_Direct._ IX. Be not a stranger to the methods, and subtleties, and diligence of Satan, in his temptations to undo thy soul, and thou wilt find matter enough to keep thy thoughts from idleness. He is thinking how to deceive thee and destroy thee; and doth it not concern thee to think how to defeat him and escape and save thyself? If the hare run not as fast as the dog, he is like to die for it. Oh that thy eyes were but opened to see the snares that are laid for thee in thy nature, in thy temperature and passions, in thy interests, thy relations, thy friends and acquaintance, and ordinary company; in thy businesses, and possessions, thy house, and goods, and lands, and cattle, and tenants, and servants, and all that thou tradest with, or hast to do with; in thine apparel and recreations; in thy meat and drink, and sleep, and ease, in prosperity and adversity; in men's good thoughts, or bad thoughts of thee; in their praise and dispraise; in their benefits and their wrongs; their favour and their falling out; in their pleasing or displeasing thee; in thy thinking and in thy speaking, and in every thing that thou hast to do with! Didst thou but see all these temptations, and also see to what they tend, and whither they would bring thee, thou wouldst find matter to cure the idleness or impertinences of thy thoughts.
[Sidenote: The whole world.]
_Direct._ X. The world and every creature in it, which thou daily seest, and which revealeth to thee the great Creator, might be enough to keep thy thoughts from idleness. If sun, and moon, and stars; if heaven and earth, and all therein, be not enough to employ thy thoughts, let thy idleness have some excuse. I know thou wilt say, that it is upon some of these things that thou dost employ them: yea, but dost thou not first destroy, and mortify, and make nonsense of that on which thou meditatest? Dost thou not first separate it from God, who is the life, and glory, and end, and meaning of every creature? Thou killest it, and turnest out the soul, and thinkest only on the corpse; or on the creature made another thing as food for thy sensual desires! As the kite thinketh on the birds and chickens, to devour them to satisfy her greedy appetite; thus you can think of all God's works, so far as they accommodate your flesh. But the world is God's book, which he set man at first to read; and every creature is a letter, or syllable, or word, or sentence, more or less, declaring the name and will of God. There you may behold his wonderful almightiness, his unsearchable wisdom, his unmeasurable goodness, mercy, and compassions; and his singular regard of the sons of men! Though the ungodly, proud, and carnal wits do but play with, and study the shape, and comeliness, and order of the letters, syllables, and words, without understanding the sense and end; yet those that with holy and illuminated minds come thither to behold the footsteps of the great, and wise, and bountiful Creator, may find not only matter to employ, but to profit and delight their thoughts; they may be rapt up by the things that are seen, into the sacred admirations, reverence, love, and praise of the glorious Maker of all, who is unseen: and thus to the sanctified all things will be sanctified; and the study of common things will be to them divine and holy.
[Sidenote: Providence about the world.]