_Direct._ VI. Next labour to perceive the weight of every thing you think on, be it good or evil: and to that end be sure, that God and eternity be taken in, in every meditation, and all things judged of as they stand related to God, and to your eternal state; which only can give you the true estimate and sense of good and evil: there will still the life, and soul, and power be wanting in your most excellent meditations, further than God is in them, and they are divine. When you meditate on any Scripture truth, think of it as a beam from the Eternal Light, indited by the Holy Ghost, to lead men by obedience to felicity. Behold it with reverence, as a letter or message sent from heaven, and as a thing of grand importance to your souls. When you meditate of any grace, think on it as a part of the image of God, implanted and actuated by the Holy Ghost, to advance the soul into communion with God, and prepare it for him. When you meditate on any duty, remember who commandeth it, and whom you are chiefly to respect in your obedience; and what will be the end of obeying or disobeying. When you meditate on any sin, remember that it is the defacing or privation of God's image, and the rebel that riseth up against him in all his attributes, to depose him from the government of the soul and of the world; and foresee the end to which it tendeth. Take in God, if you would feel life and power in all that you meditate on.
_Direct._ VII. Let your ordinary meditations be on the great and necessary things; and think less frequently on the less necessary matters. Meditation is but a means to a further end: it is to work some good upon the soul: use therefore those subjects which are most powerful and fit to work it. Great truths will do great works upon the heart. They are usually the surest and most past controversy and doubt. There is more weight, and substance, and power in one article of the creed, or one petition of the Lord's prayer, or one commandment of the decalogue, to benefit the soul, than in abundance of the controverted opinions which men have troubled themselves and others with in all ages; as one purse of gold will buy more than a great quantity of farthings. Meditating on great and weighty truths, makes great and weighty christians. And meditating inordinately on light and controverted opinions, makes light, opinionative, contentious professors. Little things may have their time and place, but it must be but little time and the last place; except when God maketh any little thing to be the matter of our lawful calling and employment (as all the common matters of the world are little); and then they may have a larger proportion of our time, though still they must have the lowest place in our estimation and in our hearts.
_Direct._ VIII. Whenever you are called to meditate on any smaller truth or thing, see that you take it not as separated from the greater, but still behold it as connexed to them, and planted and growing in them, and receiving their life and beauty from them; so that you may still preserve the life and interest of the greatest matters in your hearts, and may not mortify the least, and turn it into a deceit or idol. We are to climb upwards, and not to descend downwards: and therefore we begin at the body of the tree, and so pass up to the few and greatest boughs; and thence to the smaller numerous branches, which as they are hard to be discerned, numbered, and remembered, so are they not all strong enough to bear us; but are fitted rather to be looked on, than trodden and rested on. But if you take them not as growing from the greater boughs, but cut them off, they lose their life, and beauty, and fruitfulness. If all the controversies in the church had been managed with due honour and preservation of holiness, charity, unity, peace, and greater truths; and if all the circumstantials in religion had been ordered with a salvo, and due regard, and just subserviency to the power and spirituality of holy worship, the christian world would have had more life, and strength, and fruitfulness, and less imagery, unholy, ludicrous compliment, and hypocrisy.