2. I call this meditation the acting of the powers of the soul, meaning the soul as rational. It is the work of the soul; for bodily exercise doth here profit but little. The soul hath its labour and its ease, its business and its idleness, as well as the body; and diligent students are usually as sensible of the labour and weariness of their spirits, as they are of that of the members of the body. This action of the soul is it I persuade thee to.

3. I call it the acting of ALL the powers of the soul, to difference it from the common meditation of students, which is usually the mere employment of the brain. It is not a bare thinking that I mean, nor the mere use of invention or memory, but a business of a higher and more excellent nature.

The understanding is not the whole soul, and therefore cannot do the whole work: as God hath made several parts in man, to perform their several offices for his nourishment and life; so hath he ordained the faculties of the soul to perform their several offices for his spiritual life; so the understanding must take in truths, and prepare them for the will, and it must receive them, and commend them to the affections: the best digestion is in the bottom of the stomach; the affections are as it were the bottom of the soul, and therefore the best digestion is there; while truth is but a speculation swimming in the brain, the soul hath not taken fast hold of it Christ and heaven have various excellences, and therefore God hath formed the soul with a power of divers ways of apprehending, that so we might be capable of enjoying those excellences.

What good could all the glory of heaven have done us? or what pleasure should we have had in the goodness of God himself, if we had been without the affections of love and joy, whereby we are capable of being delighted in that goodness? So, also, what strength or sweetness canst thou receive by thy meditations on eternity, while thou dost not exercise those affections which are the senses of the soul, by which it must receive this strength and sweetness!

This is it that hath deceived Christians in this business: they have thought meditation is nothing but the

bare thinking on truths, and the rolling of them in the understanding and memory, when every schoolboy can do this.

Therefore this is the great task in hand, and this is the work that I would set thee on; to get these truths from thy head to thy heart; that all the sermons which thou hast heard of heaven, and all the notions thou hast conceived of this rest, may be turned into the blood and spirit of affection, and thou mayest feel them revive thee, and warm thee at the heart, and mayest so think of heaven, as heaven should be thought on.

If thou shouldst study nothing but heaven while thou livest, and shouldst have thy thoughts at command, to turn them thither on every occasion, and yet shouldst proceed no farther than this, this were not the meditation that I intended: as it is thy whole soul that must possess God hereafter, so must the whole in a lower manner possess him here. I have shown you, in the beginning of this treatise, how the soul must enjoy the Lord in glory, to wit, by knowing, by loving, by joying in him; why, the very same way must thou begin thy enjoyment here.

So much as thy understanding and affections are sincerely placed upon God, so much dost thou enjoy him : and this is the happy work of this meditation. So that you see here is somewhat more to be done, than barely to remember and think of heaven: as running, and such like labours, do not only stir a hand or foot, but strain and exercise the whole body; so doth meditation the whole soul.

As the whole was filled with sin before, so the whole must be filled with God now; as St. Paul saith of knowledge, and gifts, and faith, to remove mountains, that if thou hast all these without love, thou art but "as a sounding brass, or as a tinkling cymbal," so I may say of the exercise of these, if in this work of meditation, thou exercise knowledge, and gifts, and faith of miracles, and not love and joy, thou dost nothing; if thy meditation tends to fill thy note book with notions and good sayings, concerning God, and not thy heart with longings after him, and delight in him, for aught I know thy book is as much a Christian as thou.

I call this meditation set and solemn, to difference it from that which is occasional. As there is prayer which is solemn, when we set ourselves wholly to the duty; and prayer which is sudden and short, commonly cal'ed ejaculations, when a man in the midst of other business doth send up some brief request to God: so also there is meditation solemn, when we apply ourselves only to that work; and there is meditation which is short and cursory, when in the midst of our business we have some good thoughts of God in our minds. And as solemn prayer is either first set, when a Christian, observing it as a standing duty, doth resolvedly practise it in a constant course; or secondly, occasional, when some unusual occasion doth put us upon it at a season extraordinary so also meditation.

Now, though I would persuade you to that meditation which is mixed with your common labours, and to that which special occasions direct you to; yet these are not the main things which I here intend; but that you would make it a constant standing duty, as you do hearing, and praying, and reading the Scripture, and that you would solemnly set yourselves about it, and make it for that time your whole work, and intermix other matters no more with it than you would do with praying, or other duties. Thus you see what kind of meditation it is that we speak of, viz., the set and solemn acting of all the powers of the soul.

The second part of the difference is drawn from its object, which is rest, or the most blessed estate of man in his everlasting enjoyment of God in heaven. Meditation hath a large field to walk in, and hath as many objects to work upon, as there are matters, and lines, and words in the Scriptures, as there are known creatures in the whole creation, and as there are particular discernible passages of Providence in the government of persons and actions through the world: but the meditation that I now direct you in, is only of the end of all these, and of these as they refer to that end: it is not a walk from mountains to valleys, from sea to land, from kingdom to kingdom, from planet to planet; but it is a walk from mountains and valleys to the holy mount Sion; from sea and land to the land of the living; from

the kingdoms of this world to the kingdom of saints; from earth to heaven; from time to eternity. It is a walking upon the sun, and moon, and stars; it is a walk in the garden and paradise of God. It may seem far off; but spirits are quick; whether in the body, or out of the body, their motion is swift: they are not so heavy or dull as these earthly lumps, nor so slow of motion as these clods of flesh. I would not have you cast off your other meditations; but surely as heaven hath the preeminence in perfection, so should it have the pre-eminence also in our meditation: that which will make us most happy when we possess it, will make us most joyful when we meditate upon it; especially when that meditation is a degree of possession, if it be such affecting meditation as I here describe.

You need not here be troubled with fear, lest studying so much on these high matters should make you mad. If I set you to meditate as much on sin and wrath, and to study nothing but judgment and damnation, then you might fear such an issue: but it is heaven, and not hell, that I would persuade you to walk in; it is joy, and not sorrow, that I persuade you to exercise. I would urge you to look on no deformed object, but only upon the ravishing glory of saints, and the unspeakable excellences of the God of glory, and the beams that stream from the face of his Son. Are these sad thoughts? Will it distract a man to think of his happiness? Will it distract the miserable to think of mercy? Or the captive, or prisoner, to foresee deliverance? Neither do I persuade your thoughts to matters of great difficulty, or to study knotted controversies of heaven, or to search out things beyond your reach. If you should thus set your wit upon the tenters, you might quickly be distracted indeed: but it is your affections more than your inventions that must be used in this heavenly employment we speak of. They are truths which are commonly known, which your souls must draw forth and feed upon. The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, are articles of your creed, and not nicer controversies. Methinks it should be liker to make a man mad, to think of living in a world of wo, to think of abiding among the rage of wicked

men, than to think of living with Christ in bliss; methinks, if we be not mad already, it should sooner distract us, to hear the tempests and roaring waves, to see the billows, and rocks, and sands, and gulfs, than to think of arriving safe at rest. "But wisdom is justified of all her children." Knowledge hath no enemy but the ignorant. This heavenly course was never spoken against by any, but those that never either knew it, or used it. I more fear the neglect of men that do approve it. Truth loseth much more by loose friends, than by the sharpest enemies.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FITTEST TIME AND PLACE FOR THIS CONTEMPLATION, AND THE PREPARATION OF THE HEART UNTO IT.

THUS I have opened to you the nature of this duty; I proceed to direct you in the work; where I shall, First, Show you how you must set upon it; Secondly, How you must behave in it; and Thirdly, How you shall shut it up. I advise thee, 1. Somewhat concerning the time. 2. Somewhat concerning the place. And 3. Somewhat concerning the frame of thy spirit.

And 1. For the time, I advise thee that as much as may be, it be set and constant. Proportion out such a part of thy time to the work.

Stick not at their scruple who question the stating of times as superstitious; if thou suit out thy time to the advantage of the work, and place no religion in the time itself, thou needest not to fear lest this be superstition. As a workman in his shop will have a set place for every one of his tools, or else when he should use it, it may be to seek; so a Christian should have a set time for every ordinary duty, or else when he should practise it it is ten to one but he will be put by it. Stated time is a hedge to duty, and defends it against many temptations to omission. God hath stated none but the Lord's day himself: but he hath left it to be stated by ourselves, according to every man's condition and occasions, lest otherwise his law should have been