death in the midst of his years, comforts and refresheth himself with thoughts of God's eternity and immutability, with his interest in them, Ps. cii. 23-28. And God himself proposeth unto us his infinite immutability as the ground whereon we may expect safety and deliverance, Mal. iii. 6. When we can thus think of God and of what he is with delight, it is, I say, an evidence that we have a gracious covenant interest even in what God is in himself; which none have but those who are spiritually minded. (2dly.) It is an evidence that the image of God is begun to be wrought in our own souls, and that we approve of and rejoice in it more than in all other things whatever. Whatever notions men may have of the divine goodness, holiness, righteousness, and purity, they are all but barren, jejune, and fruitless, unless there be a similitude and conformity unto them wrought in their minds and souls. Without this they cannot rejoice in the thoughts and remembrance of the divine excellencies. Wherefore, when we can do so, when such meditations of God are sweet unto us, it is an evidence that we have some experience in ourselves of the excellency of the image of those perfections, and that we rejoice in them above all things in this world. (3dly.) They are so also in that they manifest that we do discern and judge that our eternal blessedness doth consist in the full manifestation and our enjoyment of God in what he is, and of all his divine excellencies. This men for the most part take for granted, but how it should be so they know not. They understand it in some measure whose hearts are here deeply affected with delight in them; they are able to believe that the manifestation and enjoyment of the divine excellencies will give eternal rest, satisfaction, and complacency unto their souls. No wicked man can look upon it otherwise than as a torment, to abide for ever with "eternal holiness," Isa. xxxiii. 14. And we ourselves can have no present prospect into the fulness of future glory, when God shall be all in all, but through the delight and satisfaction which we have here in the contemplation of what God is in himself as the centre of all divine perfections.

I would therefore press this unknown, this neglected duty on the minds of those of us in an especial manner who are visibly drawing nigh unto eternity. The days are coming wherein what God is in himself (that is, as manifested and exhibited in Christ), shall alone be, as we hope, the eternal blessedness and reward of our souls. Is it possible that any thing should be more necessary for us, more useful unto us, than to be exercised in such thoughts and contemplations? The benefits we may have hereby are not to be reckoned; some of them only may be named: as,-[1st.] We shall have the best trial of ourselves how our hearts really stand affected towards God; for if upon examination we find ourselves not really to delight and re

joice in God for what he is in himself, and that all perfections are eternally resident in him, how dwelleth the love of God in us? But if we can truly "rejoice at the remembrance of his holiness," in the thoughts of what he is, our hearts are upright with him. [2dly.] This is that which will effectually take off our thoughts and affections from things here below. One spiritual view of the divine goodness, beauty, and holiness, will have more efficacy to raise the heart unto a contempt of all earthly things than any other evidences whatever. [3dly.] It will increase the grace of being heavenly minded in us, on the grounds before declared. [4thly.] It is the best, I had almost said it is the only, preparation for the future full enjoyment of God. This will gradually lead us into his presence, take away all fears of death, increase our longing after eternal rest, and ever make us groan to be unclothed. Let us not, then, cease labouring with our hearts, until, through grace, we have a spiritually-sensible delight and joy in the remembrances and thoughts of what God is in himself.

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2dly. In thoughts of God, his saints rejoice at the remembrance of what he is, and what he will be unto them. Herein have they regard unto all the holy relations that he hath taken on himself towards them, with all the effects of his covenant in Christ Jesus. To that purpose were some of the last words of David: 2 Sam. xxiii. 5, Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire." In the prospect he had of all the distresses that were to befall his family, he triumphantly rejoiced in the everlasting covenant that God had made with him. In these thoughts his saints take delight; they are sweet unto them, and full of refreshment: "Their meditations of him are sweet," and they are "glad in the LORD," Ps. civ. 34. Thus is it with them that are truly spiritually minded. They not only think much of God, but they take delight in these thoughts, they are sweet unto them; and not only so, but they have no solid joy or delight but in their thoughts of God, which therefore they retreat unto continually. They do so especially on great occasions, which of themselves are apt to divert them from them. As suppose a man hath received a signal mercy, with the matter whereof he is exceedingly affected and delighted; the minds of some men are apt on such occasions to be filled with thoughts of what they have received, and their affections to be wholly taken up with it, but he who is spiritually minded will immediately retreat unto thoughts of God, placing his delight and taking up his satisfaction in him. And so, on the other side, great distresses, prevalent sorrows, strong pains, violent distempers, are apt of themselves to take up and exercise all the thoughts of men about them; but those who are spiritually minded will in

and under them all continually betake themselves unto thoughts of God, wherein they find relief and refreshment against all that they feel or fear. In every state, their principal joy is in "the remembrance of his holiness."

[2] That they be accompanied with godly fear and reverence. These are required of us in all wherein we have to do with God, Heb. xii. 28, 29; and as the Scripture doth not more abound with precepts unto any duty, so the nature of God and our own, with the infinite distance between them, make it indispensably necessary even in the light of the natural conscience. Infinite greatness, infinite holiness, infinite power, all which God is, command the utmost reverential fear that our natures are capable of. The want hereof is the spring of innumerable evils; yea, indeed, of all that is so. Hence are blasphemous abuses of the holy name of God in cursed oaths and execrations; hence it is taken in vain, in ordinary exclamations; hence is all formality in religion.

It is the spiritual mind alone that can reconcile those things which are prescribed to us as our duty towards God. "To delight and rejoice in him always, to triumph in the remembrance of him, to draw nigh unto him with boldness and confidence," are on the one hand prescribed unto us; and on the other it is so "that we fear and tremble before him, that we fear that great and dreadful name the LORD our God, that we have grace to serve him with reverence and godly fear, because he is a consuming fire." These things carnal reason can comprehend no consistency in;-what it is afraid of it cannot delight in; and what it delights in it will not long fear. But the consideration of faith, concerning what God is in himself, and what he will be unto us, gives these different graces their distinct operations, and a blessed reconciliation in our souls. Wherefore, all our thoughts of God ought to be accompanied with a holy awe and reverence, from a due sense of his greatness, holiness, and power. Two things will utterly vitiate all thoughts of God and render them useless unto us,-vain curiosity and carnal boldness.

1st. It is unimaginable how the subtile disquisitions and disputes of men about the nature, properties, and counsels of God, have been corrupted, rendered sapless and useless, by vain curiosity, and striving for an artificial accuracy in the expression of men's apprehensions. When the wits and minds of men are engaged in such thoughts, "God is not in all their thoughts," even when all their thoughts are concerning him. When once men are got into their metaphysical curiosities and logical niceties in their contemplations about God and his divine properties, they bid farewell, for the most part, unto all godly fear and reverence. 2dly. Others are so under the power of carnal boldness, that they think of God with no other respect than

if they thought of worms of the earth like themselves. There is no holy awfulness upon their minds and souls in the mention of his By these things may our thoughts of God be so vitiated that the heart shall not in them be affected with a reverence of him, nor any evidence be given that we are spiritually minded.

name.

It is this holy reverence that is the means of bringing in sanctifying virtue into our souls from God, upon our thoughts of him. None that thinks of God with a due reverence but he shall be sensible of advantage by it. Hereby do we sanctify God in our access unto him; and when we do so, he will sanctify and purify our hearts by those very thoughts in which we draw nigh to him.

We may have many sudden, occasional, transient thoughts of God, that are not introduced into our minds by a preceding reverential fear; but if they leave not that fear on our hearts in proportion unto their continuance with us, they are of no value, but will insensibly habituate us unto a common, bold frame of spirit, which he despises.

So is it in the case of thoughts of a contrary nature. Thoughts of sin, of sinful objects, may arise in our minds from the remainders of corruption, or be occasioned by the temptations and suggestions of Satan. If these are immediately rejected and cast out of us, the soul is not more prejudiced by their entrance than it is advantaged by their rejection, through the power of grace. But if they make frequent returns into the minds of men, or make any abode or continuance in their soliciting of the affections, they greatly defile the mind and conscience, disposing the person unto the farther entertainment of them. So, if our occasional thoughts of God do immediately leave us, and pass away without much affecting our minds, we shall have little or no benefit by them; but if, by their frequent visits and some continuance with us, they dispose our souls unto a holy reverence of God, they are a blessed means of promoting our sanctification. Without this, I say, there may be thoughts of God unto no advantage of the soul.

There is implanted on our nature such a sense of a divine Power and Presence as that on all sudden cccasions and surprisals it will act itself according unto that sense and apprehension. There is

vox naturæ clamantis ad Dominum naturæ,"-a voice in nature itself, upon any thing that is suddenly too hard for it, which cries out immediately unto the God of nature. So men, on such occasions, without any consideration, are surprised into a calling on the name of God and crying unto him. And from the same natural apprehension it is that wicked and profane persons will break forth on all occasions into cursed swearing by his name. So men in such ways have thoughts of God without either reverence or godly fear, without giving any glory unto him, and, for the most part, unto their

own disadvantage. Such are all thoughts of God that are not accompanied with holy fear and reverence.

There is scarce any duty that ought at present to be more pressed on the consciences of men than this of keeping up a constant holy reverence of God in all wherein they have to do with him, both in private and public, in their inward thoughts and outward communication. Formality hath so prevailed on religion, and that under the most effectual means of its suppression, that very many do manifest that they have little or no reverence of God in the most solemn duties of his worship, and less, it may be, in their secret thoughts. Some ways that have been found out to keep up a pretence and appearance of it have been and are destructive unto it.

But herein consists the very life of all religion. The fear of God is, in the Old Testament, the usual expression of all the due respect of our souls unto him, and that because where that is not in exercise, nothing is accepted with him. And hence the whole of our wisdom is said to consist therein; and if it be not in a prevalent exercise in all wherein we have to do with him immediately, all our duties are utterly lost, as to the ends of his glory and the spiritual advantage of our own souls.

CHAPTER IX.

What of God or in God we are to think and meditate upon-His being-Reasons of it; oppositions to it; the way of their conquest-Thoughts of the omnipresence and omniscience of God peculiarly necessary-The reasons hereof— As also of his omnipotence-The use and benefit of such thoughts.

THESE things mentioned have been premised in general as unto the nature, manner, and way of exercise, of our thoughts on God. That which remains is, to give some particular instances of what we are to think upon in an especial manner, and what we will be conversant withal in our thoughts, if so be we are spiritually minded. And I shall not insist at present on the things which concern his grace and love in Christ Jesus, which belong unto another head, but on those which have an immediate respect unto the divine nature itself, and its holy essential properties.

First, Think much of the being and existence of God. Herein lies the foundation of all our relation and access unto him: Heb. xi. 6, "He that cometh to God must believe that he is." This is the first object of faith, and it is the first act of reason; and being the sole foundation of all religion, it is our duty to be exercised unto multiplied thoughts about it, renewed on all occasions: for many who are not direct atheists, yet live without any solid, well-grounded