then usurp the throne.
Object, 2. But how can God be fit for mortals
to converse with, when they see him aoi, and
stre infinitely below him ?
Answ. I hope you will not say that you have
nothing to do at home, with your own souls:
and yet you never saw your souls. And it is
the souls, the reason and the will of men that
you daily converse witli here in the world, more
than their bodies, and yet you never saw their
souls, their reason or their wills. If you have
no higher light to discern by than your eye-
sight, you are not men but beasts. If you are
men, you have reason, and if you are christians
you have faith, by which you know things that
you never saw. You have more dependance on
the things that are unseen, than on those which
you see, and have much more to do with them.
And though God be infinitely above us, yet he
condescendeth to communicate to us according
84 Walking with God.
o
to our capacities : as the sun is far from us,
and yet doth not disdain to enlighten, and
warm, and quicken a worm or fly here below.
If any be yet so much an atheist as to think
that religious converse with God is but a fancy,
let him well answer me these few questions.
Quest. 1 . Doth not the continued being and
well-being of the creatures, tell us that there is
a God on whom (for being and well-being) they
depend, and from whom they are and have
whatsoever they are and whatsoever they have ;
and therefore that passively all the creatures
have more respect to him by far than to one
another?
Quest. 2. Seeing God communicateth to
every creature according to their several capa-
cities, is it not meet then that he deal with man
as man, even as a creature rational, capable to
know and love and obey his great Creator, and
to be happy in the knowledge, love and fruition
of him ? That man hath such natural faculties
and capacities, is not to be denied by a man
that knoweth what it is to be a man : and that
God hath not given him these in vain, will be
easily believed by any that indeed believe that
he is God.
Quest. 3. Is there any thing else that is finally
worthy of the highest actions of our souls ; or
that is fully adequate to them, and fit to be our
happiness? If not, then we are left either to
certain infelicity, contrary to the tendency of
Walking with God. 85
our natures, or else we must seek our felicity in
God.
Quest. 4. Is there any thing more certain than
that by the title of creation, our maker hath a
full and absolute right to all that he hath made ;
and consequently to all our love and obedience,
our time and powers ? For whom should they
all be used but for him from whom we have
them ?
Quest. 5. Can any thing be more sure, than
that God is the righteous governor of the world?
and that he governeth man as a rational crea-
ture, by laws and judgment? And can we live
under his absolute sovereignty, and under his
many righteous laws, and under his promises of
salvation to the justified, and under his threaten-
ings of damnation to the unjustified, and yet
not have more to do with God than with all
the world ? If indeed you think that God doth
not love and reward the holy and obedient, and
punish the ungodly and disobedient, then either
you take him not to be the governor of the
world, or (which is worse) you take him to be
an unrighteous governor: and then you must
by the same reason say, that magistrates and
parents should do so too, and love and reward
the obedient and disobedient alike : .but if any
man's disobedience were exercised to your hurt,
by slandering, or beating, or robbing you, I dare
say you would not then commend so indifferejit
and unjust a governor.
F 3
86 Walking zcith God.
Quest. 6. If it be not needless for man to
labor for food and raiment, and necessary pro-
vision for his body, how can it be needless for
him to labor for the happiness of his soul? If
God will not give us our daily bread while we
never think of it, or seek it, why should we
expect that he will give us heaven though we
never think on it, value it, or seek it?
Quest. 7. Is it not a contradiction to be happy
an the fruition of God, and yet not to mind him,
desire him, or seek him? How is it that the
soul can reach its object, but by estimation,
desire and seeking after it : and how should it
enjoy it but by loving it, and taking pleasure
in it ?
Quest. 8. While you seem but to wrangle
against the duty of believers, do you not plead
against the comfort and happiness of believers ?
For surely the employment of the soul on God
(and for him) is the health and pleasure of the
soul ; and to call away the soul from such em-
ployment, is to imprison it in the dungeon of
this world, and to forbid us to smell to the
sweetest flowers, and confine us to a sink or
dunghill; and to forbid us to taste of the food
of angels, or of men, and to offer ois vinegar
and gall, or turn us over to feed with swine.
Jie that pleadelh that there is no such thing
as real holiness and communion with God, doth
plead in effect that there is no true felicity or
delight for any of the sons of men ; and how wel-
Walking with God. 87
•come should ungodly atheists be unto mankind,
that would for ever exclude them all from hap-
piness, and make them believe they are all made
to be remedilessly miserable ?
And here take notice of the madness of the
unthankful v^^orld, that hateth and persecuteth
the preachers of the gospel, that bring them the
glad tidings of pardon, and hope, and life eter-
nal, of solid happiness, and durable delight ;
and yet they are not offended at these atheists
and ungodly cavillers, that would take them off
from all that is truly good and pleasant, and
make them believe that nature hath made them
capable of no higher things than beasts, and
hath inthralled them in remediless infelicity.
Quest. 9. Do you not see by experience that
there are a people in the world whose hearts ?.re
upon God, and the life to come, and that make
it their chiefest care and business to seek him
?ind to serve him ? How then can you say that
there is no such thing, or that we are not capa -
ble of it, when it is the case of so many before
your eyes ? If you say that it is but their fancy
or self-deceit; I answer, that really their hearts
are set upon God, and the everlasting world,
and that it is their chiefest care and business to
attain it ; this is a thing that they fee], and you
may see in the bent and labor of their lives ;
and therefore you cannot call that a fancy, of
which you have so full experience : but whether
the motives that have invited them, and engaoed
88 Walking with God.
them to such a choice and course, be fancies
and deceits or not, let God be judge, and let the
awakened consciences of worldlings themselves
be judge, when they have seen the end, and
tried whether it be earth or heaven that is the
shadow, and whether it be God or their unbe-
lieving hearts that was deceived.
Quest. 10. Have you any hopes of living with
God for ever, or not ? If you have not, no
wonder if you live as beasts, when you have no
higher expectations than beasts. When we are
so blind as to give up all our hopes, we will
also give up all our care and holy diligence, and
think we have nothing to do with heaven : but
if you have any such hopes, can you think that
any thing is fitter for the chiefest of your
thoughts and cares^ than the God and kingdom,
which you hope for ever to enjoy ? Or is there
any thing that can be more suitable, or should
be more delightful to your thoughts, than to
employ them about your highest hopes, upon
your endless happiness and joy? And should
not that be now the most noble and pleasant
employment for your minds, which is nearest to
that which you hope to be exercised in for ever?
Undoubtedly he that hath true and serious
thoughts of heaven, will highliest value that life
on earth which is likest to the life in heaven :
and he that hateth, or is most averse to that
which is nearest to the work of heaven, doth
boast in vain of his hopes of heaven.
Walking with God. 89
By this time you may see (if you love not to
be blind) that man's chiefest business in the
world is with his God, and that our thoughts
and all our powers are made to be employed
upon him, or for him ; and that this is no such
needless work as atheists make themselves
believe. •
Remember that it is the description of the
desperately wicked, Ps. x. 4. that God is not in
all. his thoughts. And if yet you understand it
not, I will a little further shew you the evil of
such atheistical unhallowed thoughts.
1. There is nothing but darkness in all thy
thoughts, if God be not in them. Thou knowest
nothing, if thou knowest not him ; and thou
usest not thy knowledge, if thou use it not on
him. To know the creature as without God, is
to know nothing : no more than to know all the
letters in the book, and not to know their sig-
nification or sense. All things in the world are
but insignificant ciphers, and of no other sense
or use, if you separate them from God, who is
their sense and end. If you leave out God in
all your studies, you do but dream and dote,
and not understand what you. seem to under-
stand. Though you were taken for the learnedst
men in the world, and were able to discourse of
all the sciences, and your thoughts had no lower
•employment daily than the most sublime spe-
culations which the nature of all the creatures
90 Walking with God.
doth afford, it is all but folly and impertinent
dotage, if it reach not unto God.
2. Yea, your thoughts are erroneous and
false, which is more than barely ignorant, if
God be not in them. You have false thoughts
of the world, of your houses and lands, and
friends and pleasures, and whatsoever is the
daily employment of your minds. You take
them to be something, when they are nothing:
you are covetous of the empty purse, and know
not that you cast away the treasure : you are
thirsty after the empty cup, when you wilfully
cast away the drink : you hungrily seek to feed
upon a painted feast: you murder the creature
by separating it from God who is its life, and
tlien you are enamoured on the carcass, and
spend your days and thoughts in its cold em-
bracements. Your thoughts are but vagabonds,
straggling abroad the world, and following
impertinences, if God be not in them. You are
like men that walk up and down in their sleep,
or like those that have lost themselves in the
dark, who weary themselves in going they know
not whither, and have no end, nor certain way.
3. If God be not in all your thoughts, they
are all in vain. They are like the drone that
gathereth no honey: they fly abroad and return
home empty : they bring home no matter of
honour to God, of profit or comfort to your-
selves: they are employed to no more purpose
than in your dreams; only they are more capably
Walking with God. #i
of sin: like the distracted thoughts of one that
doteth in a fever, they are all but nonsense,
whatever you employ them on, while you leave
out God, who is the sense of all.
4. If God be not in all your thoughts, they
are nothing but confusion : there can be no just
unity in them, because they forsake him who is
the only centre, and are scattered abroad upon
incoherent creatures. There can be no true
unity but in God : the further we go from him,
the further we run into divisions and confusions.
There can be no just method in them, because
he is left out that is the beginning and the end.
They are not hke a well ordered army, where
every one is moved by the will of one com-
mander, and all know their colors and their
ranks, and unanimously agree to do their work :
but like a swarm of flies, that buzz about they
know not whither, nor why, nor for what. There
is no true government in your thoughts, if God
be not in them ; they are masterless and va-
grants, and have no true order, if they be not
ordered by him and to him: if he be not their
first and last.
5. If God be not in all your thoughts, there
is no life in them : they are but like the motion
of a bubble, or a feather in the air: they are
impotent as to the resisting of any evil, and as
to the doing of any saving good : they have no
strength in them, because they are laid out
upon objects that have no strength ; they havQ
^2 Walking with God.
no quickening, renewing, reforming, encouraging,
resolving, confirming power in them, because
there is no such power in the things on which
they are employed : whereas the thoughts of
God and everlasting life, can do wonders upon
the soul : they can raise up men above this
world, and teach them to despise the worldling's
idol, and look upon all the pleasures of the flesh
as npon a swine's delight in wallowing in the
•mire. They can renew the soul, and cast out
the most powerful beloved sin, and bring all our
powers into the obedience of God, and that with
pleasure and delight : they can employ us with
the angels, in a heavenly conversation, and shew
\is the glory of the world above, and advance
us above the life of the greatest princes upon
iearth : but the thoughts of earthly fleshly things
have power indeed to delude men, and mislead
them, and hurry them about in a vertiginous
motion ; but no power to support us, or subdue
concupiscence, or heal our folly, or save us from
temptations, or reduce us from our errors, or
help us to be useful in the world, or to attain
felicity at last. There is no life, nor power, nor
efficacy in our thoughts, if God be not in them.
6. There is no stability or fixedness in your
thoughts, if God be not in them. They are like
a boat upon the ocean, tossed up and down with
winds and waves: the mutable uncertain crea-
tures can yield no rest or settlement to your
minds. You are troubled about many things j
Walking tvith God. 93
and the more you think on them, and have to do
with them, the more are you troubled : but you
forget the one thing necessary, and fly from the
eternal rock, on which you must build if ever
you will be established. While the creature is
in your thought instead of God, you will be one
day deluded with its unwholesome pleasure, and
the next day feel it gripe you at the heart : one
day it will seem your happiness, and the next
you wtII wish you had never known it: that
which seemeth the only comfort of your lives
this year, may the next year make you weary of
your lives. One day you are impatiently desiring
and seeking it, as if you could not live without
it ; and the next day, or ere long, you are impa-
tiently desiring to be rid of it. You are now
taking in your pleasant morsels, and drinking
down your delicious draughts, and jovially
sporting it with your inconsiderate companions:
"but how quickly will you be repenting of all
this, and complaining of your folly, and vexing
â– yourselves, that you took not warning, and
made not a wiser choice in time! The creature
was never made to be your end, or rest, or hap-
piness: and therefore you are but like a manin
a wilderness or a maze, that may go and go but
knoweth not whither, and findeth no end, till
you come home to God, who only is your proper
end, and make him the lord, and life, and plea-
sure of your thoughts.
7. As there is no present fixedness in your
94 Walking with God.
thoughts, so the business and pleasure of them
will be of very short continuance, if God be not
the chief in all. And who would choose to
employ his thoughts on such things as he is sure
they must soon forget, and never more have any
business with to all eternity! You shall think
of those houses, and lands, and friends, and
pleasures but a little while, unless it be with
repenting tormenting thoughts, in the place of
misery : you will have no delight to think of
any thing, which is now most precious to your
flesh, when once the flesh itself decays, and is
no more capable of delight. Ps. cxlvi. 4. " His
breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in
that very day his thoughts perish."
Call in your thoughts then from these transi-
tory things, that have no consistency or continu-
ance, and turn them unto him with whom they
may find everlasting employment and delight :
remember not the enticing baits of sensuality
and pride, but " Remember now thy Creator in
the days of thy youth, while the evil days come
not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt
say, I have no pleasure in them."
8. Thy thoughts are but sordid, dishonorable,
and low, if God be not the chiefest in them.
They reach no higher than the habitation of
beasts; nor do they attain to any sweeter
employment than to meditate on the felicity of
a brute : thou choosest with the fly to feed on
dung and filthy ulcers, and as maggots to live on
Walking with God. Q5
stinking carrion, when thou mightest have free
access to God himself, and mightest be enter-
tained in the court of heaven, and welcomed
thither by the holy angels : thou wallowest in
the mire with the swine, or diggest thyself a
house in the earth, as worms and moles do,
when thy thoughts might be soaring up to God,
and might be taken up with high and holy and
everlasting things. What if your thoughts were
employed for preferment, wealth, and honor in
the world? Alas! wliat silly things are these,
in comparison of what your souls are capable
of! You will say so yourselves, when you see '
how they will end, and fail your expectations.
Imprison not your minds in this infernal cell,
when the superior regions are open to their
access : confine them not to this narrow vessel
of the body, whose tossings and dangers on
the&e boisterous seas will make them restless,
and disquiet them with tumultuous passions,
when they may safely land in paradise, and
tliere converse with Christ. God made you
men, and if you reject not his grace will make
you saints : make not yourselves like beasts or
vermin. God gave you souls that can step in a
moment from earth to heaven, and there fore-
taste the endless joys : do not you stick then
fast in clay, and fetter them with worldly cares,
or intoxicate them with fleshly pleasures, nor
employ them in the worse than childish toys of
ambitious, sensual, worldly men : your thoughts
96 Walking with God.
have manna, angt^ls' food, provided them by
God: if you will loathe this and refuse it, and
choose with the serpent to feed on the dust, or
upon the filth of sin, God shall be judge, and
your consciences one day shall be more faithful
witnesses, whether you have dealt like wise men
or like fools ; like friends or enemies to your-
selves ; and whether you have not chosen base-
ness, and denied yourselves the advancement
which was offered you.
9. If God be not the chiefest in your
thoughts, they are no better than dishonest
and unjust: you are guilty of denying him his
own. He made not your minds for lust and
pleasure, but for himself: you expect that your
cattle, your goods, your servants, be employed
for yourselves, because they are your own : but
God may call your minds his own by a much
fuller title: for you hold all but derivatively
4ind dependently from him. What will you call
it but injustice and dishonesty, if your wife, or
•children, or servants, or goods, be more at the
use and service of others, than of you ? If any
can shew a better title to your thoughts than
God doth, let him have them ; but if not, deny
him not his own. O straggle not so much from
home, for you will be nowhere else so well as
there: desire not to follow strangers, you know
not whither, nor for what: you have a master
of your own, that will be better to you than all
the strangers in the world. Bow not down to
Walking with God. 9t
creatures, that are but images of the true and
sohd good : commit not idolatry or adultery
with them in your thoughts : remember still that
God stands by : bethink you how he will take it
at your hands; and hov/ it will be judged of at
last, when he pleads his right, his kindness, and
solicitations of you; and you have so little to
say for any pretence of right or merit in the
creature. Why are not men ashamed of the
greatest dishonesty against God, when all that
have any humanity left them, do take adultery,,
theft, and other dishonesty against creatures for
a shame? The time will come when God and.
his interest shall be better understood; that this
dishonesty against him, will be the matter of
the most confounding shame, that ever did or
could befal men. Prevent this by the juster,
exercise of your thoughts, and keeping them
pure and chaste to God.
10. If God be not in your thoughts (and the
chiefest in them) there will be no matter in them
of solid comfort or content. Trouble and deceit
will be all their work : when they have fled
about the earth, and taken a taste of every
flower, they will come loaded home with nothing
better than vanity and vexation. Such thoughts
may excite the laughter of a fool, and cause that
mirth that is called madness, Eccles. vii. 4, 6,
and ii. 2. but they will never conduce to
settled peace, and durable content; and there-
fore they are always repented of themselves, and
98 Walldnz with God.
are troublesome to our review, as being the
shame of the sinner, which he would fain be
cleared of or disown. Though you may ap-
proach the creature with passionate fondness,
and the most delightful promises and hopes, be
sure of it, you will come off at last with grief
and disappointment, if not with the loathing of
that which you chose for your delight. Your
thoughts are in a wilderness among thorns and
briars, when God is not in them as their guide
and end : they are lost and torn among the
creatures ; but rest and satisfaction they will
find none. It may be at the present it is
pleasanter to you to think of recreation, or
business, or worldly wealth, than to think of
God : but the pleasure of these thoughts is as
delusory, and short-lived, as are the things
themselves on which you think. How long will
you think with pleasure on such fading transitory
things? And the pleasure cannot be great at
the present, which reacheth but the flesh and
fantasy, and which the possessor knoweth will
be but short: nay, you will shortly find by
sad experience, that of all the creatures under
heaven, there will none be so bitter to your
thoughts, as those which you now find greatest
carnal sweetness in. O how bitter will the
thought of idolized honour, and abused wealth
and greatness be to a dying or a damned Dives !
The thoughts of that alehouse or playhouse
where thou hadst thy greatest pleasure, will
Walking with God. â– 99
trouble thee more than the thoushts of all the
houses in the town besides: the thoughts of
that one woman with whom thou didst commit
thy pleasant sin, will wound and vex thee more
than the thoug-hts of all the women in the town
besides. The thoughts of that beloved sport
which thou couldst not be weaned from, will be
more troublesome to thee than the thoughts of
a thousand other thino-s in which thou hadst no
inordinate delight. For the end of sinful mirth
is sorrow. When Solomon had tried to please
himself to the full, in mirth, in buildings, vine-
yards, woods, waters, in servants, and posses-
sions, silver, and gold, and cattle, and singers,
and instruments of music of all sorts, in great-
ness, and all that the eye, or appetite, or heart
desired, he findeth when he awaked from this
pleasant dream, that he had all this while been
taken up with vanity and vexation, in so much
that he saith on the review, " Therefore I hated
life, because the work that is wrought under the
sun is grievous to me, for all is vanity and vexa-
tion of spirit : yea I hated all my labour which
I had taken under the sun." Eccles. ii. 1, 2, Sec.
17, 18. You may toil out and tire yourselves
among these briars, in this barren wilderness;
but if ever you would feel any solid ground of
quietness and rest, it must be by coming off
from vanity, and seeking your felicity in God,
and living sincerely for him and upon him, as
the worldling doth upon the world. His par-
100 Walking with God.
doning mercy must begin your peace, forgiving
you your former thoughts, and his healing quick-
ening mercy must increase it, by teaching you
better to employ your thoughts, and drawing
up your hearts unto himself: and his glorifying
mercy must perfect it, by giving you the full
intuition and fruition of himself in -heaven, and
employing you in his perfect love and praise, not
leaving any room for creatures, nor suffering a
thought to be employed on vanity for ever.
CHAPTER IV.
By this time I hope you may see reason to
call yourselves to a strict account, what converse