Use 2. Information. It informs us why we are so backward to meditate ; it is for want of love : ' Oh, how love I thy law ! ' and then, ' It is my meditation all the day.' You think it is want of time, ani want of parts and abilities. I tell you, it is want of love. It is but a
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vain boasting, and tlie greatest hypocrisy, to say we love the law of God, and never exercise our minds therein ; for where there is love it will command our thoughts ; and if once you have found a heart, you will find time, abilities, and thoughts to bestow upon holy things. Love sets all the wheels of the soul awork ; and therefore the great reason why meditation is so difiicult is we have not such strength and such ardour of affections to the things of God. The difficulty doth not lie in the duty itself, but in the awkwardness of our hearts to the duty. You can muse upon other things, why not muse upon that which is holy ?
Use 3. To press you to show love to the word of God this way by often meditating upon it ; meditate upon the doctrines, promises, threatenings, man's misery, deliverance by Christ, necessity of regener- ation, then of a holy life, the day of judgment. Fill the mind with such kind of thoughts, and continually dwell upon them. A good man should do so, and will do so. He should do so, Josh. i. 8 ; and he will do so, Ps. i. 2. Oh, do not begrudge a little time spent this way ! for hereby we both evidence our love to the word and increase it.
But to quicken you hereunto : —
1. The more the heart is replenished with holy meditation, the less will it be pestered with worldly and carnal thoughts. The mind of man is restless, and cannot lie idle, therefore it is good to set it awork upon holy things. It will be working upon somewhat, and if you do not feed it with holy thoughts, what then ? ' All the imaginations of the heart will be evil, only evil, and that continually,' Gen, vi. 5. These are the natural products and births of our spirits. And Mat. XV. 19, ' Out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts,' &c. When the heart is left to run loose, then we shall go musing of vanity and sin ; therefore by frequent meditation this evil is prevented, because the mind is pre-occupied, and possessed already by better things; nay, the mind is seasoned, and vain and carnal thoughts grow distasteful to us when the heart is stored with good matter.
2. The more these thoughts abide with us, the more the heart is seasoned and fitted for all worldly comforts and affairs. It is hard to touch pitch and not be defiled, to go up and down with a serious heart in the midst of such temptations. Nothing makes you awefid and seri- ous so mnch as inuring your minds with holy thoughts, so that you may go about worldly businesses in a heavenly manner. God's children are sensible of this, therefore they make it their practice to begin the day with God : Ps. cxxxix. 18, ' When I awake, I am still with thee.^ As soon as they are awake they are seasoning their minds with somewhat of God. And they not only begin with God, but take God along with them in all their comfort and business : Prov. xxiii. 17, ' They are in the fear of the Lord all the day long.' Why do vain thoughts haunt us in duty ? Because it is our use to be vainly occu- jiied. A carnal man goes about heavenly business Avith an earthly mind, and a godly man goes about earthly business with a heavenly mind. A carnal man s thoughts are so used to these things that he cannot take them off ; but a godly man hath inured his mind to better thoughts.
3. Thoughts will inflame and enkindle your affections after heavenly
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things. It is beating the steel upon the flint malves the sparks fly out. So by serious inculcative thoughts we beat out affections; these are the bellows to blow up the coals. It is a very deadening thing to be always musing on vanity : Cant. i. 3, ' Thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.' When a box is broken, and the ointment poured out, when the name of God is taken in by serious thoughts, that stirs up affection.
4. By holy tlioughts we do most resemble the purity and simplicity of God. We do not resemble God so much by speech and course of our actions as we do by our serious and holy thoughts, for his spiritual nature and being is best expressed by these operations of our own spirits. You can conceive of God as a spirit, always beholding him- self, and loving himself ; and so you come nearer as to the being of God, the more your thoughts are exercised and drawn out after holy things.
5. By these holy meditations the soul is present with God, and can solace itself with him. The apostle saith, AVe are absent from him in the bod)'-, but present with him by the spirit ; present with him by the workings of our thoughts. This is the way to get into the company of the Spirit, to be with him, Ps. cxxxix. 18. How with him ? By our thoughts, and by serious calling him to mind. God is not far from us, but we are far from him. God is not far from us in the effects of his power and goodness, but we are far from God, because our thoughts are so seldom set awork upon him. This is the way to solace ourselves with God, to be much in these holy things.