[2.] It is not a duty of an arbitrary concernment. It is not only a moral help that may be observed or omitted, but a necessary duty, without which all graces would languish and wither. Faith is lean and ready to starve unless it be fed with continual meditation on the promises ; as David saith, Ps. cxix. 92, * Unless thy law had been my delight, I should then have perished in my affliction.' Thoughts are the caterers of the soul, that purvey for faith, and fetch in food and refresh it with the comfort of the promises. Hope is low, and doth not arise to such a fulness of expectation till by meditation we take a deliberate view of our hopes and privileges: Gen. xiii. 17, 'Arise, walk through the land, in the length of it, and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee.' Our hopes arise according to the largeness of our thoughts. It is a great advantage to have our eyes open to view the riches of our inheritance, and to have a distinct view of the hope of our calling. The apostle prays for the Ephesians, chap. i. 18, ' The eyes of your understandings being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.' Men of barren thoughts are usually of low hopes, and for
SERMONS UPON GENESIS XXIV. 63. 2^ 1
want of getting to the top of Pisgah to view the land, our hearts sink within ns. Certainly hope thriveth best on the mount of meditation. Then for love, the sparkles of affection will not flow out unless we beat upon the will by constant thoughts. Affection is nourished by appre- hension, and the more constant and deliberate the thoughts are, the love is always the deeper. Those christians that are backward to the duty of meditation find none of those impulses and meltings of love that are in others ; they do not endeavour to comprehend the height and breadth and length, and depth of the love of Christ, and therefore no wonder that their hearts are so narrow and so much straitened towards God. Affections always follow the rate of our thoughts, if they are ponderous and serious. Then for obedience, or keeping the spirits constantly in a religious frame ; to others good motions come like flashes of lightning, and are as soon gone, as their thoughts are slight and vanishing, but deep musing maketh the fire burn, and keepeth a constant heat and flame in the spirits, not by flashes. And as for duty, so for comfort ; a man that is a stranger to meditation is a stranger to himself. In acts of review you enjoy yourselves, and you enjoy your- selves with far more comfort in these private recesses ; you have most experience of God, and most experience of yourselves. Moses when he went aside to meditate had the vision of the fiery bush. Usually God Cometh in, in the time of deep meditation, and an elevated heavenly mind is fittest to entertain the comforts and glory of his presence.
Thus you see it is a necessary duty. Many think it is an excuse to say it doth not suit with their temper ; that it is a good help, but for those that can use it. I answer —
(1.) It is true there is a great deal of difference among christians ; some are more serious and consistent, and have a greater command over their thoughts, others are of a more slight, weak spirit, and are less apt for duties of retirement and recollection. But our unfitness is usually moral rather than natural, not so much by temper as by disuse ; and moral unfitness cannot exempt us from a moral duty. Inky water cannot wash the hand white, or a sin exempt me from a duty. Indis- position, which is a sin in me, doth not disannul my engagements to God ; as a servant's • drunkenness doth not excuse him from work. That it is a moral unfitness appeareth by two things —
{1st.) Disuse and neglect is the cause of it. Those that use it have a greater command over their thoughts. Men count it a great yoke, but custom would make it easy. Every duty is an help to itself, and the more we meditate the more we shall. It is pleasant to them that use it : Ps. i. 2, ' His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.' Fierce creatures are tame to those that use to command them, and if a man did use to govern his thoughts, he would find them more obedient.
{2d.) Want of love. Thoughts are at the service of love ; we pause and stay upon such objects as we delight in : Ps. i. 2, 'His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.' Love naileth and fasteneth the soul to the object or thing beloved ; as we see we can dwell upon carnal pleasures because our heart is there ; as Solomon gives this reason why a carnal man cannot dwell upon a si\d and solemn object, because ' his heart is in the house of mirth,'