you have been taken up with in the world, and
upon what you have exercised your thoughts.
Surely you must needs be conscious, that the
thoughts which have been denied God, have
brought you home but little satisfaction, and
have not answered the ends of your creation,
redemption, or preservation ! and that they are
now much fitter matter for your penitential
tears, than for your comfort, in the review ! I
do not think you dare own, and stand to, those
thoughts which have been spent for fleshly plea-
sures, or in unnecessary worldly cares, or that
w'ere wasted in impertinent vagaries upon any
thing, or nothing, when you should have been
Walking with God. 101
seeking God ! I do not think you have now any-
great pleasure in the review of those thoughts,
which once were taken up with pleasure, when
your most pleasant thoughts should have been
of God. Dare you approve of your rejecting
your creator and the great concernments of your
soul out of your thoughts, and wasting them
upon things unprofitable and vainf Did not
God and heaven deserve more of your serious
thoughts than any thing else that ever they
were employed on ? Have you laid them out on
any thing that more concerned you; or on any
thing more excellent, more honorable, more
durable, or that could claim precedency upon
any just account? Did you not shut heaven
itself out of your thoughts, when you shut out
God ; and is it not just that God and heaven
slioiild shut out you? If heaven be not the
principal matter of your thoughts, it is plain
that you do not principally love it : and if so,
judge you whether those that love it not are fit
to be made possessors of it.
O poor distracted senseless world ! Is not
God great enough to command and take up
your chiefest cogitations ? Is not heaven enough
to find them work, and afford them satisfaction
and delight ? And yet is the dung and dotage of
the world enough? Is your honor and wealth,
and fleshly delights and sports enough ? God
will shortly make you know, whether this were
wise and equal dealing ! Is God so low, so
VOL. II. G
102 . Walking with God.
little, so undeserving,, to be so oft and easilj?
forgotten, and so hardly and so slightly remem-
bered ? I tell you, ere long be will make yoii
think of him to your sorrow, whether you will
or no, if grace do not now set open your hearts,,
and proeure h4m better entertainment.
But perhaps you will think that you walk
with God, because you think of him sometime&>
ineffectually, and as on the by. But is he
esteemed as your God, if he have n©t the com-
mand, and if he have not the precedency of his
creatures ? Can you dream that indeed you walk
with God, when your hearts were never grieved
for offending him, nor never much solicitous
how to be reconciled to him ; nor much inqui-
sitive whether your state or way be pleasing or
displeasing to him ? when all the business of al^
unspeakable importance, which you have to do
with God, before you pass to judgment, is for-
gotten and undone, as if you knew not of any
such work that you had to do? when you make
no serious preparation for death ; when you call-
not upon God in secret, or in your families,
unless with a little heartless lip labour ; and
when you love not the spirituality of his wor-
ship, but only delude your souls with the
mockage of hypocritical outside compliment?
Do you walk with God while you are plotting
for preferment, and gaping after worldly great-
ness ; while you are gratifying all the desires of
you*: flesh, and making provision for the future
Walking with God. 103
satisfying of its lusts ? Rom. xiii. 13. Are you
walking with God when you are hating him in
his holiness, his justice, his word and ways, and
hating all that seriously love and seek him.'
when you are doing your worst to dispatch the
work of your damnation, and put your salvation
past all hope, and draw as many to hell witli
you as you can? If this be a walking with God,
you may take further comfort that you shall
also dwell with God according to the sense of
such a walk : you shall dwell with him as a
devouring fire, and as just, whom you thus
walked with in the contempt of his mercies,
and the provocation of his justice !
I tell you, if you walked with God indeed, his
authority would rule you, his greatness would
much take up your minds, and leave less room
for little things : you would trust his promises,
and fear his threatenings, and be awed by his
presence, and the idols of your hearts v/ould
fall before him ; he would overpower your lusts,
and call you off from your ambitious and
covetous designs, and obscure all the creature's
glory. Believing serious effectual thoughts of
God, are very much different from the common,
doubtful, dreaming, ineffectual cogitations of
the ungodly world.
Object. But (perhaps some wiil say) — This
seemeth to be the work of preachers, and not of
every christian, to be always meditating of God :
poor people must think of other matters : they
f. o
104 Walk'iNg with God.
have their business to do, and their families^ to
provide for : and ignorant people are weak-
headed, and are not able either to manage or
endure a contemplative life : so much thinkino
of God will make them melancholy and mad,
as experience tells us it hath done by many .
and therefore this is no exercise for them.
To this I answer, 1 . Every christian hath a
God to serve, and a so«l to save, and a Christ
to believe in and obey, and an endless happiness
to secure and enjoy, as well as preachers : pas-
tors must study to instruct their flock, and to
save themselves, and those that hear them : the
people must study to understand and receive
the mercy offered them, and to make their own
calling and election sure. It is not said of pas-
tors only, but of every blessed man, that his
delight is in the law of the Lord, and therein
doth he meditate day and night. Ps. i. 2. 2. And
the due meditation of the soul upon God, is so
far from taking you off from your necessary
business in the world, that it is the only way to
your orderly and successful management of it.
3. And it is not a distractino- thoughtfulness
that I persuade you to, or which is included in
a christian's walk with God: but it is a direc-
ting, quickening, exalting, comforting course
of meditation. Many a hundred have grown
melancholy and mad with careful discontentful
thoughts of the world ; it doth not follow there-
fore that no man must think of the world at alL
Welking with God. 105
for fear of being mad or melancholy ; but only
that they should think of it more regularly, and
correct the error of their thoughts and passions-:
—so is it about God and heavenly things: our
thoughts are to be well ordered, and the error
of them cured, and not the use of them forborne.
Atheism and impiety, and forgetting God, are
unhappy means to prevent melancholy. There
are wiser means for avoiding madness, than by
renouncing all our reason, and living by sense
like the beasts that perish, and forgetting that
we have an everlasting life to live.
But yet because 1 am sensible that some do
here mistake on the other hand, and I would not
lead you into any extreme, I shall fully remov-e
the scruple contained in this objection, by shew-
ing you in those following propositions, in what
sense, and how far your thoughts must be take-a
yp with God (supposing what was said in the
beginning, where I described to you the duty
of walking with God.)
Pro. 1. When we tell you that your thoughts
must be on God, it is not a course of idle
musing, or mere thinking that we call you to,
but it is a necessary practical thinking of that
which you have to do, and of him that you
must love, obey and enjoy. You will not forget
your parents, or husband, or wife, or friend; and
yet you will not spend your time in sitting stiil
and thinking of them, with a musing unprofitable
thoughtfulness; b.it you will have such thoughts
106 Walking zeith God.
of them, and so many as are necessary to the
ends, even to the love and service which you
owe them, and to the delight that your hearts
should have in the fruition of them. You can-
not love, or obey, or take pleasure in those that
you will not think of: you will follow your
trades, or your master's service but unhappily,
if you will not think on them. Thinking is not
the work that we must take up with : it is but a
subservient instrumental duty, to promote some
greater higher duty : therefore we must think of
God, that we may love him, and do his service,
and trust him, and fear him, and hope in him,
and make him our delight. And all this is it
that we call you to, when we are persuading you
10 think on God.
2. An hypocrite, or a wicked enemy of God,
may think of him speculatively, and perhaps be
more frequent in such thoughts than many prac-
tical believers. A learned man may study about
God, as he doth about other matters, and names,
and notions ; and propositions and decision?
'concerning God, may be a principal part of his
learning. A preacher may study about God
and the matters of God, as a physician or a
lawyer do about the matters of their own pro-
fession, either for the pleasure which knowledge
as knowledge brings to human nature, or for the
credit of beins esteemed wise and learned, or
because their gain and maintenance comes in
this way. They that fill many volumes with
Wal/wig with God. 107
controversies concernhio; God, and fill the church
with contentions and troubles by them, and their
own hearts with malice and uncharitableness
against those that are not of their opinions,
have many and many a thought of God, which
yet will do nothing to the saving of their souls,
no more than they do to the sanctifying of them.
And such learned men may think more ortho-
doxly and methodically concerning God, than
many an honest serious christian, who yet thinks
of him more effectually and savingly ; even as
they can discourse more orderly and copiously
of God, when yet they have no saving know-
ledge of him.
3. All men must not bestow so much time
in meditation as some must do. It is the calling
of ministers to study so as to furnish their
minds with all those truths concerning God,
which are needful to the edification of the
church ; and so to meditate on these things as
to give themselves wholly to them, I Tim. iv.
15, 16: it is both the work of their common
and their special calling. The study necessary
to christians as such, belongeth as well to others
as to them : but other men have another special
or particular calling, which also they must think
of, so far as the nature and ends of their daily
labors do require. It is a hurtful error to
imagine that men must either lay by their
callings to -meditate on God, or that they must
do them negligently, or to be taken up in the
108 JValking ivith God,
midst of their employments with such studies
of God as ministers are that are separated to
that work.
4. No man is bound to be continually taken
up with actual, distinct cogitations about God :
for in duty we have many other things to think
on, which must have their time : and as we
have callings to follow, and must eat our bread
in the sweat of our brows, so we must manage
them with prudence: a good man will guide
his affairs with discretion. Ps. cxii. 5. It is both
necessary as duty, and necessary as a means to
ihe preservation of our very faculties, that both
body and mind have their times of employ-
ment about oar lawful business in the world :
the understandings of many cannot bear it to
be always employed on the greatest and most
serious things : like lute strings they will break,
if they be raised too high, and be not let down
and relaxed when the lesson is played. To think
of nothing else but God, is to break the law of
God, and to confound the mind, and to disable
it to think aright of God, or any thing. As he
that bid us pray continually, did not mean that
we should do nothing else, or that actual prayer
should have no interruptions, but that habitual
desires should on all meet occasion be actuated
and expressed ; so he that would be chief in all
our thouohts, did never mean that we should
have no thoughts of any thing else, or that our
serious meditation on him should be continual
Walking loith God. 109
without interruption : but that the final intend-
ing of God, and our dependance on him, should
be so constant as to be the spring or mover of
the rest of the thoughts and actions of our lives.
5. An habitual intending God as our end,
and depending on his support, and subjection
to his government, will carry on the soul in a
sincere and constant course of godliness, though
the actual most observed thoughts of the soul,
be fewer in number about God, than about the
means that lead unto him, and the occurrences
in- our way. The soul of man is very active and
comprehensive, and can think of several things
at once ; and when it is once clear and resolved
in any case, it can act according to that know-
ledge and resolution, without any present sen-
sible cogitation ; nay, while its actual mcft
observed thoughts are upon something else. A
musician that hath an habitual skill, can keep
time and tune while he is thinking of some other
matter : a weaver can cast his shuttle right, and
work truly, while he is thinking or talking nf
other things : a man can eat and drink with
discretion while he talks of other things: some
men can dictate to two or three scribes at once,,
upon divers subjects : a traveller can keep on
his way, though he seldom think distinctly cf
his journeys end, but be thinking or discoursing
most of the way upon other matters ; for before
he undertook his journey he thought both of the
«nd and way, and resolved then which way to
g3
110 Walking with God.
go, and that he would go through all both fail'
and foul, and not turn back, till he saw the
place : and this habitual understanding and re-
solution, may be secretly and unobservedly
active, so as to keep a man from erring, and
from turning back, though at the same time the
traveller's most sensible thoughts and his dis-
course may be upon something else. When a
man is once resolved of his end, and hath laid
his design, he is past deliberating of that, and
therefore hath less use of his cogitations there-
about ; but is readier to lay them out upon tjie
means, which may be still uncertain, or may
require his frequent deliberation. We have
usually more thoughts and speeches by the way,
about our company, or our horses, or inns, or
other accommodations, or the fairness or foulness
of the way, and other such occurrences, than we
have about the place that we are going to : and
yet this secret intention of our end, will bring
us thither. So when a soul hath cast up his
accounts, and hath renounced a worldly and
sensual felicity, and hath fixed his hopes and
resolutions upon heaven, and is resolved to cast
himself upon Christ, and take God for his only
portion, this secret habitual resolution will do
much to keep him constant in the way, though
his thoughts and talk be frequently on other
things : yea, when we are thinking of the crea-
ture, and feel no actual thoughts of God, it is
yet God more than the creature that we think
Walking with God. Ill
of: for we did before hand look on the creature
as God's work, representing him unto the woikl,
and as his talents which we must employ for
him, and as every creature is related to him :
and this estimation of the creature is still habi-
tually (and in some secret less-perceived acts)
most prevalent in the soul. Though I am not
always sensibly thinking of the king, when I use
his coin, or obey his law, &c. yet it is only as
his coin still that I use it, and as his laws that
I obey them. Weak habits cannot do their
work without great carefulness of thoughts :
but perfect habits will act a man with little
thoughtfulness, as coming near the natural way
of operation. And indeed the imperfection of
our habitual godliness doth make our sei'ious
tlioughts, and vigilance, and industry to be the
more necessary to us,
6. There are some thoughts of God that are
necessary to the very being of a holy state; as
that God be so much in our thoughts, as to be
preferred before all things else, and principally
beloved and obeyed ; and to be the end of our
lives, and the bias of our wills : and there are
some thoughts of God that are necessary only
to acting and increase of grace.
7. So great is the weakness of our habits, «o
many and great are the temptations to be over-
come, so many difficulties are in our way, and
the occasions so various for the exercise of each
^race, that it behoveth a christian to exercise i)ig
112 Walking with God.
much thoughtfulness about his end and work, as
hath any tendency to promote his work and to
attain his end : but such a thoughtfulness as
hindereth us in our work, by stopping, or
distracting, or diverting us, is no way pleasing
unto God. So excellent is our end, that we can
never encourage and delight the mind too much
in the forethoughts of it. So sluggish are our
liearts, and so loose and inconstant are our
apprehensions and resolutions, that we have
need to be most requently quickening them,
and lifting at them, and renewing our desires,
and suppressing the contrary desires, by the
serious thoughts of God and immortality. Our
thouohts are the bellows that must kindle the
fiames of love, desire, hope, and zeal : our
thoughts are the spur that must put on a
slufffish tired heart — and so far as they con-
duce to any such works and ends as these, they
are desirable and good. 15ut what master loveth
to see his servant sit down and think, when he
should be at work ? or to use his thoughts only
-to gfieve and vex himself for his faults, but not
to mend them? to sit down lamenting that he
is so bad and unprofitable a servant, when he
should be up and doing his master's business as
"well as he is able ? Such thoughts are sins as
hinder us from duty, or discourage or unfit us
-for it, however they may go under a better name.
â– 8'. The godly themselves are very much want-
ing in the holiness of their thoughts, and the
Walking with God. 113
liveliness of their affections. Sense leadeth
away the thoughts too easily after these present
sensible things, while faith being infirm, the
thoughts of God and heaven are much disad-
vantaged by their invisibility. Many a gracious
soul crieth out, O that I could think as easily,
and as affectionately, and as unweariedly about
the Lord and the life to come, as I can do about
my friends, my health, my habitation, my busi-
ness, and other concernments of this life ! But
alas ! such thoughts of God and heaven have far
more enemies and resistance, than the thoughts
of earthly matters have.
9. It is not distracting, vexatious thoughts of
Go(^, that the holy scriptures call us to; but it
is to such thoughts as tend to the healing, and
peace, and felicity of the soul; and therefore it
is not to a melancholy, but a joyful life. If
God be better than the world, it must needs be
better to think of him. If he be more beloved
than any friend, the thoughts of him should be
sweeter to us. If he be the everlasting hope
and happiness of the soul, it should be a fore-
taste of happiness to find him nearest to our
hearts. The nature and use of holy thoughts,
and of all religion, is but to exalt, and sanctify,
and delight the soul, and bring it up to ever-
lasting rest: and is this the way to melancholy
or madness? Or is it not liker to make men
melancholy, to think of nothing but a vain,
deceitful, and vexatious world, that hath much
114 WaUcing with God,
to disquiet us, but nothing to satisfy us, and
can give the soul no hopes of any durable
delight ?
10. Yet as God is not equally related unto
all, so is he not the same to all men's thoughts.
If a wicked enemy of God and godliness be
forced and frightened into some thoughts of
God, you cannot expect that they should be as
sweet and comfortable thoughts as those of his
most obedient children are. While a man is
under the guilt and power of his reigning sin,
and under the wrath and curse of God, unpar-
doned, unjustified, a child of the devil, it is not
this man's duty to think of God, as if he were
fully reconciled to him, and too'R pleasure in him
as in his ovtU. Nor is it any wonder if such a
man think of God with fear, and think of his
sin with grief and shame. Nor is it any wonder
if the justified themselves do think of God with
fear and grief, when they have provoked him by
some sinful and unkind behaviour, or are cast
into doubts of their sincerity and interest in
Christ, and when he hides his face, or assaulteth
them with his terrors. To doubt whether a man
shall live for ever in heaven or hell, may ratio-
nally trouble the thoughts of the wisest man in
the world ; and it were but sottishness not to be
troubled at it: David himself could say, " In
the day of my trouble I sought the Lord : my
sore ran in the night and ceased not: my soul
Infused tjo be comforted. I remeuibered God and
Walking raitk God. 115
&
was troubled : I complained and my spirit was
overwhelmed. Thou holdest mine eyes waking :
I am so troubled that I cannot speak. Will
the Lord cast off for ever?" Ps. Ixxvii. 2 — 5, 7.
Yet all the sorrowful thoughts of God, which
are the duty of either the godly or the wicked,
are but the necessary preparatives of their joy.
It is not to melancholy, distraction, or despair,
that God calleth any, even the worst : but it is
that the wicked would " Seek the Lord while
he may be found, and call upon him while he is
near : that he would forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts; and return unto
the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him ; and
to our God, and he will abundantly pardon."
Isa. Iv. 6, 7. Despair is sin; and the thoughts
that tend to it are sinful thoughts, even in the
wicked. If worldly crosses, or the sense of
danger to the soul had cast any into melancholy,
or overwhelmed them with fears, you can name
nothing in the world that in reason should be so
powerful a remedy to recover them, as the
thoughts of God, his goodness and mercy and
readiness to receive and pardon those that turn
unto him, his covenant and promises and grace
through Christ, and the everlasting happiness
which all may have that will accept and seek it
in the time of grace, and prefer it before the
deceitful transitory pleasures of the world. If
the thoughts of God and of the heavenly ever-
lasting joys, will not comfort the soul, and cure
116 Walking with God.
a sad despairing mind, I know not what can
rationally do it. Though yet it is true that an
awakened sinner must needs be in a trembhng
state, till he find himself at peace with God;
and mistaken christians that are cast into cause-
less doubts and fears, by the malice of Satan,
are unlikely to walk comfortably with God, till
they are resolved and recovered from their mis-
takes and fears.
CHAPTER V.
Object. But it may be the objector will be
ready to think, that — If it be indeed our duty to
walk with God, yet thoughts are no considerable
part of it : what more uncertain or mutable than
our thoughts ? It is deeds and not thoughts that
God regardeth : to do no harm to any, but to do
good to all, this is indeed to walk with God!
You set a man upon a troublesome and impossi-
ble work, while you set liim upon so strict a
guard and so much exercise of his thoughts!
What cares the Almighty for my thoughts?
Anmv. 1. If God know better than you, and
be to be believed, then thoughts are not so
inconsiderable as you suppose. Doth he not
say, that " the thoughts of the wicked are an
abomination to the Lord ? " Prov. xv. 26. It is
tlie work of the gospel by its power to pull down
Walking with God. 117
strong holds, casting down imaginations, and
every high thing that exalteth itself against the
knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ. 2 Cor.
X. 4, 5. The unrighteous man's forsaking his
thoughts, is part of his necessary conversion.
Isa. Iv. 7. It was the description of the deplo-
rate state of the old world. Gen. vi. 6, 6, " God
saw that the wickedness of man was great in
the earth, and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually ;
and it repented the Lord that he had made man
on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."
Judge by this whether thoughts be so little
regarded by God as you imagine. David saith
of himself '*' 1 hate vain thoughts." Vs. cxix.