given for? What good will he get by any afflictions, that never bethinks him, who it is that chastiseth him, and for what, and how he must get them removed, and sanctified to his good. A man is but like one of the pillars in the church, or like the corpse which he treadeth on, or at best but like the dog that followeth him thither for company, if he use not his thoughts about the work which he hath in hand, and cannot say, as Psal. xlviii. 9, "We have thought of thy loving-kindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple." He that biddeth you hear, doth also bid you "Take heed how you hear." (Luke viii. 18.) And you are commanded to "lay up the word in your heart and soul." (Deut. xi. 18, 19.) And to set your hearts to all the words which are testified among you: for it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life.

10. Our thoughts are so considerable a part of God's service, that they are oft put for the whole. "A book of remembrance was written for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name." (Mal. iii. 16.) Our believing and loving God, and trusting in him, and desiring him and his grace, are the principal parts of his service, which are exercised immediately by our thoughts: and in praise and prayer it is this inward part that is the soul and life of all. He is a foolish hypocrite that thinks "to be heard for his much speaking." (Matt. vi. 7.)

And on the contrary, the thoughts are named as the sum of all iniquity. "Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity.” (Isa. lxix. 7.) "I have spread out my hands all the day long unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts." (Isa. lxv. 2.) "O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved: how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee! (Jer. iv. 14.) "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." (Psal. xiv. 1.)

11. A man's thoughts are the appointed orderly way for the conversion of a sinner, and the preventing of his sin and misery. David saith, "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies." (Psal. cxix. 59.) The prodigal "came to himself," and returned to his father, by the success of his own consideration. (Luke xv. 17, 18.) "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Consider your ways," (Hag. i. 5,)

is a voice that every sinner should hear. "It is he that considereth and doth not according to his father's sins, that shall not die." (Ezek. xviii. 14.) Therefore it is God's desire, "O that they were wise and understood this, and that they would consider their latter end." (Deut. xxxii. 29.) It is either men's inconsiderateness, or the error of their thoughts, that is the cause of all their wickedness. "My people doth not consider." (Isa. i. 3.) Paul " verily thought that he ought to do many things against the name of Jesus." (Acts xxvi. 9.) Many "deceive themselves by thinking themselves something when they are nothing." (Gal. vi. 3.) "They think it strange that we run not with them to excess of riot:" and therefore" they speak evil of us." (1 Pet. iv. 4.) Disobedient formalists "consider not that they do evil," when they think that they are offering acceptable sacrifices to God. (Eccles. v. 1, 2.) The very murder of God's holy ones hath proceeded from these erroneous thoughts; "They that kill you shall think they do God service." (John xvi. 2.) All the ambition, and covetousness, and injustice and cruelty following thereupon, which troubleth the world, and ruineth men's souls, is from their erroneous thoughts, overvaluing these deceitful things. "Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations.” (Psal. xlix. 11.) The presumptuous and impenitent are surprised by destruction, for want of thinking of it to prevent it: "In such an hour as you think not, the Son of man cometh."

12. Lastly, The thoughts are the most constant actions of a man, and therefore most of the man is in them. We are not always reading, or hearing, or praying, or working: but we are always thinking. And therefore it doth especially concern us to see that this constant breath of the soul be sweet, and that this constant stream be pure and run in the right channel. Well therefore did David make this his request; "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (Psal. cxxxix. 23, 24.) I say therefore to those that insist on this irrational objection, that these very thoughts of theirs, concerning the inconsiderableness of thoughts, are so foolish and ungodly, that when they understand the evil even of these, they will know that thoughts were more to

be regarded. "If therefore thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thy hand upon thy mouth."

And though after all this, I still confess that it is so exceeding hard a matter to keep the thoughts in holy exercise and order, that even the best do daily and hourly sin, in the omissions, the disorder or vanity of their thoughts; yet for all that, we must needs conclude that the inclination and design of our thoughts must be principally for God, and that the thoughts are principal instruments of the soul, in acting it in his service, and moving it towards him, and in all this holy work of our walking with God: and therefore to imagine that thoughts are inconsiderable and of little use, is to unman us, and unchristen us. The labour of the mind is necessary for the attaining the felicity of the mind; as the labour of the body is necessary for the things that belong unto the body. As bodily idleness bringeth unto beggary, when the diligent hand makes rich; so the idleness of the soul doth impoverish the soul, when the laborious Christian liveth plentifully and comfortably through the blessing of God upon his industry and labour. You cannot expect that God should appear to you in a bodily shape, that you may have immediate converse with him in the body. The corporal eating of him in transubstantiated bread, supposed common to men, and mice, or dogs, we leave to Papists, who have made themselves a singular new religion, in despite of the common sense and reason of mankind, as well as of the Scriptures and the judgment of the church. It is in the Spirit that thou must converse with God who is a Spirit. The mind seeth him by faith, who is invisible to the bodily eyes. Nay, if you will have a true and saving knowledge of God, you must not liken him to any thing that is visible, nor have any corporal conceivings of him. Earthly things may be the glass in which we may behold him, while we are here in the flesh; but our conceivings of him must be spiritual, and minds that are immersed in flesh and earth, are unmeet to hold communion with him. The natural man knoweth him not, and the "carnal mind is enmity to him, and they that are in the flesh cannot please him." (Rom. viii.) It is the pure, abstracted, elevated soul, that understandeth by experience what it is to walk with God.

CHAP. VI.

§ 1. Having in the foregoing uses, reproved the atheism and contempt of God, which ungodly men are continually guilty of, and endeavoured to convince them of the necessity and desirableness of walking with God, and in particular of improving our thoughts for holy converse with him, and answered the objections of the impious and atheists; I shall next endeavour to cure the remnants of this disease in those that are sincerely holy, who live too strangely to God their Father in the world. In the performance of this, I shall first shew you what are the benefits of this holy life, which should make it appear desirable and delightful. 2. I shall shew you why believers should addict themselves to it as doubly obliged, and that their neglect of it is a sin attended with special aggravations. This is the remainder of my task.

§ 2. I. To walk with God in a holy and heavenly conversation, is the employment most suitable to human nature, not to its corrupt disposition, nor to the carnal interest and appetite; but to nature as nature, to man as man. It is the very work that he was made for: the faculties and frame of the soul and body were composed for it by the wise Creator: they are restored for it by the gracious Redeemer.. Though in corrupted nature, where sensuality is predominant, there is an estrangedness from God, and an enmity and hatred of him, so that the wicked are more averse to all serious, holy converse with him (in prayer, contemplation, and a heavenly life) than they are to a worldly sinful life; yet all this is but the disease of nature, corrupting its appetite, and turning it against that proper food, which is most suitable to its sound desires, and necessary to its health and happiness. Though sinful habits are become as it were a second nature to the ungodly, so depraving their judgments and desires, that they verily think the business and pleasures of the flesh are most suitable to them; yet these are as contrary to nature as nature, that is, to the primitive tendencies of all our faculties, and the proper use to which they were fitted by our Creator, and to that true felicity which is the end of all our parts and powers, even as madness is contrary to the rational nature, though it were hereditary.

1. What can be more agreeable to the nature of man,

than to be rational and wise, and to live in the purest exercise of reason? And certainly there is nothing more rational than that we should live to God, and gladly accept of all that communion with him which our natures on earth are capable of. Nothing can be more reasonable than for the reasonable soul to be entirely addicted to him that did create it, that doth preserve it, and by whom it doth subsist and act. Nothing is more reasonable than that the absolute Lord of nature be honoured and served wholly by his own. Nothing is more reasonable than that the reasonable creature do live in the truest dependance upon, and subordination to the highest reason; and that derived, imperfect, defectible wisdom, be subservient to, and guided by the primitive, perfect, indefectible wisdom. It is most reasonable that the children depend upon the Father, and the foolish be ruled by the most wise, and that the subjects be governed by the universal King; and that they honour him and obey him, and that the indigent apply themselves to him that is allsufficient, and is most able and ready to supply their wants; and that the impotent rest upon him that is Omnipotent.

2. Nothing can be more reasonable, than that the reasonable nature should intend its end, and seek after its true and chief felicity: and that it should love good as good, and therefore prefer the chiefest good before that which is transitory and insufficient. Reason commandeth the reasonable creature to avoid its own delusion and destruction, and to rest upon him that can everlastingly support us, and not upon the creature that will deceive us and undo us and to prefer the highest and noblest converse before that which is inferior, unprofitable, and base, and that we rejoice more in the highest, purest, and most durable delights, than in those that are sordid, and of short continuance. And who knoweth not that God is the chiefest good, and true felicity of man, the everlasting rock, the durable delight, and to be preferred before his creatures? And who might not find, that would use his reason, that all things below are vanity and vexation?

3. Nothing can be more rational and agreeable to man's nature, than that the superior faculties should govern the inferior, that the brutish part be subject to the rational; and that the ends and objects of this higher faculty be pre