_Direct._ I. Understand well your own interest and great concernments, and be well resolved what you live for, and what is your true felicity and end; and then this will command your thoughts to serve it. The end is it that the means are all chosen for, and used for. A man's estimation directeth his intention and designs; and his intention and designs command his thoughts. These will certainly have the first and chiefest, the most serious, and practical, and effectual thoughts; though some by-thoughts may run out another way: as the miller will be sure to keep so much water as is necessary to grind his grist, though he may let that run by which he thinks he hath no need of; as you gather in all your corn and fruit for yourselves at harvest, though perhaps you will leave some scatterings which you do not value much, for any that will to gather; so whatever a man taketh for his ultimate end and true felicity, will have the store and stream of his cogitations, though he may scatter some few upon other things, when he thinks he may do it without any detriment to his main design. As a traveller's face is ordinarily towards his journey's end, though so far as he thinks it doth not stop him, he may look behind him, or on each side; so our main end will in the main carry on our thoughts. And therefore unholy souls, that know not practically any higher end than the prosperity and pleasure of the flesh, and the plenty and honour of the world, cannot possibly exercise any holy government over their thoughts; but their minds and consciences are defiled, and their thoughts made carnal as is their end. Nor is there any possibility of curing their vicious, wicked thoughts, and of ordering them acceptably to God, but by curing their worldly, carnal minds, and causing them to change their designs and ends. And this must be by understanding what is their interest. Know well but what it is that is most necessary for you, and best for you, and it will change your hearts, and save your souls. Know this, and your thoughts will never want matter to be employed on; nor will they be suffered to wander much abroad. Therefore it is that the expectation of death, and the thought of coming presently to judgment, do use more effectually to supply the mind with the wisest and most useful thoughts, than the learnedst book or ordinary means can. That which tells a man best what he hath to do, doth best tell him what he hath to think on. But the approach of death, and the appearance of eternity, doth best tell a dull and fleshly sinner what he hath to do; this tells, and tells him roundly, that he must presently search his heart and life, and judge himself as one that is going to the final judgment; and that it is high time for him to look out for the remedy for his sin and misery, &c.; and therefore it will command his thoughts this way. Ask any lawyer, physician, or tradesman, what commands his thoughts; and you will find that his interest, and his ends, and work command them. Know what it is to have an immortal soul, that must live in joy or woe for ever, and what it is to be always so near to the irreversible, determining sentence, and what it is to have this short uncertain time, and no more, to make our preparation in, and then it is easy to foretell which way your thoughts will go. A man that knoweth his house is on fire, will be thinking how to quench it; a man that knoweth he is entering into a mortal sickness, will be thinking how to cure it. There is no better way to have your thoughts both furnished and acted aright, than to know your interest, and right end.
[Sidenote: God.]