, or held before them; especially where the least differing from the judgment of the party which is uppermost or in reputation, doth tend to hazard a man's honour, or preferments, there men think it dangerous to seem to know more than is commonly known; and therefore think it needless to study to know it. Men are backward to take much pains to know that which tendeth to their ruin to be known, but doth them no harm while they can but keep themselves ignorant of it: which makes the opposed truth have so few entertainers or students among the papists, or any that persecute or reproach it. And others discerning this extreme, do run into the contrary; and under pretence of the loveliness of truth, and the need of liberty of judging, do think the edifying way is first to pull down all that others have built before them, and little regard the judgment of their predecessors, but think they must take nothing on trust from others, but begin all from the very ground themselves. And usually their pride makes them so little regard the most approved authors, that they have not patience to read them till they thoroughly understand them; but reject that which is received, before they understand it, merely because it was the received way: and while they say, that nothing must be taken upon trust, they presently take upon trust themselves that very opinion, and with it the other opinions of those novelists that teach them this. And believing what such say in disgrace of others, withal they believe what they hold in opposition to those that they have disgraced. But it is easy to see how sad a case mankind were in, if every man must be a fabricator of all his knowledge himself, and posterity should be never the better for the discoveries of their ancestors; and the greatest labours of the wisest men, and their highest attainments, must be no profit to any but themselves. Why do they use a teacher, if they must do all themselves? If they believe not their tutors, and take nothing on trust, it seems they must know every truth before they will learn it: and what difference is there between believing a tutor and an author? And is not that more credible which upon long experience is approved by many nations and ages, than that which is recommended to you but by one or few? These students should have made themselves an alphabet or grammar, and not have taken the common ones on trust. It is easier to add to other men's inventions, than to begin and carry on all ourselves. By their course of study, the world would never grow wiser; but every age and person be still beginning, and none proceed beyond their rudiments.

Direct. XVI. Be sure you make choice of meet teachers and companions for your studies and your lives; that they be such as will assist you in the holy practice of what you know, as well as in your knowledge: and shun as a plague the familiarity, 1. Of sensual, idle, brutish persons. 2. And of carnal, ambitious ones, who know no higher end than preferment and applause. 3. And of proud, heretical, contentious wits, whose wisdom and religion are nothing but censuring, reproaching, and vilifying them that are wiser and better than themselves.

Bad company is the common ruin of both: their own sensuality is easily stirred up by the temptations of the sensual; and their consciences overborne by the examples of other men's voluptuous lives. It imboldeneth them to sin, to see others sin before them; as cowards themselves are drawn on in an army to run upon the face of death, by seeing others do it, and to avoid the reproach of cowardice; and the noise of mirth and ranting language, are the drums and trumpets of the devils, by which their ears are kept from hearing the cries of wounded, dying men, the lamentations of those that have found the error of that way. And there is in corrupted nature so strong an inclination to the prosperity and vain-glory of the world, that makes them quickly take the bait, especially when the devil doth offer it them by a fit instrument, which shall not deter them, as it would do if he had offered it them himself. It is a pleasant thing to flesh and blood to be rich and great, and generally applauded; and a grievous thing to be poor, and despised, and afflicted.[321] The rawness also and unsettledness of youth, who want well furnished understandings and experience, is a great advantage to heretics and deceivers, who still sweep many such away, wherever they come and have but opportunity. Children are "easily tossed up and down, and carried to and fro with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning sleight and subtlety of them that lie in wait to deceive," Eph. iv. 14. Deceivers have their methods; and methods are the common instruments of deceit, which are not easily detected by the unexperienced. On the contrary, the benefit of wise, and staid, and sober, and peaceable, meek, humble, holy, heavenly companions, is exceeding great, especially to youth! Such will lead them in safe paths, and be still preserving them, and promoting the most necessary parts of knowledge, and quickening them to holy practice, which is the end of all.

Direct. XVII. In all your studies be jealous of both extremes; and distinctly discern which are the extremes, that you run not into one while you avoid the other. And be especially careful, that you imagine not co-ordinates or subordinates to be opposites; and throw not away every truth, which you cannot presently place rightly in the frame, and see it fall in agreeably with the rest; for a further insight into true method (attained but by very few) may reconcile you to that which now offendeth you. What God hath joined together, be sure that you never put asunder; though yet you cannot find their proper places.[322]

There is scarce any error more common among students, than supposing those truths to be inconsistent, which indeed have a necessary dependence on each other; and a casting truth away as error, because they cannot reconcile it to some other truth. And there is nothing so much causeth this, as want of a true method. But that hath no method considerable, or after much curious labour hath fallen upon a false method, or a method that in any one considerable point is out of joint, will deal thus by many certain truths: as an ignorant person that is to set all the scattered parts of a clock or watch together, if he misplace one, will be unable rightly to place all the rest; and then, when he finds that they fit not the place which he thinks they must be in, he casteth them away, and thinks they are not the right, and is searching for or maketh something else to fit that place. False method rejecteth many a truth.

And, unless it be in loving God, or other acts of the superior faculties, about their ultimate end and highest object, there is scarce any thing in mortality but hath its extremes. And where they are not discerned, they are seldom well avoided. And usually narrow-sighted persons are fearful only of one extreme, and see no danger but on one side; and therefore are easily carried, by avoiding that, into the contrary.

I think it not unprofitable to instance in several particular cautions, that you imitate not them that put asunder what God hath conjoined, and cast not away truth as oft as you are puzzled in the right placing or methodizing it.

Instance I. The first and second causes are conjoined in their operations, and therefore must not be put asunder. If the way of influx, concourse, or co-operation be dark and unsearchable to you, do not deny that it is, because you see not how it is. The honour of the first and second cause also are conjunct, according to their several interests in the effects: do not therefore imagine, that all the honour ascribed to the second cause is denied or taken away from the first; for then you understand not their order: otherwise you would see, that as the second causeth independence on the first, and insubordination to it, and hath no power but what is communicated by it, so it hath no honour but what is received from it; and that it is no less honour for the first cause to operate mediately by the second, than immediately by itself: and that there is no less of the power, wisdom, or goodness of God, in an effect produced by means and second causes, than in that which he produceth of himself only, without them: and that it is his goodness to communicate a power of good to his creatures, and the honour of working and causing under him: but he never loseth any thing by communicating, nor hath the less himself by giving to his creatures: for if all that honour that is given to the creature were taken injuriously from God, then God would never have made the world, nor made a saint; and then the worst creatures would least dishonour God: then he would not shine by the sun, but by himself immediately: and then he would never glorify either saint or angel. But on the contrary, it is God's honour to work by adapted means; and all their honour is truly his; as all the commendation of a clock or watch is given to the workman. And though God do not all so immediately, as to use no means or second causes; yet is he never the further from the effect, but, immediatione virtutis et suppositi, is himself as near as if he used none.