Ist. 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 striv- ing 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
366 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. . [PART I.
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 name. 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.
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 ad- vantage 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 con- tinuance in their soliciting of the affections, they greatly defile the mind and conscience, disposing the person unto the farther enter- tainment of them, So, if our occasional thoughts of God do imme- diately 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 suddem occasions and surprisals it will act itself according unto. that sense and apprehension. There is “vox nature clamantis ad Dominum naturse,’—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 occa- sions, 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
CHAP. Ix.] NATURE OF MEDITATION ON GOD. 367
own disadvantage. Such are all thoughts of God that are not ac- companied 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 communi- cation. 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 ap- pearance 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. .