BEING SPIRITUALLY MINDED. 369
to rise, and never once effect it. Remember how many suc- cessless attempts you have made upon it, and all have come to nothing, or that which is as bad as nothing. I cannot say that in this way you shall always succeed ; but I fear you will never have success in this duty, without sucTi things as are of the same nature and use with it.
When after this preparation, you find yourselves yet perplexed and entangled, not able comfortably to persist in spiritual thoughts, unto your refreshment, take these two directions for your relief.
1. Cry and sigh to God for help and relief. Bewail the darkness, weakness, and instability of your minds, so as to groan within yourselves for deliverance. And if your de- signed meditations do issue only in a renewed gracious sense of your own weakness and insufficiency, with applica- tion unto God for supplies of strength, they are by no means lost as unto a spiritual account. The thoughts of Hezekiah in his meditations did not seem to have any great order or consistency, when he so expressed them : ' Like a crane or a swallow so did I chatter ; I did mourn as a dove : mine eyes failed with looking upwards : O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me ;' Isa. xxxviii. 14. When the soul labours sincerely for communion with God, but sinks into broken, confused thoughts under the weight of its own weakness, yet if he looks to God for relief, his chattering and mourn- ing will be accepted with God, and profitable unto himself.
2. Supply the brokenness of your thoughts with ejacu- latory prayers, according as either the matter of them, Or your defect in the management of them, doth require. So was it with Hezekiah in the instance before-mentioned : where his own meditations were weak and broken, he cries out in the midst of them, * O Lord, 1 am oppressed ; un- dertake for me.' And meditation is properly a mixture of spiritual apprehension of God and heavenly things, in the thoughts and conceptions of the mind, with desires and supplications thereon.
It is good and profitable to have some special designed subject of meditation in our thoughts. I have at large de- clared before what things are the proper objects of the thoughts of them that are spiritually minded. But they may be more peculiarly considered as the matter of designed VOL. xni. 2 B
370 THE GRACE AND DUTY OF
meditation. And they may be taken out of some especial spiritual experience that we have lately had, or some warn- inii-s we have received of God, or something; wherewith we have been peculiarly affected in the reading or preaching of the word, or what we find the present posture and frame of our minds and souls to require; or that which supplies all most frequently, the person and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. If any thing of this nature be peculiarly designed, antecedently unto this duty, and a season be sought for it Avith respect thereunto, the mind will be fixed and kept from wandering after variety of subjects, v;herein it is apt to lose itself, and brings nothing to perfection.
Lastly, Be not discouraged with an apprehension, that all you can attain unto in the discharge of this duty is so little, so contemptible, as that it is to no purpose to persist in it: nor be wearied with the difficulties you meet withal in its performance. You have to do with him only in this matter, who ' will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax ;' whose will it is, that none should despise the day of small things. And if there be in this duty a ready mind, it is accepted according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not. He that can bring into this treasure only the mites of broken desires and ejaculatory prayers, so they be his best, shall not come behind them wlio cast into it out of their greater abundance in ability and skill. To faint and oive out because we cannot arise unto such a height as we aim at, is a fruit of pride and unbelief. He who finds himself to gain nothing by conti- nual endeavours after holy fixed meditations, but only a living active sense of his own vileness and unworthiness, is a sufficient gainer by all his pains, cost, and charge. But ordinarily it shall not be so ; constancy in the duty will give ability for it. Those who conscientiously abide in its per* formance, shall increase in light, wisdom, and experience, until they are able to manage it with great success. These few plain directions may possibly be of some use unto the weaker sort of Christians, when they find a disability in themselves unto the discharge of this duty, wherein those who are spiritually minded ought to be peculiarly exercised.
BEING SPIRITUALLY MINDED. 371
PART II.
CHAP. XI.
The seat of spiritual mindedness in the affections. The nature and use of them. The ways and ineans used hy God himself to call the affections of men from the world.
In the account siven at the entrance of this discourse, of what it is to be spiritually minded, it was reduced under these heads.