Tit. 3. Directions how to make good Thoughts effectual: or, General Directions for Meditation

Here some directions are preparatory, and some about the work itself.

Direct. I. Be sure that reason maintain its authority in the command and government of your thoughts; and that they be not left masterless to fancy, and passion, and objects, to carry them which way they please. Diseased, melancholy, and crazed persons have almost no power over their own thoughts. They cannot command them to what they would have them exercised about, nor call them off from any thing they run out upon; but they are like an unruly horse, that hath a weak rider, or hath cast the rider; or like a masterless dog, that will not go or come at your command. Whereas our thoughts should be at the direction of our reason, and the command of the will, to go and come off as soon as they are bid. As you see a student can rule his thoughts all day; he can appoint them what they shall meditate on, and in what order, and how long; so can a lawyer, a physician, and all sorts of men about the matters of their arts and callings. And so it should be with a christian about the matters of his soul. All rules of direction are to little purpose with them, whose reason hath lost its power in governing their thoughts. If I tell a man that is deeply melancholy, Thus and thus you must order your thoughts, he will tell me that he cannot; his thoughts are not in his power. If you would give never so much he is not able to forbear thinking of that which is his disturbance, nor to command his thoughts to that which you direct him, nor to think, but as he doth, even as his disease and trouble moveth him. And what good will precepts do to such? Grace, and doctrine, and exhortation work by reason and the commanding will. If a holy person could manage his practical, heart-raising meditations, but as orderly, and constantly, and easily as a carnal, covetous preacher can manage his thoughts in studying the same things, for carnal ends, (to make a gain of them or to win applause,) how happily would our work go on! And is it not sad to think that carnal ends should do so much more than spiritual, about the same things?

Direct. II. Carefully avoid the disease of melancholy; for that dethroneth reason, and disableth it to rule the thoughts. Distraction wholly disableth; but melancholy disableth only in part, according to the measure of its prevalency; and therefore leaveth some room for advice.

Direct. III. Take heed of sloth and negligence of the will, whereby the directions of reason will be unexecuted, for want of resolution and command; and so every temptation will carry away the thoughts. A lazy coachman will let the horses go which way they list, because he will not strive with them; and will break his neck to save his labour. If, when you feel unclean or worldly thoughts invade your minds, you will not give your wills the alarm, and rise up against them, and resolutely command them out; you will be like a lazy person that lieth in bed while he seeth thieves robbing his house, and will let all go rather than he will rise and make resistance (a sign that he hath no great riches to lose, or else he would stir for it). And if you see your duty, on what your thoughts should be employed, and will not resolutely call them up, and command them to their work, you will be like a sluggard that will let all his servants lie in bed, as well as he, because he will not speak to call them. You see by daily experience, that a man’s thoughts are much in the power of his will, and made to obey it. If money and honour, or the delight of knowing, can cause a wicked preacher to command his own thoughts on good things, as aforesaid; you may command yours to the same things, if you will but as resolutely exercise your authority over them.

Direct. IV. Use not your thoughts to take their liberty and be ungoverned; for use will make them headstrong, and not regard the voice of reason; and it will make reason careless and remiss. Use and custom have great power on our minds; where we use to go, our path is plain; but where there is no use, there is no way. Where the water useth to run there is a channel. It is hard ruling those that are used to be unruly. If use will do so much with the tongue, (as we find in some that use to curse, and swear, and speak vainly, and in others that use to speak soberly and religiously; in some that by use can speak well in conference, preaching or praying many hours together, when others that use it not can do almost nothing that way,) why may it not much prevail with the thoughts?

Direct. V. Take heed lest the senses and appetite grow too strong, and master reason; for if they do, they will at once dispossess it of the government of the thoughts, and will brutishly usurp the power themselves. As, when a rebellious army deposeth a king, they do not only cast off the yoke of subjection themselves, but dissolve the government as to all other subjects, and usually usurp it themselves, and make themselves governors. If once you be servants to your fleshly appetites and sense, your thoughts will have other work to do, and another way to go, when you call them to holy and necessary things; especially when the enticing objects are at hand. You may as well expect a clod to ascend like fire, or a swine to delight in temperance, as a glutton, or drunkard, or fornicator, to delight in holy contemplation. Reason and flesh cannot both be the governors.

Direct. VI. Keep under passions, that they depose not reason from the government of your thoughts. I told you before how they cause evil thoughts; and as much will they hinder good. Four passions are especial enemies to meditation: 1. Anger. 2. Perplexing grief. 3. Disturbing fear. 4. But above all, excess of pleasure in any worldly, fleshly thing. Who can think that the mind is fit for holy contemplation, when it flames with wrath, or is distracted with grief and care, or trembleth with fear, or is drunk with pleasure? Grief and fear are the most harmless of the four; yet all hinder reason from governing the thoughts.

Direct. VII. Evil habits are another great hinderance of reason’s command over our thoughts; labour therefore diligently for the cure of this disease. Though habits do not necessitate, they strongly incline; and when every good thought must go against a strong and constant inclination, it will weary reason to drive on the soul, and you can expect but small success.

Direct. VIII. Urgent and oppressing business doth almost necessitate the thoughts; therefore avoid as much as you can such urgencies, when you would be free for meditation. Let your thoughts have as little diverting matter as may be, at those times when you would have them entire and free for God.

Direct. IX. Crowds and ill company are no friends to meditation; choose therefore the quietness of solitude when you would do much in this. As it is ill studying in a crowd, and unseasonable before a multitude to be at secret prayer (except some short ejaculations); so is it as unmeet a season for holy meditation. The mind that is fixedly employed with God, or about things spiritual, had need of all possible freedom and peace, to retire into itself, and abstract itself from alien things, and seriously intend its greater work.

Direct. X. Above all, take heed of sinful interests and designs; for these are the garrison of Satan, and must be battered down before any holy cogitations can take place. He that is set upon a design of rising, or of growing rich, hath something else to do than to entertain those sober thoughts of things eternal, which are destructive of his carnal design.

Direct. XI. The impediments of reason’s authority being thus removed, distinguish between your occasional and your stated, ordinary course of thoughts. And as your hands have their ordinary, stated course of labour, and every day hath its employment which you fore-expect, so let your thoughts know where is their proper channel, and their every day’s work; and let holy prudence appoint out proportionable time and service for them. What a life will that man live, that hath no known course of labour, but only such as he is accidentally called to! His work must needs be uncertain, various, unprofitable, and uncomfortable, and next to none. And he that hath not a stated course of employment for his thoughts, will have them to do him little service. Consider first how much of the day is usually to be spent in common business; and then consider, whether it be such as taketh up your thoughts as well as your hands, or such as leaveth your thoughts at liberty: as a lawyer, a physician, a merchant, and most tradesmen, must employ their thoughts to the well-doing of their work; and these must be the more desirous of a seasonable, vacant hour for meditation, because their thoughts must be otherwise employed all the rest of the day. But a weaver, a tailor, and some other tradesmen, and day-labourers, may do their work well, and yet have their thoughts free for better things a great part of the day; these must contrive an ordinary way of employment for their thoughts, when their work doth not require them; and they need no other time for meditation. The rest must entertain some short, occasional meditations, intermixed with their business; but they cannot then have time for more solemn meditation (which differeth from the other, as a set prayer from a short ejaculation; or a sermon from an occasional short discourse). They that have more time for their thoughts, must beforehand prudently consider, how much time it is best to spend in meditation, for the increase of knowledge, and how much for the exercise of holy affections, and on what subject, and in what order; and so to know their ordinary work.

Direct. XII. Lay yourselves under the urgency of necessity, and the power of those motives which should most effectually engage your thoughts. In the aforesaid instance, what is it that makes a wicked preacher that he can study divine things orderly from year to year, but that he is still under the power of his carnal motives, profit and honour, and some delight? And if you will put yourselves habitually and statedly also under the sense and power of your far greater motives, as always perceiving how much it doth concern you, for yourselves, and others, and the honour of God; this would be a constant poise and spring, which being duly wound up, would keep the wheels in equal motion.

Direct. XIII. Thus you must make the service of your Master, and the saving of yourselves and others, your business in the world, which you follow daily as your ordinary calling, and then it will carry on your thoughts. Whereas he that serveth God but on the by, with some occasional service, will think on him or his work but on the by, with some occasional thoughts. A close and diligent course of holy living, is the best help to keep a constant, profitable course of holy thinking.

Direct. XIV. The chief point of skill and holy wisdom, for this and other religious duties, is, to take that course which tends to make religion pleasant, and to draw your souls to delight in God, and to take heed of that which would make all grievous to you. It will be easy and sweet to think of that which you take pleasure in. But if Satan can make all irksome and unpleasant to you, your thoughts will avoid it as you do a carrion when you stop your nose and haste away. Psal. civ. 34, saith the psalmist, “My meditation of him shall be sweet; I will be glad in the Lord.”