But yet it ought not to invent or devise what is good and true m reU- gion. Here fancy must yield to faith, and faith to divine revelation. The things we believe are such as neither ' eye hath seen, nor ear heard, neither came into the heart of man,' 1 Cor. ii. 9, by imagination stirred up from anything which we have seen or heard. They are above, not only ima- gination, but reason itself, in men and angels. But after God hath revealed spiritual truths, and faith hath apprehended them, then imagination hath use while the soul is joined with the body, to colour divine truths, and make light- some what faith believes ; for instance, it doth not de\'ise either heaven or heU ; but when God hath revealed them to us, our fancy hath a fitness of en- larging oui' conceits of them, even by resemblance from things in nature, and that without danger ; because the joys of heaven and the torments of heU are so great that all the representations which nature afibrds us fall short of them.
Imagination hath hkewise some use in religion, by putting cases to the soul, as when we are tempted to any unruly action we should think with ourselves, what would I do if some holy, grave person whom I much rever- ence should behold me ? "Whereupon the soul may easily ascend higher, God sees me, and my own conscience is ready to witness against me, &c.
It helps us also in taking benefit by the example of other men. Good things are best learned by others expressing of them to our view. The very sight often, nay, the very thought of a good man doth good, as repre- senting to our souls some good thing which we affect — est aViquid quod ex magno viro vel tacente projicias — which makes histories and the hvely
186 THE soul's conflict.
characters and expressions of virtues and vices useful to us. The sight, yea, the very reading of the sufl'ering of the martyrs hath wrought such a hatred of that persecuting church as hath done marvellous good. The sight of justice executed upon malefactors works a greater hatred of sin in men than naked precepts can do. So outward pomp and state in the world doth further that awful respect due to authority, &c.
9. Lastly, it would much avail for the well ordering of our thoughts to set our souls in order every morning, and to strengthen and perfume our spirits with some gracious meditatioiis* especially of the chief end and scope where- fore we live here, and how every thing we do or befalls us may be reduced and ordered to further the main. The end of a Christian is glorious, and the oft thoughts of it will raise and enlarge the soul, and set it on work to study how to make all things serviceable thereunto. It is a thing to be lamented that a Christian bom for heaven, having the ' prize of his high calling,' Phil. iii. 14, set before him, and matters of that weight and excel- lency to exercise his heart upon, should be taken up with trifles, and fill both his head and heart with vanity and nothing, as all earthly things wiU prove ere long ; and yet if many men's thoughts and discourses were distilled, they are so frothy that they would hardly yield one drop of true comfort, j
§ IV. Obj. Oh, but, say some, thoughts and imaginations are free, and we shall not be accountable for them.
Ans. This is a false plea, for God hath a sovereignty over the whole soul, and his law binds the whole inward and outward man. As we desire our whole man should be saved by Christ, so we must yield up the whole man to be governed by him ; and it is the effect of the dispensation of the gospel, accompanied with the Spirit, to captivate whatsoever is in man unto Christ, and to bring down all ' high towering imaginations,' 2 Cor. x. 5, that exalt themselves against God's Spirit. There is a divinity in the word of God, powerfully unfolded, which will convince our souls of the sinfulness of natural imaginations, as we see in the idiot, (e) 1 Cor. xiv. 24, 25, who, see- ing himself laid open before himself, cried out, that ' God was in the speaker,' 1 Cor. xiv. 25.
There ought to be in man a conformity to the truth and goodness of things, or else, 1, we shall -RTong our own souls with false apprehensions; and 2, the creature, by putting a fashion upon it otherwise than God hath made ; and 3, we shall wrong God himself, the author of goodness, who cannot have his true glory but from a right apprehension of things as they are. What a wrong is it to men when we shall take up false prejudices against them without ground ! and so sufi'er our conceits to be envenomed against them by unjust suspicions, and by this means deprive ourselves of all that good which we might receive by them ; for our nature is apt to judge and accept of things as the persons are, and not of persons according to the things themselves. This fixculty exercises a tyranny in the soul, setting up and pulling down whom it will. Job judged his friends alto- gether vain. Job xxvii. 12, because they went upon a vain imagination and discourse, judging him to be an hj'pocrite, which could not but add much to his affliction. When men take a toyf in their head against a person or place, they are ready to reason as he did, ' Can any good come out of Nazareth ?' John vi. 46.