This shield of faith, managed in the hand of experience, will quench the fiery darts, of Satan, and he will fall under a double de- feat:—l1st. His temptations will be repelled by the proper way of resistance, whereon he will not only desist in his attempt, but eyen flee from you. “ Resist the devil,” saith the apostle, “and he will flee from you.” He will not only depart and cease to trouble you, but will depart as one defeated and confounded. And it is for want of this resistance, lively made use of, that many hang so long in the briers of this temptation. 2dly. Recalling the experiences we
372 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. [PART I.
have had of God will lead us unto the exercise of all kind of graces; which is the greatest disappointment of our adversary.
(2.) In thoughts of the divine being and existence, we are apt to be ata loss, to be as it were overwhelmed in our minds, because the object is too great and glorious for us to contemplate on. Eternity and immensity, every thing under the notion of infinite, take off the mind from its distinct actings, and reduce it as it were unto nothing. Hereon in some, not able to abide in the strict reasons of things, vain and foolish imaginations are apt to arise, and inquiries how those things can be which we cannot comprehend. Others are utterly at a loss, and turn away their thoughts from them, as they would do their eyes from the bright beams of the sun. Two things are ad- visable in this case:—
[1.] That we betake ourselves unto a holy admiration of what we cunnot comprehend. In these things we cannot see God and live; nay, in life eternal itself they are not absolutely to be compre- hended. Only what is infinite can fully comprehend what is so. Here they are the objects of faith and worship; in them we may find rest and satisfaction when inquiries and reasonings will disquiet us, and, it may be, overwhelm us. Infinite glory forbids us any near approach but only by faith. The soul thereby bowing down itself unto God’s adorable greatness and incomprehensible perfections, finding our- selves to be nothing and God to be all, will give us rest and peace in these things, Rom. xi. 33-36. We have but unsteady thoughts of the greatness of the world and all the nations and inhabitants of it; yet are both it and these “ but as the small dust of the balance and the drop of a bucket, as vanity, as nothing,” compared with God. | What, then, can our thoughts concerning him issue in but holy ad- miration ? |
[2.] In case we are brought unto a loss and disorder in our minds on the contemplation of any one infinite property of God, it is good to divert our thoughts unto the effects of it, such as whereof we have or may have experience; for what is too great or high for us in itself is made suitable to our understandings in its effects. So the “invisible things of God” are known in and by the things that are seen. And there is, indeed, no property of the divine nature but we may have an experience of it, as unto some of its effects, in and upon ourselves, These we may consider, and in the streams taste of the fountain which we cannot approach. By them we may be led unto a holy admiration of what is in itself infinite, immense, incomprehensible. I cannot comprehend the immensity of God’s nature; it may be I cannot understand the nature of immensity: yet if I find by experience, and do strongly believe, that he is always present wherever I am, I have the faith of it and satisfaction in it.
CHAP. IX.] NATURE OF MEDITATION ON GOD. 373
Secondly, With thoughts of the Divine Being, those of his omni- presence and omniscience ought continually to accompany us. We - cannot take one step in a walk before him unless we remember that always and in all places he is present with us, that the frame of our hearts and our inward thoughts are continually in his view, no less than our outward actions. And as we ought to be perpetually under an awe of and in the fear of God in these apprehensions, so there are some seasons wherein our minds ought to be in the actual conception and thoughts of them, without which we shall not be preserved in our duty.
1. The first season of this nature is when times, places, with other occasions of temptation, and consequently of sinning, do come and meet. With some, company doth constitute such a season; and with some, secrecy with opportunity do the same. There are those who are ready, with a careless boldness, to put themselves on such societies as they do know have been temptations unto them and occasions of sin. Every such entrance into any society or company, unto them who know how it hath formerly succeeded, is their actual sin; and it is just with God to leave them to all the evil consequents that do ensue. Others, also, do either choose or are frequently cast-on such societies; and no sooner are they engaged in them but they forget all regard unto God, and give themselves up not only unto vanity, but unto various sorts of excess. David knew the evil and danger of such occasions, and gives us an account of his behaviour in them: Ps. xxxix. 1-3, “I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me. I was dumb with silence, I held’ my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned; then spake I with my tongue.” As for their evil words and ways, he would have no communication with them; and as unto good discourse, he judged it unreasonable to “cast pearls before swine.’ He was therefore silent as unto that also, though it was a grief and trouble to him. But this occasioned in him afterward those excellent meditations which he expresseth in the following verses. In the entrance of these occasions, if men would remember the presence of God with them in these places, with the holy severity of the eye that is upon them, it would put an awe upon their spirits, and imbitter those jollities whose relish is given them by temptation and sin. He doth neither walk humbly nor circumspectly who, being necessarily cast on the society of men wicked or profane,—on such occasions wherein the ordinary sort of men give more than ordinary liberty unto corrupt communication or excess in any kind,—doth not in his entrance of them call to mind the presence and all-seeing eye of God,