Christian Books of Old

Solitude improved by divine meditation - Part 2

2007-09-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

PART II

CHAP. I. - Of the several Kinds or Ways of Meditation.

WE now, from the divers ends of meditation, proceed to the several kinds or ways of it.

Meditation is either that which is more set and solemn, or that which is more sudden and short. That which is more set and solemn, is either the more ordinary and daily, or that which is extraordinary, upon some more peculiar occasions, both which the

Scriptures hold forth in the recorded precepts and precedents therein.

1. The necessity of daily meditation. The first way of solemn meditation, is that which should be daily: that as private praying and other duties are a Christian's daily ways of exercising himself in godliness and walking with God; so holy meditation is one golden path in the great road to heaven, one way of breathing his soul daily up the hill of eternity, and meeting with God in the mount.

The holy prophet makes it a character of the blessed man, that he meditates in the law of God day and night, Psa. 1.2: where we have held forth the grace, and the degree of that grace: the grace, he doth meditate; the degree, day and night. Thus much hereby must then be implied, that as it is to be performed often, so it cannot well be performed by the rule in this Scripture passage, if every day in course there be not something done in this way, either more or less: certainly we cannot give God and our soul's concerns too much measure.

In Psalm cxix David tells us his daily practice, to meditate both in the day and night. Now his example, being a king and under such varieties of important affairs; so many and so great as none can have more: and if he had still such cares, troubles, and dangers attending, might not these have excused some abatement of his constancy? but it did not. This therefore leaves all sorts of persons without excuse, none being able to allege that which he could, or more urgencies of daily occasions. There is no doubt, that as it is a work which lies upon every one, so sure as the day returns and the fresh businesses of it; so this meditating of right doth challenge for itself some fit season and portion of the day, being one of the great businesses for the soul's help.

As no Christian can plead exemption from this daily incumbency, this daily soul affair; so no good, prudent Christian can conceive but he may find out in the revolution of the day, some at least fit opportunity for serious meditation. Or if not in the day time, (the time of action and avocation,) yet in the night upon the bed, the time of rest and freedom. What was said of that great warrior Hannibal, making his way into Italy over the high, rocky mountains, the Alps, with fire and vinegar, "Hannibal will either find a way, or make one;" and is said of love, “It will creep if it cannot go;" a good heart will find or make its way over mountains of difficulties and business, to have communion with Jesus Christ, Cant. iii. 1-3.

Ah, it is most sad if I can allow so many hours in the night for rest and sleep, so many in the day for business and emergencies, so many for eating and drinking, so many for company and discourse, yea, so much time for pleasure, play, for trivial things next to nothing, it may be for things worse than nothing, for sins and lusts, and that no part of the twenty-four hours must be afforded for serious thinking, thinking of things ten thousand times more momentous and important to us than the sum total of matters that sweep away and swallow up precious time so much. The good Christian cannot but at least close with the eternal obligation of this duty; and the wise and fruitful Christian cannot but yield some compliance with the practice of it, and let this come in for its due share in the time of the day, as one important business to be despatched, and that must still contribute to the right making of it up, and improvement of it. After some evidence of the equity of this daily duty, I come to speak to the nature and way of this meditation. This being of all other sorts the principal, which therefore challenges a more distinct and careful handling.

If Christians very well understand not this way, or fall very short of the due manner and order of it, the work is neither so pleasant nor successful as it might be and should be, and, questionless, is to Christians such as are the great artists herein, such as have been well practiced and experienced in it. I shall therefore now endeavor to show the nature of it, and something of a method of due proceeding in it.

In general, it is that daily exercise whereby we single out purposely some spiritual or useful matters, to act the searchings and ponderings, which according to our ability and opportunity of the day we can exercise for our spiritual advantage.

The mind is a spring always running in thinkings, a wheel always turning, a forge always framing, a wing ever moving; it is the most active, busy, nimble thing in all the world, therefore bath the greatest need to be well looked unto, to be kept, as Solomon saith, “Keep thy heart with all diligence," Prov. iv. 23, to be guided with the best skill and care, with the steadiest and stiffest rein; like a horse of highest mettle, ready to run away with his rider; it will run wildly away, and carry the soul into vanity, folly, and self-mischieving. Meditation is a spiritual rein and curb, and the peculiar designed way to reduce, rectify, and order it.

To bring the heart's thinking power into the highest subserviency, the greatest usefulness to the main, to the soul's grand interest, there is a great necessity upon every good heart of daily and much meditating.

A Critical Comparison Between Jesus And Hillel - Franz Delitzsch

2007-09-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

A Critical Comparison Between Jesus And Hillel

(from Jewish Artisan Life In The Time Of Our Lord )

Franz Delitzsch

Preface

PRIMARILY designed for Jewish readers, the essay on Jesus and Hillel is so valuable in its suggestiveness, regarding not only the difference between Jesus and Hillel, but the difference between Jesus and all mere human teachers and reformers, antecedent or subsequent, as to form a most formidable weapon in the hands of those who see in Jesus not only the greater than Hillel, but the greater than Jonas, and the greater than Solomon, the wisest of men. Was Jesus man? Was Jesus God? Was Jesus truly both? In the belief that the ensuing pages will help many to decide these momentous questions for themselves the present translation has been undertaken; it will have done its work should any, hitherto prepared when contemplating the life and character of Jesus, to say “Ecce homo," be led from its perusal to say, "Ecce Deus."

THE COLLEGE,

BIRKENHEAD.

May, 1877.

A CRITICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN JESUS AND HILLEL.

“He was most beautiful to behold! His height reached fully seven spans, his hair was light and somewhat waving, but his eyebrows were black and arched, his eyes bright and piercing, his nose prominent, his beard yellow and not very long. The hair of his head was long, for never had razor come upon it, neither the hand of man passed over it, excepting indeed the hand of his mother whilst still a little child. His figure was slightly bent, not quite erect. His color was as the ripened wheat, his face, like that of his mother, was not round but oval, not very ruddy, and expressive of gentleness and meekness, dignity and understanding. He was the exact similitude of his pure and stainless mother."

It is Jesus who is thus described by Nicephorus Callisti, who, writing in the fourteenth century, relied, no doubt, for the particulars of this description, on the testimony of ancient writers. Could we ask him the names of his authorities, he would most likely cite John the Damascene, who flourished in the eighth century; and, could we pursue our inquiries to this source, the latter would probably be honest enough to confess, "This portrait is but a worthless and fanciful product of the imagination." For, though in coins, busts, and statues, we have contemporary likenesses of the Roman emperors, from Augustus and Tiberius downwards; though on the walls of the Egyptian temple of Karnak, the contemporary portrait of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, is even yet to be seen; and though the palace walls of Korsabad and Koyunjik still glow with contemporary representations of king Sargon in his war chariot, and king Sennacherib on his throne, yet, so far are we from possessing even a tradition, still less a description, of the outward appearance of Jesus, that both before and after the days of Constantine, opinion in the Church was divided, as to whether we ought to picture him to ourselves, during the time that he walked amongst men, as having been undistinguished in appearance, or of ideal beauty; whilst, in support of both these views, reliance must be placed, not on old traditions, but on passages from the Old Testament.

Let a passage from Renan's Life of Jesus follow this ideal portrait of the Middle Ages. "Jesus," we there read, "was born in Nazareth; and the streets in which the child played exist still in those stony paths and blind alleys, by which the houses are separated. Joseph's house most likely resembled these same poverty-stricken huts, whose only means of admitting light is through the door, and which are workshop, kitchen, and sleeping-room all in one; whilst their entire furniture consists of a carpet, two or three cushions on the floor for seats, a few earthen utensils, and a painted coffer. Here, in Nazareth, Jesus passed the first years of his childhood; and here, at the now ruined fountain of the little town, Mary doubtless daily stood, chatting with her undistinguished countrywomen; and still in this spot, female beauty, especially the Syrian type in all its melting loveliness, is met with in a remarkable degree. Here nature, at once sublime and lovely in her aspect, became the first instructress of Jesus; and from hence, even in his childhood, he took part in the yearly journeys to Jerusalem at the great festivals. Joseph died before his son began to take part in public life; and, feeling herself a stranger in Nazareth after the death of her husband, Mary returned to Cana, where Jesus passed his ripening youth; and where he first excited public attention. He came forward as a Teacher. The voice of the young carpenter acquired suddenly an extraordinary sweetness. Those who had been familiar with him hitherto scarcely recognized him in his new character. His amiable disposition, and probably one of those exquisitely beautiful faces, which are sometimes met with amongst the Jewish race, combined to draw a magic circle round him. He particularly attached himself to Hillel, who, fifty years earlier, had promulgated maxims with which his own had much in common, and who, by the meekness with which he had endured poverty, by the gentleness of his disposition, and by his opposition to the priests and hypocrites, had become the real teacher of Jesus; if indeed we can speak of a teacher, when considering so exalted and original a character."

All that Renan here states is either gratuitous contradiction of the Gospel narrative, such as the assertion that Jesus was born at Nazareth, or mere assumption, as that Mary removed to Cana after Joseph's death; whilst statements introduced with the vague term "probably," are in reality nothing but fanciful sketches of his own, such as when he likens Joseph's home to the dwellings of the now deeply-degraded population of Palestine, praises the beauty of the women of Nazareth; about whose charms other travelers have found nothing to say, or ascribes to Jesus himself, either exquisite personal beauty, or an extraordinarily winning address. This Life of Jesus took, nevertheless, the whole civilized world by storm; and we should be in error were we to seek the cause of this wonderful popularity, exclusively in the bold skepticism of the book, or in that spirit of opposition to Christianity, as a religion of revelation and miracle, which is so marked a feature of our times. Certainly the applause with which this work was greeted may be, in a measure, accounted for by the fact, that, by its means, thousands found themselves with malicious joy, confirmed in the idea, that, when viewed by the light of modern progress, the Church's dogma of the Person of the God-Man would melt away like a dream of bygone ages. The reading public, cloyed with the most refined sensationalism, devoured it so eagerly, because it offered them a new and piquant subject, entitled indeed The Life of Jesus, but which, after the fashion of the Mysteries of Paris, might just as well have been called the Mysteries of Jesus. In this book, both sentimentality and sensuality found abundant nutriment, uniting in itself, as it does, the art of a Dumas or a Sue with the love of effect peculiar to a Pere Lacordaire. In it frivolous speeches alternate with enthusiastic bursts of feeling, whilst every natural affection is debased to carnality. Even political discontent was flattered in this work, which represents Jesus in the light of a noble and romantic republican, something of a Camille Desmoulins; and which, whilst holding up to Imperial France the times in which he lived, as a mirror, in which she might see her own reflection, offers as well the programme of a new social revolution.

All this, however, will not suffice to account for the effect this book has produced, and which may partly be explained on higher grounds than those already mentioned. It has cleared away the haze in which, to thousands, the personality of Jesus was shrouded, and asks once more, as a burning question for the times, what we are indeed to think of him. And in driving this question, the most momentous and critical for all humanity, deep home to the conscience of both Jew and Christian, it has subserved a Divine purpose, in a manner which the author assuredly never contemplated. Nor would this book have thus succeeded in making the person of Jesus the centre-point of modem thought, had not its writer availed himself of all the graces of composition to endow his portrait with form and color.

It was this that constituted its great charm in the eyes of Christian readers. It aimed at the strictly legitimate task of bringing the historical account of Jesus into living conformity with the times and country in which he lived, thus meeting the wish natural to all Christians, to be able to form some definite idea of his appearance in the days of his flesh.

But the likeness drawn by Renan is no historical portrait. It is a caricature, compounded of the most contradictory elements, a lying imposture which subsists only by the falsification of the true history. This we can prove by a single example, namely, by one of those false statements in which Hillel is pointed out as having been the true and actual teacher of Jesus. Renan is, however, too much of a Christian to rank Hillel higher than Jesus, highly as he values the former; since in one place he observes, "Hillel can never be considered as the true founder of Christianity," an idea which it would have been mere folly to contradict, had he not regarded Hillel as a being whose moral greatness was at least akin to that of Jesus.

On the other hand, Dr. Geiger, the learned Rabbi of the "Reformed" Congregation of Frankfort-on-Main, in his Lectures on Judaism, and in his History (published in 1864), is too good a Jew to rank Hillel below Jesus. "Jesus," says he, "was a Pharisee, who followed in Hillel's footsteps. He never gave utterance to a single new idea. Of Hillel, on the contrary, we may say, and the term, far from degrading, will only ennoble him, that he presents us with the portrait of a genuine Reformer. And," adds Geiger, with a side hit which we can easily understand, "this Hillel is a strictly historical personage. In the case of other men, indeed, tradition colors their whole life, decks them with miracles, and envelopes them in her tinsel. But the more wonderful the legend, the more incredible does it become, and all the more surely does it obscure the real character, and render contemptible the object it seeks to glorify, when we come to consider him as a historical personage."

Dr. Geiger's Lectures¹ have been extensively read, they have been discussed in widely circulated newspapers; and we believe that we shall render a not unwelcome service to unprejudiced readers, both Jewish and Christian, if in these pages we examine this same Hillel a little more closely, who by Renan is placed on a par with Jesus, by Geiger is ranked far' above him.

¹A second edition of these lectures appeared in 1865, but in it these remarks were left unaltered.

He is, in truth, deserving of our sympathy; a truly great and loveable man. Nor amongst the contemporaries of Jesus is there one, who, if compared to him, is so well fitted as Hillel to bring out in its fullest light the peerless individuality of his character. Indeed, in drawing the comparison about to be instituted, we enjoy a double advantage; firstly, because the notices of Hillel contained in the Talmud are unusually numerous, and, although not free from grotesque exaggeration,¹are generally trustworthy; and secondly, because we are in no danger of our judgment concerning him becoming confused.

¹As for instance where according to Sofrim, xvi. 9, his knowledge is said to have been so comprehensive that he understood not only all languages, but also the speech of mountains, hills, and valleys, the speech of trees and herbs, the speech of savage and tame beasts, and the speech of demons. And again, according to Succa, 28 a, where he is stated to have had eighty disciples, thirty of whom were worthy that the Shechinah (Presence of God) should rest upon them, thirty who were worthy that at their bidding, as at Joshua's, the sun should stand still, and twenty of greater mediocrity. The greatest of all was Jonathan ben Aziel, of whom it is related, that, when he sat reading the law, every bird which flew over his head was immediately consumed.

He flourished during the reign of Herod the Great, and died during the early childhood of Jesus.¹

¹According to the Talmud, b. Schabbath, 15 a, the date of Hillel's presidency of the Sanhedrin, was just one hundred years before the fall of Jerusalem.

When Herod, as we read in Mat. ii. 40, demanded of the chief priests and scribes where Christ should be born, Hillel may well have been president of that sitting of the Sanhedrin, which, in strict accordance with Scripture, gave the king the reply, that he must be born at Bethlehem-Ephrata.

Much beyond this date his life could not have been prolonged; and he never had the opportunity of either acknowledging or rejecting the Saviour. He must, therefore, be considered as having been virtually a pre-Messianic celebrity.

And now, ere we enter on the task of calling up a distinct picture of Hillel's life and work, in order to compare, them with the life and labors of Jesus, we will promise our readers to adhere strictly, in the case of the former, to the accounts which have come down to us of him, without adding any comments of our own; and, in the case of the latter, to hold aloof from all that modem critics reject, and to keep exclusively to such testimony as even the criticism of a Strauss cannot shake; following principally the Gospel according to St. Mark, as that which has at present, the honor of being considered both the oldest and the most trustworthy.

How did Hillel become a great teacher, and how did Jesus?

This is the first question, to which their respective histories must supply the answer, and that, without our adding to, or diminishing aught from the record.

About fifty years before the commencement of our era, the following occurrence took place in Jerusalem.

Shemaiah and Abtalion, the most celebrated doctors of that day, had on one occasion, the eve of the Sabbath, conducted throughout the whole night,¹ a numerous class of disciples, engaged in the study of the law. It was the month Tebeth, and just at the time of the winter solstice; therefore, about the end of December. When "the pillars of the dawn were set up" (it was thus that the Semitic races expressed themselves, since in that latitude the sun shoots like a ball of light above the horizon, after a much shorter twilight than with us), Shemaiah observed to Abtalion, "Good brother Abtalion, our schoolhouse is generally well lighted in the daytime, but this morning it is so dark, that it must be a cloudy day." On looking up, however, something resembling a human form was descried in the aperture of the window. Someone climbed on to the roof, and there a man was actually found buried in the snow which had fallen during the previous night. It was Hillel. They soon extricated him, bathed, and rubbed him with oil, and laid him before a fire, saying amongst themselves as they did so, "He is worthy that on his account the Sabbath should be broken."

¹b.Joma, 35 b

But how had Hillel placed himself in this situation?

This Hillel, grandfather of Gamaliel, at whose feet sat St. Paul the Apostle, and ancestor of a family in which the office of president of the Sanhedrin was for centuries hereditary, belonged to a family of Jewish exiles at Babylon. Though able to trace their descent from David,¹his kindred were poor; and both Hillel and his brother Shebna₂ had come to Jerusalem, one to seek his fortune as a trader, and the other to slake his thirst for knowledge at the fountain-head of national learning. In order to accomplish this, he had to hire himself out as a journeyman, and his daily earning amounted to a tropiakon. This was a Greek name for the Roman victoriatus, a small coin, of the value of half a denarius, and stamped with the image of victory. One half of his gains had to support his family (for he was married); the other he paid to the steward of the Beth-ha-Midrasch, that the academy over which Shemaiah and Abtalion presided. One day, however, when he had been unable to meet with work, he was denied admittance by the avaricious steward. Favored by the darkness of the night, he clambered up to the window placed in the top of the wall, whence he could see and hear all that passed below; but unable long to endure the intense cold of the heavy snow, from which even Jerusalem is not lways exempt, he sunk down in that state of insensibility, from which he was on the following Sabbath morning with difficulty restored to life.

¹Bereschith Rabba, 98, which in support of its testimony appeals to a pedigree found in Jerusalem. [Hebrew not included]

² b. Sota, 21 a, according to which he in later times shared his earnings with his brother, who was also a student

It was thus that Hillel's talents were developed. To satisfy his thirst for knowledge, he resorted to the most celebrated teachers of his day, and spared no pains to acquire the heritage of their wisdom. Schooled by the greatest celebrities in the learning of the Torah, he, in after times, became himself one of its highest authorities. When the question was once debated, whether the Pascal lamb could be slain on the eve of the Passover should it happen to fall on a Sabbath, Hillel came forward as the guardian of the correct interpretation, and decided the question in the affirmative.¹ From this time forward, he was regarded as one of the principal expounders of the so-called oral or traditional law; to which, in a stormy and degenerate age, he secured uninterrupted development, by his personal gentleness, high culture, and moderate Pharisaical tendencies.

¹ b. Pesachim, 66 a, j. Pesachim, 33 a.

A reformer he never was. Dr. Geiger only places him on this pinnacle, in order to rank Jesus below him. But he alone can be called a reformer, who, indued with creative genius, restores a debased or deformed national religion to its original purity, and breathes into an expiring body that new life which first takes its rise in himself. Such reformers were Samuel and Ezra. Hillel, however, left everything as he found it. He introduced, indeed, some few novelties in the administration of civil law, especially in matters relating to commerce and money-lending, by which the letter of the Mosaic law was subtly evaded. But, with these exceptions, he simply carried out the Pharisaic system of maxims. With the actual faith of his nation he scarcely meddled; much less did he ever revive it from decay or quicken it with new impulses.

All history, on the other hand, proclaims what Jesus has become; nor need we first compile the story. It is enough to say, that the fact confronts us, if only we do not obstinately close our eyes to it. Hillel was no reformer; else, what was the primitive form of religion amongst his people which he restored? Or, what were the errors which he swept away? But Jesus is the founder of a new religion, which stands to the religion of the Old Testament, in the relation of its very heart and kernel, of its disentrammelled spirit. He is the founder of a humanism undreamt of before his day, of a religion of philanthropy and humanity, which declares all walls of partition between different races to be abolished, and he has instituted a universal brotherhood, through the new bond of a divine and all-embracing love.

How then, we ask, did Jesus effect this? He too, like Hillel, was descended from a decayed branch of the family of David;¹ though unlike Hillel, instead of being brought up in Babylonia, where the Jewish population began at that time to rival their countrymen at home in national culture, he grew to man's estate in Galilee, a province on which the Judean looked down with the same lofty contempt with which a Greek regarded Baeeotia, or a Parisian may think of a Gascon; his home being in the most despised spot of this despised district. In the Talmud we meet with celebrated men from a number of townships, both in Palestine and Galilee, who have now vanished, leaving no trace behind ; but from Nazareth (Nazara),² there comes not one. Josephus, the historian, who during the Roman war had to organize the Galilean revolt, counts no fewer than 204 over-populated towns and villages. He gives the names of several, but does not even mention Nazareth. Had this spot, indeed, been referred to only in the Gospels, modern criticism would doubtless have decided that it never existed. But there it lies to this day, as it lay 2000 years ago, with its houses built into the slope of the mountain, in the hollow of a deep and narrow basin, which, enclosed by mountains on three sides, slopes down southward towards the famous plain of Jezreel, renowned as a battlefield in both ancient and modern times.

¹Though not the actual, yet as the legitimate son of Joseph, the son of Jacob (see Matt. i.), Jesus was descended from that branch of the house of David which was founded by Solomon, and through his mother, Mary the daughter of Heli (Luke iii.), from that which was founded by Nathan. In the Talmud Mary is referred to as [Hebrew missing] daughter of Heli, whilst in b. Sanhedrin, 43 b, Jesus is said to have been [Hebrew missing] (related to the king's house).

² Both forms are met with in the oldest Greek MSS.

Here, in this deep retirement Jesus grew up as a lily of the field. For him there were no opportunities of education beyond his own home, if we except, perhaps, the Synagogue. Hillel may well be considered as the depositary of the wisdom of Shemaiah and Abtalion; but who, among his astonished contemporaries, could point out the teacher of Jesus? The Talmud certainly assigns him a celebrated master, Joshua the son of Perachiah, with whom it states that he fled to Alexandria, to escape the fury of a murderous king, and by whom he was subsequently excommunicated¹ as a renegade disciple, to the blast of four hundred rams’ horns. But this excommunication concert is an absurdity, and the whole story an impudent fabrication.² This Joshua lived a whole century earlier than Jesus, who, as we know, went down to Egypt, but it was as an infant at his mother breast. Nor can he have brought back impressions from thence, where Judaism had entered on a more enlightened and liberal phase than in the mother country. Still less can he there have studied magic, as another Talmudistic fable declares him to have done.³

¹ b. Sanhedrin 107 b (in unabridged editions)

² The emigration of Joshua the son of Perachiah, took place at the time of the persecution of the Pharisees unser the Asmonean king Alexander I. Jannai (died 76 B.C.). See Jost’s History of Judaism and its sects, I., 237.

³ b. Schabbath, 104 b: the “son of Stada,” [Hebrew missing], a name of contempt given to Jesus, brought enchantments from Egypt in a cut which he had made in his flesh. This is an indirect testimony from an enemy’s lips to the historical truth of our Saviors miracles.

Since, however, no human spirit can develop itself independently of impulses from without, so Jesus, by intercourse with his pious parents, and others by whom he was alternately attracted and repelled, would gradually receive a, to us incalculable, world of impressions. These doubtless helped to make him that which he finally became, but this was actually determined by his own unique nature, by which these impressions were treasured up and worked out. His principal means of development was communion with God, through His Word, as contained in the Holy Scriptures. This Word, received from without, told him what were the needs of his people, and of mankind, and for whose help they waited. And the God within him told him what was the service which he was called to render, both to his own people, and to the whole human race; not, like Hillel, to persevere in a system of ordinances, but, laying aside these outward ceremonial observances, to bring mankind into a direct and spiritually-free relationship to God; and to yield himself a willing sacrifice to the fulfillment of this supreme vocation. In other words, he strengthened himself in God with ever increasing certainty, as that Messiah promised aforetime by Moses and the prophets. He experienced in himself what the servant of Jehovah expresses in Is. 50. 4: "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth my ear to hear as the learned." The more deeply he studied the prophecies, and the more closely he marked the corruption of his people, dead in the works of the law, the more clearly was it revealed to him, that he must be prepared for heavy suffering, and the more earnestly did he pray for strength and courage; even as we read in the words of Isaiah 50. 5, 6, "The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting." And in this school of deep inner experiences the disciple of God developed into that Divine Teacher; who, under the lowly guise of an itinerant Galilean preacher,¹ hid the sublime self-consciousness of the Messiah of Israel.

¹ [Hebrew missing]. It is thus that the wandering Galilean teachers are described in the Talmud, b. Sanhedrin, 70 a, Chullin, 27 b.

Those around him were acquainted with the circumstances of his birth, but these were more calculated to deepen than to explain the strange enigma of this untaught Teacher. When in the synagogue of Nazareth, the book of Isaiah was given to him, that he might read the appointed lesson of the day; he began with the words, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." And, in full assurance that he, and no other, was that servant of Jehovah, whom the prophet here represents as speaking, he, whilst the eyes of all present were fastened on him, began his sermon with those words of strong confirmation: "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." Mar. 6. 2, 3. The first effect of the powerful impression made by this public manifestation was astonishment: " From whence hath this man these things," asked the Nazarenes, "and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and of Juda and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? "They knew no natural explanation of the lofty self-assertion with which their countryman confronted them in word and deed; and therefore, as St. Mark's

Gospel proceeds to explain, ch. 6-3, they were offended at him. For he lacked that patent of nobility, which, according to Jewish ideas, was possessed by every teacher who could prove himself the disciple of some celebrated man. That he stood without the pale of this privileged class [Hebrew missing] was in their eyes no recommendation.

It was in this very point that Jesus differed so essentially from Hillel, who simply propagated the scholastic lore of Shemaiah and Abtalion. Jesus came from no rabbinical seminary, nor did he ever attach himself to, or seek to build up, any existing system. Free and direct, he drank of the fullness of the Divine Spirit, and without dependence on man, developed himself, through the Word of God, from the depths of his own holy being. From childhood he had lived in a communion with God, which enabled him to speak those words,¹ whose like were, before him, never heard from mortal lips, neither after him will be: "No man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." Mat. 11. 27.

¹ These words of .Jesus have come down to us through other sources besides St. Matthew's gospel.

This it was which threw all his contemporaries into amazement at his doctrine, manner of teaching, and whole mode of life; and the despised province of Galilee then experienced the fulfillment of the ancient prediction, Isa. 9. 2, "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." In accordance with this word of the prophet, the Talmud says, that the deliverance of Israel shall dawn from Tiberias; and the Sohar, that Messiah shall be manifested from the land.

We proceed to enquire: What did Hillel the Babylonian teach? And what Jesus of Nazareth? A second comparison,¹ which we will endeavor to draw will illustrate this more clearly than the foregoing.

¹ b. Schabbath, 21 a.

A foreigner presented himself on one occasion before Shammai; "Make me a proselyte," said he, “but thou must teach me the whole law, whilst I stand on one leg." Shammai flew into a passion, lifted the measuring rod, which he happened to have in his hand, and drove him from his presence.

He now applied to Hillel, who actually converted him under the required conditions: He said to him, [Hebrew missing], in English, "What is disagreeable to thyself, never do to thy neighbor, this is the whole law, to which all else is but the commentary. Go and learn it." It is on the ground of this much admired reply that Renan and Geiger stand, when they seek to represent Jesus as following the traces of Hillel. We are far from undervaluing the grandeur and nobility of Hillel's answer. It required, indeed, a comparatively enlightened insight into the nature of the law to perceive that all national ordinances and ceremonial precepts contained in the Torah served a moral purpose, regulating the relation of man to man. But, was the code delivered on Sinai simply, or indeed chiefly, a moral one? According to that fundamental maxim which we find in Deut. 6. 4, 5, and which, as the [Hebrew missing] has been embodied in the daily prayer of the Israelite, may not the real sum total of the law be far more justly described, as contained in the command, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might?"

Was Hillel then justified in withholding this precept from the enquiring idolater, whose most urgent need was the knowledge of the living God? To judge from his reply, it would seem that the first table of the holy law is less binding and important than the second. Yet morality can never be divorced from religion, without the moral duties losing the support of its divine and eternal basis. This, however, is what Hillel does, he represents the revealed law as a code of morality, and ignores its divine foundation and requirements, being in this the forerunner of that numerous class, who take the paltry maxim, "Do right and fear no man," for the height of wisdom, and indeed consider that it embodies the whole contents of the Bible, all else being in their opinion merely an unimportant appendix. In Mat. 7. 12 Jesus certainly says, "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." But this is no isolated injunction; in the verse immediately preceding we read, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask him?" And this saying of Jesus, resembling Hillel's, though not identical with it, differs from it chiefly in its deep religious sentiment; the duty of love to our neighbor, being deduced from the example of that compassionate love of God, which all must strive to imitate. These utterances of Jesus form part of his Sermon on the Mount, of which the subject was the true righteousness; and in which the law given on Mount Sinai, in a preparatory, and therefore imperfect manner, received its full development. In this discourse true righteousness is represented as the gift of God, and its essence is made to consist in submission to His will, and renunciation of self, and in bringing not only the outer, but the deepest inner life, into conformity and obedience to Him. This righteousness consists therefore in the reciprocal working of religion and morality, and in it love to God and love to man go hand in hand. For this reason we find, Mar. 12. 28-34, that, in a case somewhat similar to Hillel's, Jesus gave a reply which differed essentially from that of the Rabbi. When asked by a scribe, "Which is the first commandment of all?" he answered, "The first of all the commandments is Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” These words ring clear and decisive, and in them we at once perceive the full truth and harmony of the law, to the spirit of which Jesus gives its full weight. In the Torah, these two commandments are never met with side by side, for in Duet. 6. 5, it is only love to God, and not love to man, which is inculcated; and in Lev. 19. 18 the command to love our neighborstands among others; whilst its basis, in the love of God, is not alluded to. Jesus, however, brings their hidden connection to light. Whilst Hillel’s moralizing reply rests solely on Lev. 19. 18, and entirely overlooks the passage in Duet. 6. 4, Jesus unites the two great commandments in one whole, and that in such a manner, that the apparently less important is placed on a footing of equality with the greater; for, even as light and radiation, so are love to God and love to man, but one in their essence and in their source. They are one in the Lord our God, the God of Israel, who is one God. This union of the two commandments, on which all others are founded, lies indeed in the spirit of the Old Testament law, but it was Jesus who first proclaimed it; he of whom Geiger says, that "he never gave utterance to a single new idea!" Never has a falser or more shameless aspersion been cast on the historically original, yet cultivated grandeur, of the Founder of Christianity. We would render all justice to Hillel's famous saying, but we know Hillel (whom, at the expense of Jesus, Geiger would magnify into a reformer) too well to allow a false estimate of his character to be foisted on us, on the strength of a single speech; above all, of one, which as we have seen, proclaimed but half the truth. Hillel's work was in no sense reformatory, still less creative; it consisted principally in the development of the so-called oral law, which aimed at protecting the Mosaic law from violation, by fencing it in with innumerable preventive regulations.

In this exaggerated spirit of clerkly quibbling Hillel had a formidable rival in the person of the stricter, and in ceremonial matters, more exacting Shammai. One example will show how far men had already fallen away from the spirit of the Mosaic law. Ex. 16. 5 contains indirectly the precept that food intended to be eaten on the Sabbath should be prepared the preceding day. The sense and object of the passage are unmistakable. That Sabbath rest which the law of Moses guaranteed both to the servant and the maid, no less than to the master and the mistress, was not to be broken by the labor of cooking. The doctors of the law, however, propounded the question, whether an egg which a hen had laid on the Sabbath might be eaten on that day. One would have thought this a matter requiring no consideration; man taking no active part in the laying of eggs. Nevertheless the consumption of such egg was declared absolutely unlawful, if it had been laid by a hen kept for the purpose of laying, because in this case it would be the result of a week-day occupation carried out on the Sabbath, in disobedience to the law.

Up to this point the “Fathers of old time" ¹ were agreed. But how if the hen had been intended for eating and not for laying? And how if a Sabbath and a Feast-Day, or as we might say, since a Feast-Day is equal in sanctity to a Sabbath, how if two Sabbaths came together? Here, contrary to his usual custom, Shammai's interpretation was less strict than Hillel's, since he allowed the consumption of the egg of a hen set apart for eating, on the Sabbath or Feast-Day preceding it, and laid on such Sabbath or Feast-Day. But Hillel, the “Reformer" according to Geiger, according to Renan "the real instructor of Jesus," argued as follows: Since such egg was perfected on a Sabbath or Feast-Day, and therefore came unlawfully into being, it is on this account unlawful to eat it on the Sabbath or the Feast-Day following; and though it might in itself be lawful to eat the egg of such hen on the Sabbath or Feast-Day, had it been laid on a Sabbath or Feast-Day which was not either preceded or followed by a Sabbath or Festival, yet even this must be considered forbidden, because one might otherwise fall into the temptation to eat it on such Sabbath or Feast-Day, when it would, on the aforementioned grounds, be strictly prohibited to do so. And since on the Sabbath that which is to be eaten must not be carried from place to place, such egg must not only not be eaten, but not be lifted up or put aside. A conscientious person, therefore, would naturally avoid touching it, since he might be tempted even to take it in his hand, or even looking at it, since in doing so he might begin to lust after it. In this celebrated controversy of the egg,² as in many others, Hillel carried his point against Shammai, since it seems a voice was heard from heaven, [Hebrew missing] , which said, "The words of both are the words of the living God, but let the lessons of Hillel be carried into practice."³

¹ [Hebrew missing] Hillel and Shammai are thus named in the Mishna Edujoth, I.4.

² A whole treatise of the Talmud which treats of Festivals in general takes from this controversy, with which it opens, its name of Beza, “the egg."

³ b. Erubin, 13 b. According to this passage the preference was given to the doctrine of the Hillelites, because they were gentle and polite, giving due consideration to the words of the Shammaites, and even allowing the latter to take the uppermost seats at the consultation.

Now just conceive for one moment a scrupulous compatriot presenting himself to Jesus with the question whether he might eat an egg laid at such and such a time; and, supposing that his question did not die on his lips, when he found himself face to face with one whose whole aspect must have bespoken the embodiment of the spirit of the law, as well as the most uncompromising denunciation of all hypocrisy; may we not imagine what reply he would have received? For when the scribes and Pharisees asked of Jesus, “Why walk not thy disciples after the traditions of the elders, but eat bread with defiled (that is to say, with unwashen) hands?” he answered, “Well has Esaias prophesied of you, hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; howbeit, in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups, and many other such like things ye do.” (Mar. 7. 7, 8.) This ceremony, therefore, concerning which there runs a rabbinical maxim “He who despises the washing of hands shall be consumed from the face of the earth,"¹ had no religious value in the eyes of Jesus, and this solitary example will suffice to show how determined was the position he took up in opposition to that traditional law, on the upholding and development of which Hillel's special fame was grounded.

¹ b. Sola, 4 b. [Hebrew missing]

The tendencies of these two diverged as widely as heaven from earth. The teaching of Hillel is juristic, casuistic, and narrowmindedly national, whilst that of Jesus is universally religious, moral, and humane. Hillel lives and moves only in the externals, and Jesus in the spirit of the law. The latter frees the law of God from the boundaries, with which, whilst destined for but one people, it was necessarily enclosed; whilst the former strives, on the contrary, to strengthen these bands, sometimes by stricter, sometimes by milder enactments, without much laying to heart the command contained in Deut. 28. 28, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it," [Hebrew missing]. The pragmatic historian here finds himself in great perplexity. Nowhere in the times or country of Jesus do we meet with the true connecting link of the manner in which he exalts morality as opposed to ceremonialism. Renan disconnects the bon mot by means of which Hillel gained a proselyte, from the general tenor of his doctrine, in order to represent .Jesus as building on his foundation; and Geiger, who makes Jesus follow in Hillel's steps, misleads those only who are not sufficiently acquainted with Jewish literature to know that Hillel trod the broad highway of rabbinism, on which Jesus turned his back, whilst he struck into another path, which till then had never entered into the heart of man.

And how much have the Essenes to answer for?¹ But this fraternity, who much resembled the Freemasons, and were settled on the western shore of the Dead Sea, never appear on the stage of New Testament history. Indeed, since they excelled even the Pharisees in point of abstemiousness and cleanliness, and avoided yet more jealously than did these latter, all intercourse with the common people, one can scarcely imagine that any other sentiment than that of reciprocal disgust could have existed between them and Jesus (supposing, indeed, that they ever came in contact with each other), when we recollect that he received publicans, fishermen, and so-called sinners as his disciples, that he ate and drank with them, and instead of fasting, strove to encourage in his followers a spirit of nuptial joy. Nowhere in the tendencies of those times can we discover a connecting link with the teaching of Jesus, it is only to be found in the voice of Old Testament prophecy, which after a silence of two centuries and a half revived anew in John the Baptist. Jesus exhibits the old prophetic view of the worthlessness of the dead works of the law, but he says not only “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," but also, "The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath" (Mark 2. 27, 28), thus arrogating to himself a sovereignty, not only over traditional precepts, but over the actual law itself as given on Sinai, such as no prophet would have dared to assume without the most glaring presumption. Nor does he rest satisfied with interpreting the letter of the law by its spirit, but makes known his own judgments, as being the full and conclusive expression of the will of God, and as supplementing the imperfect revelation of that will contained in the Torah. This none surely had dared to do, save he who knew himself to be that mediator of the new covenant, [Hebrew missing], spoken of in Jer. 31. 31, in whom, according to the word of the prophet, the work of revelation which was begun on Sinai should be fully perfected. For instance, the law allowed a man to put away his wife, by means of a bill of divorcement, for any "uncleanness" which he might find in her, the facility of such divorce being fettered by but one condition, namely, that should the divorced woman become the wife of another, her first husband should never take her to wife again. (Deut. 24. 4)

¹ As for instance in Gratz' History of the Jews, where we read, "The most ideal conception of the Messiah, and the Messianic 'times of refreshing,' was that which the Essenes pictured to themselves." But we in fact know nothing whatever of the ideas of the Messiah which the Essenes may have entertained. "John the Baptist" continues our author, "was evidently an Essene;" but in his manner of life he was a copy of Elijah, and no Essene, and beyond his manner of life the supposition that he was an Essene is wholly unsupported.

The wording of the required ground of divorce is here so vague, that the disciples of Shammai held, that the meaning of the term it “uncleanness,” should be restricted to moral delinquency. But this view was opposed by Hillel, who actually maintained that a man might put away his wife, even if she had only burned his food.¹ Jesus here is not content with merely interpreting the law in its strictest sense, he goes much deeper and further. On the one hand he perceives in the permission to separate, and the decree of the bill of divorcement, an effect of the far-seeing wisdom of God, which sought to gradually educate to true sanctification of spirit, a stiff-necked and carnally-minded people; and, on the other hand, he opposes to this temporary divine permission, the primitive institution of marriage at the Creation as an indissoluble bond, uniting a man to his one wife (Mar. 10. 5-9), together with the expression of his own will, which certainly tolerates no ground

¹. Gittin, ix. 10. Modern Jewish authorities endeavor to do away the revolting character of this dictum, by saying, that burning food may be explained to mean, a woman having sacrificed her own reputation, or that of her family. (Vide Jost's History of Judaism and its Sects, 264.) But this view is contradicted by the words [Hebrew missing] "even if only," which indicate but a trifling fault.

of divorce excepting adultery: "But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth adultery." (Matt. 5. 32.) What sublime consciousness of equality with the Divine Majesty do the words, "But I say unto you" express! The code given on Sinai is to him merely a preparatory step in the revelation of the things of God. He knows himself to be the Mediator of that perfected and Divine Work. In the Sermon on the Mount, which even the most captious critics allow to be a true specimen of the teaching of Jesus, he recognizes on the one hand the divine character of the law, and of the Old Testament writings, when he says (Matt. 5. 17, i8), "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled;” ¹

¹This expression is known to the Talmud, but through a translation which distorts its real meaning, b. Schabbath, 116 b, "I am not come to diminish aught from the law of Moses, but to add to the law of Moses [Hebrew missing], am I come."

whilst on the other side, he opposes the mere literal and external fulfillment of the law, and urges on his hearers, in a new and deeper sense, a free-hearted and willing obedience to its precepts; laying before them, at the same time, some examples of the true spirit in which they were conceived. That inward working which is shadowed forth in Deuteronomy, and continued by the prophets, is fully carried out by him, who declares himself the fulfiller of the law and the prophets. He, who according to Geiger, “never gave utterance to a single new idea,” breathes a new spirit into the law, and writes it on our hearts in a manner unheard of till his day; a manner which differs utterly from the school of Jewish-Alexandrian allegory, and with which the few scattered beams of light met with in the rabbinical writings, cannot for a moment be compared. Need one do more than read how, in Matt. 5. 33-37, he prohibits the desecration of the name of God, and strikes at the root of perjury? “Let our communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay;” as though he has said, Your simple Yea and Nay should be equal to a solemn oath, for he who is truly pious stands ever in the presence of God. Thus too with the command, Thou shalt not kill; whilst the preparatory dispensation of the Old Testament forbids murder, He, the lawgiver of the kingdom of Heaven established amongst men, declares that the guilt of one who is angry with his brother without a cause, who insults or despises him, is equal to his who is guilty of murder. (Matt. 5. 21-24.) And how ineffably does he transfigure the stern law of retaliation by the spirit of Divine love! (Matt. 5. 38-48.) Retaliation may be practiced, not indeed rendering evil for evil, but recompensing evil with good. The law says indeed, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself (Lev. ig. 18); but by this term "neighbor" a fellow-countryman was understood, and a line of conduct was permitted in dealing with Gentiles, which would have been unlawful if pursued towards an Israelite. It ordains the utter destruction of the Canaanites and hallows the inexorable warfare, which was to be maintained against them with the devouring sword. The command to love one's neighbor appears here as narrow-hearted, as we might expect to find a precept intended for a single race, and not for all mankind. Jesus, however, breaks down this barrier of partition and inculcates an universal philanthropy, which should subsist regardless of nationality, rank, merit, or sympathy. My neighbor is henceforth every one who needs my help or whose help I need; even my enemy. All men are to acknowledge one another as brethren, for all have one Great Father in Heaven, whom he, Jesus, has revealed and brought near to them. This universal love is nowhere enjoined in the Old Testament Scriptures, and although here and there generosity towards an enemy may be inculcated, Jesus is the first and only one, who ever elevated to the rank of a moral principle this love, which should embrace even those that hate us. How deeply the whole world has been stirred by those words, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven:" all history shows. In these words the highest idea of morality is held up for our imitation, and ever since they were uttered, all true progress in the history of mankind has consisted in the triumph of the love they teach. For whatever Judaism may know of this, it is indebted, not to Hillel, nor to any other of its ancient sages, but to this Jesus of Nazareth, “who," says Geiger, “never gave utterance to a single new idea;" but who in fact ushered in a new epoch with this principle of all-embracing charity, a principle from whose light not even Judaism could hide itself, however little it may know of him, of whose glory this light is but an emanation.

Face to face with the ideal morality of the Sermon on the Mount, we cannot forbear to recognize in Jesus the truly great man, who understood the essence of morality to its very foundations; yet must we allow him to be more than this: a prophet who opposed the hypocritical, heartless righteousness of works in fashion in his day, by manifesting the spirit of the law through its letter; nor only so, but even that Prophet like unto Moses do we see him to be, whose coming is foretold in Deut. 18. 15, and who was to be the Mediator of the final revelation of God, even as Moses was the Mediator of the preparatory. But, according to his own testimony, he is One greater than these. As the liberator of religion from the swaddling bands and leading strings by which she had been fettered hitherto, he towers immeasurably above not only Hillel, but all other sages, yea, all other prophets of Israel. At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, which modern criticism allows to be "the Truest of the True," he speaks of himself as the future judge of all men, who will hold them responsible for the hearing and doing of the Word proclaimed by his mouth; and who would unmask all those hypocrites who would seek to justify themselves before him, with the judicial sentence: " I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity." (Matt. 7. 23.) And when asked by the High Priest, "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" (Mar. 14. 62) he replied, "I am: and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of Heaven." (Mar. 14. 62.) In this witness to himself he exalts himself far above mankind, and into the closest union with God. By him the destiny of all men is to be decided, and through him God's sovereignty over the human race is to be proved. What lofty self-consciousness is expressed in those self-chosen names, Son of God, and Son of Man! We will not here seek to explain these names, but this at least they teach us, that in him met the movement of mankind towards God, and the movement of God towards mankind, even as two lines converge to a common centre, and in him heaven and earth join hands in reconciliation. What shall we say then to this declaration, by which on the one side he represents himself as the Head of the human race, and on the other as essentially united to God? If we renounce both the arbitrary caprice of a Colani, the shears of whose criticism would pare away everything "exaggerated" from the testimony of Jesus to himself; and the half-heartedness of a Schenkel, who by false explanations would seek to reduce it to the level of our comprehension, there remains nothing for us but the choice, either with Strauss and Renan, to consider this Galilean, notwithstanding his incontestable greatness, only from the pathological point of view of a great intellect, strained almost to insanity, or with Paul and all the Apostles to bow in faith and adoration before the God-Man, the Savior, who, when the misery of mankind had reached its highest point, came forward self-devoted to stem the torrent; not as a Deus ex machina, but as one whose way had been prepared step by step in the expectation and history of Israel, even to that last prophetic voice, which foretells at once the advent both of the Mediator, the God-Man, and also of his forerunner in the spirit and power of Elias, John the Baptist. "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the Angel¹ of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts." (Mal. 3. 1.) The messenger is Elias, the Lord who is coming, sent by the Lord of Sabbath, is very God of very God, because in him was completed that chain of supernatural appearances of the Angel of Jehovah, which from patriarchal times had been vouchsafed in connection with the covenant of Israel. The Lord and the Angel of the covenant are one and the same, for the Angel of Jehovah is Jehovah himself, is his Presence, in whom he manifests himself. (See Ex. 33. 14; Deut. 4.37; Isa. 63. 9, [Hebrew missing]). O Israel, people of the covenant, lay this to heart; if Jesus be not this Lord and Angel of the covenant, must ye not still await his coming? But God and Man in one Person must your Messiah, your Savior be, if your prophets, even unto this Malachi, have spoken truth.

¹ It is thus that the word [Hebrew missing] is translated in the German Version. Translator.

But it is time that we unroll our third picture, in order to measure Jesus and that Hillel, whom Renan dares to represent as his true teacher, side by side. This third picture will show us clearly how the life of each differed from the other in suffering, and how far Gratz is right, when he says, in his History of the Jews (Vol. III., 1863), "The gentleness and humility of Jesus remind us of Hillel, whom indeed he appears to have taken as his model."

III

It is related in the Talmud, that on a certain occasion, two men came to high words in Jerusalem, on the following subject: "Talk not to me!" exclaimed one, "I will give 400 sus" (the name of a coin stamped with the image of Zeus, and equal in value to the Roman denarius)" to whoever shall succeed in really putting Hillel into a passion." "Done," cried the other, and proceeded to carry out his wager. It was a Friday afternoon, and Hillel was busy washing and combing in preparation for the following day, when at this most inconvenient hour, and without addressing him by his proper title, a voice shouted before his door, "Is Hillel there?" The Rabbi quickly threw on his cloak, hurried out, and enquired, "What is your will, my son?" "I would ask thee somewhat," replied his under-bred visitor. To whom Hillel: "Say on, my son." "How is it that the Babylonians have such nasty round heads?" enquired the fellow. Hillel: My son, thine is a weighty question. It is because they lack skilful midwives." The enquirer turned his back on him and walked off. After the lapse of an hour he returned and cried as before: "Is Hillel there? Is Hillel there?" The latter, wrapped in his mantle, again came forth and asked, "What wouldest thou, my son ?" "I have a question to put to thee!" "Ask it, my son!" "Why have the Tartars such little slits of eyes?" Hillel: "My son, thou hast asked a weighty question. It is because they inhabit great sandy steppes." The enquirer retired, and after another hour, raised the same uproar as on the former occasions in front of Hillel's house: "Is Hillel within? Is Hillel within?" For the third time the Rabbi, wrapping his mantle about him, came out with the words, "My son, what is your will?" "I have something to ask thee." Hillel: "Speak then, my son!" "Why," demanded his persecutor, "have the Africans such broad flat feet?" Hillel: "Because, my son, they dwell in marshy districts." The enquirer proceeded, "I would fain ask thee many other questions, but fear thou mightest be wroth." Hillel, however, drew his cloak closer around him, seated himself beside his visitor, and replied, "Say on, my son, ask whatsoever thou desirest to know." This disarmed his companion, who cried: "Thou then art Hillel, whom men call the Prince of Israel." "Yes," replied the Rabbi. "If it be so, I hope there are but few like thee in Israel." “Why so, my son?" asked Hillel. "Because on thine account I have lost four hundred denare." "Be not so hasty, my son," replied Hillel: " better is it that thou shouldest lose four hundred, and yet again four hundred denare on Hillel's account, than that Hillel should lose patience." Hillel's good nature was indeed so great, that it was almost boundless. He is said to have hired a riding-horse and running footman for an impoverished noble, and once, when such an attendant could not be procured, it is related that he himself ran three miles in this capacity.¹

¹ b. Kethuboth, 67 b, and in other places.

Hillel's complaisance indeed led him at times to transgress the bounds of truth. Shammai, for instance, insisted that in nuptial songs, nothing but truth should be spoken of the bride; whilst Hillel taught, that on these occasions, one should try and look on her with the bridegroom's eyes, and, therefore, however unattractive she might be, should praise her beauty and grace.¹ This same good nature even led him for the sake of peace to tell a lie, when once he artfully represented as a cow, an ox which he desired to have slaughtered for sacrifice in the outer-court of the Temple, in order to avoid a quarrel with the disciples of Shammai, over a point of law.² Only by the fact that his far-famed gentleness had its shady as well as its sunny side, can we understand how Hillel could have lived honored and favored under the arbitrary rule of Herod the Great, whose government was as cruel towards his own subjects, as it was cowardly towards Rome; yet, under this prince, Hillel held the highest national post of honour in Jerusalem, and attained, like Moses, as tradition informs us, the great age of 120 years.³

¹ b. Kethuboth, 16 b, 17 a.

² He waved the animal's tail about in order to conceal its sex. The story is to be met with b. Beza, 20 a, and in other places. Comp. Jost's History of Judaism and its Sects, I., 267: "Hillel not only allowed himself to be intimidated by Shammai, but also in the outer court of the temple yielded so completely to his insolent disciples, that to avoid a quarrel he was guilty of an untruth, which the Rabbins consider as a highly meritorious action on his part.

³ Bereschith Rabba, § 100.

Gentleness and its kindred virtues of humility and patience, formed a leading feature in the character of Jesus; and for this very reason he is spoken of as the Lamb. (Jno. 1.29; comp. Isa. 53. 7.). Ceaselessly wandering, and denying himself every enjoyment that did not directly tend to the furtherance of his Work, Jesus unweariedly held his ground before the multitudes who thronged around him, seeking healing or instruction; and whenever he did withdraw himself from them, it was always either to escape from a spurious enthusiasm, by which he was deeply pained, or in solitary prayer, to strengthen himself anew for his ministry of love. "The Son of Man," says he, "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mar. 10. 45.) These words enunciate that idea of atonement, which, though calculating reason may deem it absurd, is yet (and this we dare aver without the slightest exaggeration), deep graven on the hearts of all men, of whatever race they may be, or to whatever degree of culture they may have attained. When the Roman Curtius leaps from the rock to save his nation, or when, ere the Greeks set sail for Troy, Iphigenia is offered as a sacrifice; or again, when in China the brother of the Emperor Wu-Wang devotes himself to death, in the hope of thereby restoring his sovereign to health and life, all this proceeds from the impulse of an idea common to all mankind. There is, however, no people on the earth, amongst whom this idea is stronger or more deeply-rooted than amongst the Jews. To them the voices of six thousand years cry aloud, that sin demands expiation; be it by the punishment of the sinner, by which justice is satisfied, or be it by the self-substitution of an innocent person, of which mercy allows the sinner to have the benefit. In the first case, the suffering expiates as such; in the second, the atonement is effected by the voluntary suffering of the substitute, its merit and prevailing strength being poured forth on him whom it seeks to ransom.

The whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament was a foreshadowing of this idea. For the offering of the victim on the altar was in every case preceded by the presentation of the blood before the altar. The gift was first made acceptable by the atonement, and the means of atonement is the blood. Of which God the Law-giver says (Lev. 17. 11), “The life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it you to make an atonement for your souls upon the altar, [Hebrew missing] for the blood maketh atonement through the soul” ¹(the soul, that is, which it contains, which thus takes the place of the sinner). But in the case of animal sacrifices, the substitution was symbolical, not actual, as is intimated in the words, “I have given it.” The guilt of a sinner can only be really expiated by a self-devoted and innocent victim of his own race. [Hebrew missing]. In harmony with this idea there runs a Jewish saying, in reference to the ordinance, that, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest had first to make atonement for himself, before proceeding to do so for the priesthood and the whole congregation. [Hebrew missing], " i.e., the guilty cannot make atonement for the innocent, but only the innocent for the guilty." Another proverb says [Hebrew missing], or, "the death of the righteous maketh expiation;" and to this day, a pious son, when thinking of his father, will say: "May I be the atonement of his death-bed;”² whilst the tender-hearted will pray for his enemy: "If he be in the wrong, set to his account any greater uprightness that I may possess;" and if the wicked son of a pious mother should after all be converted from his evil ways, the popular judgment finds expression in the words: "His mother's ' sechus ' [Hebrew missing], i.e., merit has helped him." ³

¹ In this quotation the translator has rendered the German translation of the sacred text into English, and simply not copied the passage from our Authorized Version. It will be seen that the word through alters the meaning of the text considerably.

² See Zunz on History and Literature, p. 332

³See Kompert, History of an Alley, 1865, Vol. I., 131; II., 180

Following out this idea of mysterious, but not on that account less real, interchange of moral guilt and merit, Jesus took the determination to offer himself as an atonement for his own nation, and for all mankind. He knew that no evil exists greater than sin, which is the root of all evil; and this sin of all flesh he bore as his own, upon his heart and conscience, that he, through his holy life and innocent death, might do away this mass of iniquity from before the face of God the Just and Merciful; and might, in his own person, prove a new and vitalizing starting point in the history of the human race. But common as was this idea of atonement to all mankind, and especially to his own people, what was it that justified him in devoting to it his whole being, in making it in fact the one deed of his life? Our answer is, that he with Divine certainty knew himself to be the King-Messiah; not such a Messiah as was then hoped for, robed in transitory and worldly greatness, but such as he is depicted in the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, which ever foreshadow his universal dominion, on the dark background of a mortal agony, which should issue in the happiness, both of himself and all mankind. When, in the book of Isaiah (53. 4, 5), Jesus read the repentant lamentation of his people: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." Then, responsive to the Word of God in this Scripture, the Word of God in the depths of his being answered, saying, "Thou art he," and this outward and inward Word of God, perfected by the utterance of his divinely-human self-consciousness in the words, "I am he," formed one harmonious, three-fold chord, before which, now in over-powering joy, and now in overpowering sadness, every faculty and fiber of his being vibrated.

From the day of his baptism in Jordan, he held himself in readiness to undergo his baptism in blood. He knew who should be his murderers, namely those Pharisees, who set the minute observance of the law, above that fulfillment of prophecy, which a new epoch was ushering in. He knew also the place of his murder, even that Jerusalem, where Simon, the son of Hillel, though president of the Sanhedrin, was completely cast into the shade by Caiaphas the High Priest, a proud and blood-thirsty Pharisee. Already during his three years' ministry had death threatened him in many shapes, though he had hitherto avoided it, in order by his preparatory labors, to secure the due comprehension and fruits of his self-devotion. But every step of his restless, wandering life, brought him nearer to that Jerusalem, of which he says, It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." (Lu. 18. 31-33.) Of his own free will he goes up to the city, like a lamb to the slaughter.

Since he feared not death he feared not man; and since he met death to abolish the penalty of sin, and trample its power in the dust, we ever find his gentleness united to a lofty and courageous truthfulness, which is wanting in the meekness of Hillel. He who could say, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden" (Matt. 11. 28), was the same who brandished the scourge over the desecrators of the Temple, and treated with contempt the warning of Herod Antipas, who took him for the avenging spirit of John the

Baptist; the same who rolled the thunder of his denunciations over the Pharisees, and never kept back the truth, whatever exasperation it might arouse. For, whilst the prophets of the Old Testament all knew themselves to be subject to the law, Jesus places himself above it, as Fulfiller and Expositor of the true Will of God, and as being himself the personal goal and tangible limit of the revealed Testimony. Nay, even when a prisoner before Pilate and the Sanhedrin, he never, notwith-standing all the appearances against him, desisted from the assertion of his Divine and Kingly Majesty.

Here again we are confronted with our former dilemma. Either this witness of Jesus to himself is self-deception, and Judaism is right in shutting itself off from Christianity as from a back-sliding daughter, behind that barrier of the law, which Hillel took such pains to strengthen; or this was really he, to whom the whole choir of the Apostles, as well as the gospel of St. Mark, bears witness, when it opens with the words, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

Either this was a man who overrated himself, and, who, notwithstanding the truths contained in his teaching, did far more to falsify than to illustrate the idea of God, when claiming to be the Son of God, he made himself equal with God, as touching his nature, and by his claim to be Redeemer and judge of the world, placed himself on an equality with the Almighty as touching his office; or, here was indeed the Christ proclaimed by Old Testament prophecy as [Hebrew missing], the judge of the world, who should come to his Temple.¹ We must either share the horror of the Jewish High Priest, who on asking the question, "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed," and being answered, "I am," rent his clothes, exclaiming, “Ye have heard the blasphemy!" or we must side with the centurion, who, witnessing the death of Jesus on the cross, cried, as he drew his last breath, "Truly this was the Son of God!" (Matt. 27. 54.) Yes, this was the Son of God, he is so still, he who was dead, and, behold, he is alive again for evermore. This was the antitype of Isaac, that promised seed of Abraham, whom he offered on Mount Moriah; the antitype of David, who says (Ps. 16. 10), "Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” This is the Messiah of God, who since he is God as well as man, is called by the prophets, "The Mighty God" (Isa. 9. 6), and "Jehovah our Righteousness" (Jer. 23. 6). This was the Fulfiller of the law and the prophecy, in whom all the types and predictions of the Old Covenant are Yea and Amen. This was the Mediator of the New Covenant, which proceeding forth from Israel should embrace all mankind, and make all men heirs together of its great salvation. Here of a truth was One greater than Hillel, before whom Hillel's knowledge of the law, yea even the law itself, must pale, as would the light of a taper, or the rays of the moon, before the splendor of the rising sun.

¹ Both Christian and Jewish readers may weigh with advantage the meaning of the following texts: Isa. vii. 14, comp. with Isa. viii. 8; Isa. ix. 6 (5), comp. with x. 21; Zec. vi. is, r3, compare Psa. cx. and Jer. xxiii. 5, 6; Mal. iii. r, comp. with Hag. ii. 6-9.

To Hillel's countrymen leave we then the task of wailing at his grave. “Alas for the gentle one and pious, the disciple of Ezra." ¹

¹ [Hebrew missing] thus according to both Talmuds ran the dirge over Hillel the elder. See j. Sota, 9, 6; b. Sanhedrin, 2 n.

Let us rather remember and adore the patient spotless, slaughtered Lamb of God, making our own that confession, which Isaiah, in the fifty-third chapter of his prophecy, tells us that Israel shall in the last days pour forth, in bitter repentance for past unbelief. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted; yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." Hillel is dead, and belongs to the past, as the representative of a system of worn-out maxims; but Jesus lives, and every onward step in the progress of the human race results from the progressive victory of the light which radiates from him. For, though a Geiger may say, "He never gave utterance to a single new idea," it is, and must ever remain a fact deeply engraved on the history of the world, that in this Jesus of Nazareth, there was given to mankind a new light in the knowledge of

God, and of the life which proceedeth forth from him. And if the writings of the prophets speak truth, there will yet come a day when Joseph will make himself known unto the brethren who betrayed him; and when the twelve stars of Israel shall do him homage, to whom Jehovah, speaking by the mouth of Isaiah the prophet, says (49. 6), " It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

The Widow Directed to the Widows God

2007-08-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

Contains the introduction, preface, and 1,2,3 chapters of the first part.

INTRODUCTION

It is a remarkable fact, that the present volume is the only one devoted especially to the consolation of the widow. This does not arise from any want of feeling for the afflicted and sorrowing. Many works of great value have been written for mourners: but still the widow, in all her peculiar loneliness and severity of grief, has been only incidentally noticed 'in these volumes, or grouped with the great multitude of the bereaved. This certainly is not to be attributed to any intentional neglect or want of sympathy for those whom God bath made desolate. In Christian countries, such have a very strong hold upon the affections of the community. They also readily command the assistance of all men. We are conscious, that the mere sight of woman clad in the weeds of widowhood, sensibly affects the heart and awakens emotions of instinctive sympathy. Still, the widow, until now, could find no hook, written specially for her, and adapted to her peculiar condition, which she could take with her into her solitude. It is true, in the consolations which have been administered to the bereaved and sorrowing, there was much which would apply to the general condition of the widow. It is true, in the Bible were to be found many rich and precious assurances of special interest in the heart of God, and of protection for herself and fatherless children. But these lie scattered, and seemed to be almost too great and glorious to be meant for the poor sufferer, well nigh consumed by the intensity of her agony. There is something so sacred and touching in the sorrows of widowhood; something which so instinctively shrinks away from the public gaze, and seeks retirement, where alone and unmatched, the heart may pour out the freshness of its grief, that I do not wonder that pious men have forborne publicly to address the widow, lest they might only wound the deeper, when they merely sought to sympathize and give direction to her sorrow.

It must be admitted, that few men could with much hope of success, undertake a task so delicate. Properly to perform it, required not only a warm and generous heart, a clear and discriminating intellect, a practical acquaintance with the laws of the human mind, but also personal experience in similar grief. In all these respects, the gifted author of this volume is eminently qualified. Those who are acquainted with him through his writings and much more, those who have enjoyed his personal friendship are persuaded, that Mr. James has not only a mind at once of simplicity and elegance, but possesses a heart of unusual generosity-alive to every appeal of sorrow. Besides this, the past dispensations of Providence have made him familiar with the realties of bereavement. The wife of his youth was early taken from him, and for a considerable period he knew the deep solicitude and the pensive sorrow of him that mourneth apart. Nay, more than this, even whilst preparing this volume of consolation, all the sorrows of the past have been quickened into life, and new fountains of grief opened in his heart. By letters recently received, we learn that his present companion, a lady of peculiar excellence, both intellectual and moral, is rapidly, though sweetly, passing to the skies. Thus has Providence most singularly prepared this man of God to perform the delicate task of speaking to the widow, and by anticipated sorrows, mingling deep sympathy with her drear and cheerless solitude. Whilst he hands forth the cup of consolation, he assures the mourner that it has virtue; for he has tasted it, and proved its power. With the poet he can say, and thus teach every mourner to say-

“What though a cloud o'ershade my sight,

Big with affliction's tear;

Yet FAITH, amid the drops that fall,

Discerns a rainbow there."

It will not be thought strange, when the circumstances are considered under which this book was prepared, that it is the most precious of all his works. There is a subdued and tender spirit breathed into every paragraph and sentence. There is something which seizes upon the best feelings of the man, awakening a livelier interest in the daughters of affliction.

There is so much of God in these pages, the milder and more lovely attributes of his nature are made so delightfully prominent, that the voice of murmuring must be hushed. The divine wisdom is so clearly illustrated, carrying forward the purposes of benevolence, even by the agency of death, that the heart must confide in God and be contented.

"With patience, then, the course of duty run,

God nothing does, nor suffers to be done,

But you yourself would do, if you could see

The end of all events as well as He."

W. P.

New-York, May 1841

PREFACE.

One of the errands on which the Son of God came from heaven to earth, was to bind up the broken-hearted, and to comfort all that mourn: and during his sojourn upon earth, the tenderest sympathy was one of the virtues which adorned that holy nature, in which dwelt, as in its temple, "all the fullness of the Godhead bodily."

Like their Divine Master, the ministers of the gospel ought to be sons of consolation, and to perform the functions of a comforter, as well as those of an instructor: for if pure and undefiled religion, as regards the professors of Christianity, consists, in part, of visiting the widow and fatherless in their affliction, how much more incumbent is it on its teachers, to cherish and to manifest the same tenderness of spirit towards this deeply suffering portion of the human family. A group of children gathered round a widowed mother, and sobbing out their sorrows, as she repeats to them, amidst many tears, their father's loved and honored name, is one of those pictures of woe, on which few can look with an unmoistened eye.

Is it not strange, then, that with claims upon our sympathy, so strong and so generally acknowledged, such mourners should have engaged no pious author to produce a separate treatise for their relief? That while the department of hortatory theology is so rich in its stores of consolation for the afflicted in general, the widow should have had no tribute of sympathy specially prepared to meet her sad case? At least I know of none. Popular treatises of inestimable value, such as Cecil's "Friendly visit to the House of Mourning;" Grosvenor's "Mourner Comforted;" and Hill's "Faith's estimate of Afflictive Dispensations," published by the Religious Tract Society, under the title "It is Well;" are known by thousands to their consolation, and are, of course, as appropriate to the widow as to any other of the varieties of mourners but she needs a special message of comfort from her Lord; a voice which speaks to her case alone; a strain of consolation which, in its descriptions and condolence, is appropriate, and exclusively so, to her. As it is the peculiarity of our sorrows which often gives them their depth and pungency, so it is the peculiarity of sympathy also which gives `o this cordial for a fainting spirit, its balmy and reviving power. Affliction, like bodily disease, has numerous varieties; and, comfort like medicine, derives its efficacy from its suitableness to the case.

In Dr. Adana Thompson's "Consolations for Christian Mourners," there are two excellent sermons addressed to widows; but these constitute no exception to the statement, that there is no separate work for such mourners. May the present attempt, specially addressed to them, by one who knows, he trusts, by experience, the value of the considerations he submits to others; by one who has been called in time past to weep, and is now trembling and weeping again, be blessed by the God of all consolation, for their comfort.

The following work is written with great simplicity, in sentiment and style: for it would be a mockery of woe to approach it with far fetched subjects; recondite discussion; cold logic; or artificial rhetoric. The bruised heart loves the gentlest handling, and the troubled spirit is soothed with the simplest music. The soul has no inclination, at such times, and in such circumstances, for any thing but the "sincere milk of the word," leaving the strong meat for other and healthier seasons.

J.A.J

Edgbaston, March 9th, 1841.

CONTENTS.

FIRST PART.

APPROPRIATE SUGGESTIONS TO WIDOWS.

CHAPTER. PAGE

1. Sympathy 11

11. Submission 16

Ill. Instruction 35

IV.Consolation 54

V.Confidence in God 79

VI.Benefits of Affliction 89

SECOND PART.

SCRIPTURE EXAMPLES OF WIDOWS.

I. NAOMI, RUTH, and ORPAII 101

II. The Widow of Zarephath 116

III.The Widow of one of the Sons of the Prophets 128

IV.The Widow casting her two Mites into the Treasury 141

V. The Widow of Nain 148

VI.ANNA the Prophetess - 157

THIRD PART.

LETTERS TO WIDOWS.

JOHN HOWE, to Lady RUSSELL 163

Mrs. LOVE'S Letters to her Husband 170

Mr. LOVE's Reply 172

LETTERS FROM WIDOWS.

Mrs. HUNTINGTON'S Letter on the Death of her Husband 176

To a Friend who had lost a near Relation 180

To a Friend who had lost her Husband 185

Lady POWERSCOURT's letter on the Death of her Husband 189

Letter VI. from ditto 191

Letter VIII. from ditto 194

Letter IX. from ditto 196

Mrs. LEWIS'S Letter on the Death of her Husband 198

Conclusion 205

FIRST PART.

APPROPRIATE SUGGESTIONS TO WIDOWS.

CHAPTER I.

SYMPATHY.

A Widow! What a desolate name! If there be one amidst the crowd of mourners that tread the vale of tears, who above all others, claims our sympathy, and receives it, it is you who have laid down the endearing appellation of Wife, to take up that of Widow. It would be a mockery of your woe to say, "Woman, why weepest thou?" You may weep, you must, you ought. You are placed by Providence in the region of sorrow, and tears befit your condition. Let them flow, and mine shall flow with them, for if it be ever our duty to weep with those that weep, it is when the Widow is before us. The death-bed scene is still fresh in your recollection; the parting look, the last embrace are still present to your imagination. And oh! the sense of loss that presses like a dead weight upon your spirit, and converts this whole busy world around you, into one vast wilderness. You have my tenderest condolence. The closest tie which bound you to earth has been severed. It seems to you as if there were nothing left for you to do upon earth but to weep.' The husband's much loved image, if it hang not upon the wall, silent and motionless, is drawn upon the heart, for the imagination to gaze upon, and to remind you of your desolation. He whose absence but for a week or a day created an uneasiness which nothing could relieve but his return, is gone not for a day, or a week, or a year, but forever. He is never to come back, to gladden the heart of his wife, and to bless his household.

It has been finely observed "that the loss of a friend, (and much more the loss of a husband,) upon whom the heart was fixed, to whom every wish and endearment tended, is a state of dreary desolation, on which the mind looks abroad impatient of itself, and finds nothing but emptiness and horror. The blameless life, the artless tenderness, the pious simplicity, the modest resignation, the patient sickness, and the quiet death, are remembered only to add value to the loss, to aggravate regret for what cannot be amended, to deepen sorrow for what cannot be recalled. Other evils, fortitude may repel, or hope may mitigate, but irreparable privation leaves nothing to exercise resolution, or flatter expectation. The dead cannot return, and nothing is left as here but languishment and grief."*

But it is not merely the loss of such a friend you have to mourn, but probably the means of your comfortable sustenance. Your husband was your provider, and the supporter of your babes. When he died all your prospects faded. The sun of your prosperity set upon his grave. Even when an ample fortune is left, it is a poor substitute for that friend whose decease covered the earth with sackcloth, and spread a pall over every terrestrial scene; but what an aggravation of woe, what a dreariness is added to desolation, when' the specters of poverty and want; or even the dark portents of care and privation, rise from a husband's grave. Perhaps even his labor, and skill, and patient perseverance, were but just sufficient to support the family; and what is the widow, unused, perhaps, to business, and untrained to hardship, to do alone? “It is," says Mr. Bruce, "the climax of human sorrow, when the wife of youth is left to mourn the loss of an affectionate husband at the time when his well-formed schemes were advancing to maturity; so that, in addition to the care of providing for her rising offspring, some of whom never learned to lisp the name of father, she has to struggle with difficulties which his sagacity and perseverance might have overcome."

Nor is it only the want of support, afflicted woman you dread for yourself and your children, but the want of protection. You have seen enough of the world to know, how selfishness prevails over benevolence, and how little disinterestedness is to be expected from that multitude, in which are to be found so many who oppress the weak, and so many more that neglect the friendless. A thousand fears of insult and injuries rise in your perturbed mind, and you feel as if the tear of the widow, and the cry of the fatherless, will have little power to interest the busy, and to melt the iron heart of the unjust. Already, perhaps, you think you have received significant hints, not to be mistaken, even from the friends of your husband, that your expectations, even of counsel and advice, much more of other kinds of assistance, must be very limited. It is possible, however, that sorrow, solitude, and dependence, may have produced a sensitiveness on this subject, which makes you more suspicious and mistrustful, than you have need to be, and that after all, there is a larger portion of sympathy and generous intention, than you may be led to suppose.

To the widow of the departed Christian, there is another ingredient in the cup of her sorrow, another aggravation of the loss she has sustained, and that is, she is deprived of her own spiritual comforter and companion ; and if she be a mother, of the religious instructor and guide of her children. He that was at once the king, the prophet, and the priest of the little domestic community, is removed. How tenderly did he solve her doubts, relieve her perplexities, and comfort her in her sorrows. How sweet was it to take counsel with him on the things of another world, and to walk to the house of God in company. What sabbaths they spent, and what sacramental seasons they enjoyed together. And then his nightly and morning sacrifice at the domestic altar; his fervent prayers, and his pious breathings for his family but that tongue is now silent in the grave ; those holy hands are now no more lifted up to bless the household; that mild scepter of paternal rule has dropped. Even he, good man, felt a dread and a trembling that sometimes almost overcame his faith and trust, as lie lay upon his death bed, and anticipated the hour when he should leave his children amidst the snares and temptations of this dangerous world. I do not wonder that you, his sad survivor, should feel your great responsibility, as you look round on the bereaved circle, and remember that these young immortals are left to your sole guidance and guardianship. Often you say, as the tears roll down your cheeks, “It is not merely, nor chiefly, the care of their bodies, nor the culture of their minds, that makes me feel my sad privation, but the interests of their souls. I could eat my bread, if it were only bread, and drink my cup of cold water, and deal out bread and water to them with tolerable composure, if I could well discharge the duty I owe to their souls, and see them following their sainted parent to the skies : but oh ! the thought that my boys have lost a father to guide them along the slippery paths of youth, and form their character for time and eternity too; and that at a season when his instructive example, and advice was most needed; this is the wormwood and gall of a widow's cup."

Afflicted woman, if sympathy be a balm for the wounds of your lacerated heart, you have it. Bad as human nature is, it is not so entirety bereft of the whatsoever things are lovely, as not to condole with you. It is not yours to reproach, in the language of holy writ, the insensibility of a whole generation, and say, " Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by: come see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, wherewith the Lord has afflicted me." This little volume, at any rate, comes to you as a comforter and a counselor. One individual has thought upon you; and as a minister of him, who wept at the grave of Lazarus, and who restored to the widow of Nain, her son, when she was following him with a heart half broken to the grave, he comes with more than human sympathy, and earthly consolation. It is balm from heaven he brings, and a divine medicine for your sick and sorrowful heart. It is Christianity, in the person of one of its ministers that presents the cup of peace. O urn not away from it, nor refuse to be comforted. Hush then, the clamor of tumultuous thoughts; calm the perturbations of your troubled spirit; for the voice of the Comforter can be heard only in the silence of submission. Yes, even your grief is susceptible of alleviation. I can not break open the tomb to undo the work of Death, and re-animate and restore the dust which lies sleeping there: I cannot replace by your side the dear companion that has been torn from it: but I can suggest topics, which, if you can sufficiently control your feelings to ponder them, are of such a nature, so soothing and sustaining, that they will pluck the sting from your affliction, and enable you by God's grace, to bear up with fortitude under a load, which would otherwise crush you to the earth. I am anxious at once to possess you with the idea that you ought not to be, and need not be inconsolable. Tenderly as I feel for you, and anxious as I am not to handle roughly the wounds which have been inflicted upon your peace, still I must remind you that you are not authorized to indulge yourself in an unlimited liberty of grief; nor to justify such an excess, by affirming that you do well to be sorrowful even unto death. I beseech you then to obtain leave of your agitated heart, to listen to the gracious words of Him of whom it is so beautifully said, "He comforteth those that are cast down." In his name 1 speak to you; and I speak of that which I have tasted, and felt of the Word of Gob. I too have been afflicted like yourself, and have known, not by observation merely, but by experience, what a desolation and blank one single death can make in the garden of earthly joys: and where in that hour of dreariness and woe, the lonely spirit may find a refuge and a home.

* Dr. Thomson's Consolations for Mourners, p. 119.

CHAPTER II.

SUBMISSION.

"Be still, and know that .I am God." Such is the admonition which comes to you; and which comes from heaven. It is GOD himself that has bereaved you, through whatever second causes he has inflicted the blow. Not even a sparrow falleth to the ground without his knowledge, much less a rational and immortal creature. He has the keys of death, and never for a moment trusts them out of his hand: the door of the sepulcher is never unlocked but by himself. Though men die and drop as unheeded by many as the fall of the autumnal leaf in the pathless desert, they die not by chance. Every instance of mortality; that for example which has reduced you to your present sorrowful condition, is a separate decision of infinite wisdom. Whether therefore the death of your husband was slow or sudden; at home or abroad; by accident or disease; it was appointed, and all its circumstances arranged by GOD. "Be still, therefore, and know that he is God who doeth his will among the armies of heaven, and the inhabitants of the earth, nor allows any one to say unto him, What doest thou?" Bow down before him with unqualified submission, and find relief in acquiescence. But what is submission to God? It is not a stoical apathy; a state of mind that scorns to feel; a proud refusal to pay the tribute of a tear to nature's God, when he demands it. No: chastened grief is allowed, is called for. Sorrow is one of the natural affections of the soul, not to be uprooted, but cultivated. If we did not feel our losses, we should not be the biter for them. Gentle and well directed grief, softens our hard hearts, and prepares them for the impression of divine truth, just as showers in spring mollify the ground, and meeten it for the reception of the seed, and the process of germination. But then you must repress inordinate grief. Submission to the will of God, while it allows reasonable sorrow, forbids that which is excessive. Give not yourselves up to sorrow. All passionate distress, such as shuts out consolation and refuses to be comforted, is high rebellion against the will of heaven. It is at once irreligious and unreasonable. It is more, it is destructive, for it is "the sorrow of the world that worketh death." Your health is now doubly precious, and your life doubly desirable, for the sake of your children. You alone have now to care for them, perhaps, to provide for them; and it is immensely important not to waste that strength and energy in consuming sorrow, which is necessary for their welfare. Excessive grief will not only unfit you for exertion, but it will incapacitate you from deriving any improvement from the stroke. The voice and lessons of God's providence will be unheeded, yea, unheard, amidst the noise of your tumultuous sorrows. Restrain your feelings. Call in reason, and especially religion, to your assistance.

Submission forbids all passionate invective; all rebellious language; all bitter reflections on second causes; and all questionings about the wisdom, goodness, or equity of Providence. "I was dumb," said the Psalmist, "I opened not my mouth;" there is submission "because thou didst it;" there is the ground of it. It is said of Aaron, when both his sons were struck dead before the Lord, he "held his peace." It was not the silence of stupor, or of stubbornness, but of submission. How striking is the commendation passed upon Job, when it is said, in reference to his behavior under his complicated losses, "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." He said nothing irreverent, or rebellious against God. But it is equally incumbent upon you, in order to the performance of this duty, that you should not only suppress all murmuring and complaining language, but all thoughts and feelings of this kind. If while the tongue is silent, the heart is full of rebellion, there is no acquiescence. Many, who would be afraid, or ashamed to give utterance to their feelings of insubordination, still continue to indulge them. The abstinence from murmuring and repining words, then, is not submission, unless the heart be still. We must not contend with God, not fight against Providence within the breast, for "he searcheth the heart and trieth the reins of the children of men."

Submission is that state of the soul under afflictive dispensations of Providence, which produces acquiescence in the will of God, as just, and wise, and good. It expresses itself in some such manner as the following; "I feel and deeply feel the heavy loss I have sustained, and nature mourns and weeps; but as I am persuaded it is the Lord's doing; who has a right to do as he pleases, and who is at the same time too wise to mistake, and too benevolent to put me to unnecessary pain, I endeavor to bow down to his will."

Such is submission; but how difficult! How hard the duty to acquiesce in an event, which has reduced you to such a state of desolation, that earth seems to have lost its principal chirms. Difficult my afflicted friend it is, but not impossible. All things are possible with God, and what you cannot do in your own strength, you can in his. Multitudes have submitted, whose loss was as great, whose prospects were as gloomy as yours. I have heard the language; I have seen the conduct of submission in widows' houses, and have admired the grace of God, as manifested in such persons, and in such circumstances. That grace is sufficient for you. Do not make up your mind that submission is impossible for you; on the contrary, be persuaded that it may, by God's help, become your privilege, as it unquestionably is your duty, to exercise it. Pray for it, let this he the burden of your supplication to God, but let is be presented in faith;

O Lord my best desires fulfil,

And help me to resign,

Life, health, and husband, to thy will,

And make Thy pleasure mine.

In bringing you and others to this state of mind, God employs motives; he places certain truths and sentiments before the mind of the afflicted and enables them to contemplate these principles with such fixed attention, as to admit their reasonableness and force, and under their soothing and powerful influence, to suppress the murmur, and hush every complaint to silence. Some of these I now present to your notice.

1. Consider God's indubitable and unlimited right to take from you the dear companion of your life.

Are we not all his creatures, over whom he has an absolute, and irresponsible control? Has he acted the part of a ruthless invader of your domicile, and committed an aggression, which he can as little justify, as you could resist? Is it an unauthorized spoliation? No. Painful as it is to you, it was not an unrighteous act in him. Shall he not do as he will with his own? You received your husband, if you received him with right views, rather as a loan, than an absolute gift; as a favor lent to be recalled at any time, when the donor thought proper to do so. And new he has demanded it back again. Hearken to his expostulation; "Woman, I do you no wrong, in asking for what belongs to me. Hare I deceived you? Did I ever renounce my right, or promise to forego my claim; or even intimate that I would not urge it, till you had arrived at extreme old age? Be still, and know that I am God." Do not then contend with God. Yield to his sovereign will. Submit to his disposal.

2. But this perhaps will be thought by some like vinegar to a festering wound; and it will be felt as a harsh and feeble motive to submission, to tell a mourning widow that God had a right to take from her the desire of her eyes. "Oh!" she is ready to exclaim, "is this all you can say to me?" No: but it is the basis of every thing else: and even this is said rather to awe the rebellious thoughts, to keep in check the turbulent feelings, in order that silence and calmness being obtained, softer and sweeter accents may be listened to. Think then of his unerring wisdom. He cannot mistake. He does nothing at random, nothing in haste, nothing in ignorance. "He is wise in heart:" and his understanding is infinite. He worketh all things after the counsel of his will. He fills every thing with the product of his all-wise mind; yes, even your bitter cup of sorrow. "Verily he is a God that hideth himself," but it is in the secret place of his infallible wisdom. "His judgments are a great deep," but it is a depth of unfathomable knowledge. There is some wise end to be answered; some object worthy of himself to he accomplished in your bereavement. He may not, and will not, perhaps, reveal it to you now, for reasons which he can justify: but if it were proper or possible for you to know it, you would exclaim, "Oh the depth of the riches both of his wisdom and knowledge! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." If you could see the wisdom of his plans, and it were then left to your choice to take back your husband again from the grave, you would not dare to do it, on account of the disarrangement and disorder which you would see must ensue. Have you not sometimes abstracted something from your children, without assigning any reason, or explaining to them what it would be improper for them to know, or impossible for them to comprehend, and required them to confide in your known prudence? Is it too much for God to expect this confidence from you? He is wise: confide in his wisdom. The moment your thoughts are rising into rebellion, or sinking into despondency, repeat the short, the simple, but the potent sentiment, "God has done it, and God is wise."

3. Nor is this all: for God is good. His name IS Love. His wisdom is employed to fulfill the purposes of benevolence. He is concerned for the happiness of his creatures. "He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." He takes no pleasure in the tears and groans of his offspring, an more than earthly parents do, but like them, he often sees it necessary to call for their tears. Did you never exercise your kindness in taking from the hand of a child, that which the babe would not surrender without weeping? Divine goodness, when it is clearly understood in all its schemes and motives, will be as clearly demonstrated in what it takes, as in what it gives. Add these two ideas together, infinite goodness, and infinite wisdom. Apply them both to God: believe that they really belong to him, and that they were both concerned in your affliction, and then murmur if you can. Did we really believe in the doctrine of Providence, and that he who superintends its administration, unites to an arm of omnipotence, a mind of infinite knowledge, and a heart of boundless love, submission would be easy. Is the sepulcher of a husband the only place where his wisdom and love may be doubted? Are these glorious attributes dead and buried in the grave of that beloved man whom you have lost? It is nothing that you cannot understand how your present melancholy circumstances can comport with love; your children often found it as difficult to harmonize your conduct with love; but now they are arrived at manhood, they clearly comprehend it, and admire the rich displays of judicious kindness with which your treatment of them was replete. The time of weeping and suffering, and with it the time of ignorance, has passed away, and now your paternal character stands justified before them. So shall it be with you, when you have reached your maturity in heaven, you will see the goodness of God which was contained even in these painful dispensations of providence, under which you now so bitterly suffer. Yes, God is good, do not doubt it. Every attribute of God's nature is a motive to submission; every view we can take of that nature, and our relations to him, is a reason why we should acquiesce in what he does. It is only when out of sight of him, that we can indulge in a rebellious murmuring, and a refractory resistance of his will; the moment we come back into his awful presence, and realize him as near, we feel subdued.

4. But the foundation of this state of mind is laid, not only in considering what God is, but what we are. Murmuring and complaining have their origin in ignorance or forgetfulness of our sinful condition. None can truly submit to affliction which they do not feel they have deserved. The heroine, a widow, of what has been called one of the purest of our tragedies, is made to say, in the bitterness and pressure of her griefs" Gracious heaven, what have I done, to merit such afflictions'? As long as you have such an opinion of yourself, there is, there can be, no submission. The very idea that we do not deserve it is rebellion against the will of heaven, and will inevitably lead to the most unholy and un-chastised sorrow. It is only when we enter into the words of the Psalmist that we shall give up our murmurings and repinings. "He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.”. How meekly does the prophet submit to the chastening hand of God, under the subduing power of this one thought, " I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him." "Wherefore should a man complain, a living man for the punishment of his sins." Oh sufferer, take this view of your case, and consider yourself a sinner. Call to recollection what sin is, an infinite evil, and deserving of an infinite punishment; an evil that might have long since consigned You to the abodes of interminable misery. Dwell upon the number, the aggravations, and the repetitions of your sins. Among other sins, perhaps, you may mention your ingratitude for, and misimprovement of the mercy you have lost. You made your husband your god, inasmuch as you loved him more than God: and can you wonder that he is removed? "It is of the Lord's mercies that you are not consumed, because his compassions fail not." Dare you murmur, since you have only the rod, when you might have had the curse? Does the language of complaint become those lips, which might have been pouring forth the petition for a drop of water to cool your parched tongue? I deny not the reality or the weight of your affliction: I do not insult your griefs by affirming that there is no cause for them. I admit you may justly go mourning all your days; but then I contend it is a powerful motive to submit, to consider that you might have been tormented through all eternity: and that nothing has a more powerful tendency to check the excess of sorrow, than the consideration, that your sins have justly merited all you have suffered, ever will, or ever can, suffer on earth.

5. But I may also mention that one of the great ends of Providence in sending the affliction is to bring you into a'state of submission. Perhaps you have never yielded your heart to God. God spake to you in your prosperity, and you would not hear. You have tried to be independent of God. You have lived for yourself and not for God. You have never yet taken his yoke upon you. In the days of your fullness you yielded not your heart to him; and now he is calling you to yield to him in the time of your straits. As you would not submit to him amidst the joys of the married state, he has placed you in widowhood, and calls for submission there. "Surely she will resign herself to me now," is perhaps his declaration and expectation. How much is he set on producing this state of mind in you, when he takes such methods to accomplish it. Shall his end be defeated? Will you resist now? Will you carry on the conflict in your weeds? 'What, not yield now, broken, disappointed, forlorn, as you are? Will you be rebellious, not only in sight of the flowing fountain, but amidst the wreck and fragments of the broken cisterns; and contend against God, like Jonah, not only beneath the shade of the green and flourishing gourd, but before the naked stem of the blighted and withered one? Oh woman, submit to God, it is for this he has driven thee into the wilderness, like HAGAR of old, and mayest thou, like her, cease the conflict there, and say, "Thou God seest me. Here also have I looked after him who seeth me.”

6. Among the motives to submission, should be placed, a due regard to your own comfort. It has been beautifully said, that the wild bird, yet untamed and unaccustomed to confinement, beats itself almost to death against the wires of its cage, while the tame prisoner, quietly acquiesces, and relieves its solitude by a song. An apt illustration of the soothing influence of submission. No possible relief, but a certain and immense addition to the calamity is gained by mourning and repining. It is a vain and useless thing, as well as a sinful one. It is of itself a deep affliction, a sad discomposure of spirit, a fever of the

heart, a delirium of the soul, and is so much added to the weight of the original trouble. But resignation to the dispensations of God's Providence, what a blessed anodyne is this to the soul; what a sabbath from all those sinful disturbances which discompose our spirits; it is a lower heaven; a green and sunny spot in a region of gloom, and desolation: for as in the state of glory there is an unchangeable agreement between the will of the Creator and of the creature, so according to the same measure wherein we conform our wills to God's now, we proportionably enjoy the holiness and blessedness of that state. Daughter of sorrow, since you can no longer enjoy the pleasure of possession, seek the comfort of submission. Extract by resignation, the few drops of cordial, which even your wormwood and gall contain. Forbidden any longer to enjoy the sweetness of gratitude for the retention of the boon, open your heart to the tranquillizing comfort of surrendering it to God. Mollify the wounds of your lacerated heart with the balm of acquiescence, and do not inflame them with the uncontrolled grief of a rebellious spirit. Try the effect of these sweet words, "Father, not my will, but thine be done." They will be like the voice of Christ, to the winds and waves of the stormy lake: or like heavenly music to the troubled mind. There is no relief but in unqualified submission, and there is relief in that.

7. Perhaps you are a professor of religion, and ought to find in that another and a powerful motive to this frame of mind. You profess to believe in God through Christ, and to consider him as the author of all our trials, as well as of all our comforts; to view him as your Father; to be assured that he loves you too well to do you any harm ; to he confident that he is making all things work together for your good. Now then let us see the blessed influence of your faith. Let us behold in you the tranquillizing power of your principles. Should you sorrow as do others? Should you appear as uncontrollable in your, grief as those who know not God. A day or two since I visited a widow, whose husband had been killed by the overthrow of a carriage. I found her as might be expected deeply afflicted; but it was grief kept within due , bounds by the controlling power of eminent piety, as dignified as it was deep, and there were circumstances too, eminently calculated to produce a complicated sorrow. Her calm, though affecting distress attracted the attention of a lady whose brother had died awfully sudden. "Ah," she exclaimed, to my bereaved friend, "how differently did my sister-in-law act to what you have done. But your composure is the effect of religion. I see now the power of religion." Be it your study to exhibit the same power, and to draw forth the same testimony. Glorify God in the fires. Let it be your prayer that your religion may shine forth in all its luster, and manifest itself in all its glory. Let it be one of your consolations to be enabled to do honor to the truth and grace of God in your support. Think what an effect a contrary spirit will have upon those who observe it. How many widows making a profession of religion, have by the violence of their grief astonished the observer of their conduct. It was not a scene or a season in which to utter the language of reproach, but who could help saying to themselves, though delicacy kept them from saying to the sufferer, "Where in all this tumult of soul, and excessive grief, is their religion. Is there no help for them in God? We expected a calmer sorrow, from a christian. She does not much commend religion to us."

8. Some of you may contrast year circumstances with those of others around you. Wrap not your weeds upon you, and say, "Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow?" Is there? Yes; and far greater. You have lost a good husband; but perhaps you have a comfortable support for yourself and your children,-there goes the poor widow who has lost her support, as well as her husband. You are left with fatherless children, but they are kind and dutiful, there is a widow whose heart bruised by her loss, is well nigh broken by the unkindness of an undutiful son. Your children are all in health, there is a widow who pours her daily tears over a crippled son, or a consumptive daughter. You are surrounded by a wide circle of sympathizing friends; there is a widow, forlorn, alone, and a stranger in this busy world. Oh it is well sometimes to compare our sorrows with those of others. What widow that shall read these pages can speak of grief like the following?-

“A poor woman, from the north of England, went with her family to seek employment in the parish of St. Mary-le-bone, London. The husband, through fatigue, was attacked with a bilious fever; the disorder soon assumed a very malignant, putrid character, of which he died. Two of the children caught the infection, and died also. The widow was reduced, with her surviving children, to the most deplorable poverty, and seemed on the point of starving. In this situation she was visited by a christian, who observed an old Bible, with a large print, lying on her table. He said, `I perceive you can read, and have got the best of books by you.' She replied, Oh, sir, what should I have done without it? It is not my own. My eyes are, with illness, anxiety, and tears, too weak for a small print: I borrowed this Bible of a neighbor. It has been food to my body as well as to my soul. I have often passed many hours without any nourishment, but I have read this blessed book, till I have forgotten my 'hunger.' Sometime after this the poor woman died, literally worn down and exhausted with want and anxiety; but the night before she expired, the consolations of the Holy Scriptures shone in her countenance. She spoke of her dissolution with a smile of sacred triumph; enumerated her pious ancestors and acquaintance, with whom she trusted shortly to unite in joy and felicity; and seemed, as it were, to feel the saying brought to pass, which is written, `Death is swallowed up in victory.'”

Read this, and be still. Read this, and learn that there is no weight of sorrow under which genuine faith in God's word, cannon sustain you.

9. Make another comparison, I mean between your losses and trials, as a woman, and your merries and gains as a christian. Here, say you, is the grave of my dear husband, there, I say, is the cross, the grave, the throne of your Redeemer. Here, say you, is his vacant seat at my table, his vacant place at my side, his vacant chair at my hearth-there is God, with his smiling countenance, his heart of love, his covenant of grace, his all-sufficient resources, to fill the vacuum. Here, say you, is the weight of woe and care pressing upon my heart, like a dead unsupportable load but there is not the burden of unpardoned sin, sinking down your soul to the bottomless pit. Here, say you, is now my gloomy house -there is the house of your God, always inhabited by his gracious presence. Here, say you. I am a forlorn creature upon earth, having lost all that rendered the world delightful-there is heaven glowing like a brilliant firmament over your head, into which your departed husband has entered, and where you will soon join him in glory everlasting. Think how many widows there are, who have no covenant God to go to; no consolations of the Spirit to sustain them; no pleasure in the Bible or in prayer to soothe them. You, even you, ought to rejoice in a present Savior and a future heaven. All the attributes of God, all the offices of Christ, all the consolations of the Spirit, all the promises of scripture, all the blessings of grace, all the prospects of glory remain to be set over against your loss: and is not this enough?

CHAPTER III

INSTRUCTION.

GOD is the best and only infallible teacher. “None teacheth like him." He delivereth his lessons in various ways, and through different mediums. The Scriptures, of course, contain the fullest and clearest revelation of his will; but these are corroborated and illustrated by the works of nature, and the dispensations of Providence. Events are pregnant with instruction. "Hence," saith the prophet, "the Lord's voice cometh unto the city: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it." Yes, every rod, as well as every word, has a voice; and it becomes us to listen to it. Afflicted woman, read the lessons which Providence has inscribed in dark characters on the tomb of your husband. It may be that God is saying to you, "I spake unto thee in thy prosperity, but thou saidst I will not hear; this hath been thy manner from youth that thou obeyedst not my voice." Jer. xxii. 21. Taken up with the enjoyment of the dear objects to be found in a quiet and comfortable home, you withheld your heart from God. You neither loved, served, enjoyed, nor glorified him as the end of your existence. Your husband was your idol, the stay and prop of your mind: and now God, who is a jealous God, and will not endure a rival, has removed the object of that supreme attachment, which ought to have been placed on him; and in language which derives additional weight and solemnity from being uttered over the sepulcher, saith "I am God, and there is none else. Thou shalt have none other God besides me; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, and heart, and soul, and strength." This is his demand now, and it always was. It is not only what he says, now in the wilderness into which he has driven you, but what he said when you walked in the Eden of your earthly delight, and felt that your husband was to you as the tree of life in the midst of the garden. Now then open your ear, and hear the voice of his Providence. Open your eve and read the lessons which, as I have said, are inscribed on that tomb, which contains all that was dearest to you on earth. Desire to learn; be willing to learn; and much is needed to be learnt from the sorrowful scenes through which you have been, and still are called to pass. When God takes such methods to teach, surely you should he willing to learn; and it may be that it is his intention to make up to you by spiritual instruction and consolation, if you will receive it, the loss he has called you to sustain of temporal comfort.

1. Are you not most impressively reminded of the evil of sin?

What could more affectingly illustrate this, than the deep sorrow which has fallen upon you ? If the magnitude of an evil may be ascertained by the magnitude of its effects, what must sin be, which has produced such consequences, as those you have witnessed. What agonies it has inflicted, what ties it has rent asunder, and what desolation it has made, what scenes it has produced, that widowed mother, those helpless, perhaps portionless babes, that gloomy house, those flowing tears too well proclaim! And what is the cause? Sin." Sin entered into the world and death by sin: so death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Yes; death with all its consequences, are the bitter fruits of sin. Had not man sinned he had been immortal. Every instance of death is the infliction of a penalty; for "the wages of sin is death." Think of what sin has robbed you. Calculate the mischief which it has wrought in your desolate abode. What has made you a widow? Sin. What has made your children fatherless? Sin. And think of the millions who are at this moment, in similar sad and melancholy circumstances. God is benevolent, and doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men; and yet he is perpetually multiplying widows and orphans by the ravages of death. How evil must sin be in his sight, when he takes this method of showing his abhorrence of it; when lie has fixed this penalty to it. And then this is only the first death, a mere type and symbol of that more painful" second death," which falleth upon the wicked in another world. Consider then the evil of sin. Take deep, large, views of it. Recollect you are a sinner: not vicious indeed, but virtuous; not profligate, but moral; but still a sinner in the sight of God. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Oh have you thought of this? Have you been convinced of sin by the Spirit of God? Have you seen your sinfulness, as well as heard of it? Felt it, as well as known it? Many have thought of their sins, for the first time in their life, with any seriousness, in their afflictions; and have said with the poet:-

Father ! I bless thy gentle hand;

How kind was thy chastising rod,

That brought my conscience to a stand,

And brought my wandering soul to God.

Foolish and vain I went astray,

E're I had felt thy scourges, Lord;

I lost my guide and lost my way:

But now I love and keep thy word.

‘Tis good to me to wear the yoke,

For pride is apt to rise and swell

'Tis good to bear my Father's stroke,

That I might learn his statutes well.

If you have thought but little of sin till now, may you begin to think upon it in your affliction. You have lost your husband, but how much greater a calamity would be the loss of your soul; and lost it must be, if you have no just sense of sin. There can be no salvation without pardon; and no pardon with out repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and no repentance and faith, without the knowledge of sin. Oh! what an unutterable blessing will it prove; what a cause for adoring wonder and gratitude through all time and eternity too, if such affliction should prove to be the means of your eternal salvation; and if the death of the dear companion of your life should be overruled for the salvation of your immortal soul. Happy will it be, if led by this event to think of the sinfulness of your heart and conduct in the sight of God, you should be brought, in the character of a true penitent, and real believer, to the foot of the cross. How will a sense of divine pardon sooth your sorrows! How will God's forgiving love comfort your soul! How sweetly will you sing even while the tear of widowhood is glittering in your eye, and its sable costume is spread over you, "It was good for me that I was afflicted."

2. Another lesson to be learnt by widowhood is the vanity of the world, and its insufficiency to make us happy. "Vanity of vanity, said the preacher; all is vanity, and vexation of spirit." And you have found it to be so. You have proved that the world, if not an unsatisfying, is at any rate, an uncertain portion. How joyous, till lately, were your circumstances. The purest happiness of an earthly nature is that which springs up in a comfortable home, where there is a cordial union of hearts, as well as a legal union of hands, between man and wife. The tender sympathy, the delicate affection, the minute attentions, the watchful solicitude, the ceaseless offices of conjugal love, are the sweetest ingredient in the cup of life, and contribute a thousand times more to terrestrial enjoyment, than all the possessions of wealth, and all the blandishments of rank, station, and fashion. "With the affection, and health, and company of my husband," exclaims the fond and devoted wife, "I feel nothing wanting to my comfort, and can easily dispense with many things that others consider essential to their enjoyment." Such, perhaps, my mourning reader, was once your happy lot, for such a sharer of your domicile had you. Little cause had you to envy the gay or the great; as little to sigh for their access to the party or the rout. To welcome at eventide, when the heat and burden of the day were over, the good man of the house, to his own fireside, and to your society, and to feel the honest pride and satisfaction of a wife, that he needed no other society to make him happy, this was your nightly joy, for years that flew too fast. Perhaps you thought too much had been said about the vanity of the world, for it was a pleasant world to you, and you were ready to blame the preacher, and call him ascetic and misanthropic, and reproach him for disturbing the happiness of others by the wailings of his own disappointed heart. But, ah! you too, have at length returned an echo of that sad cry, and said in the bitterness of your spirit, "All is vanity." Yes, the lovely vision of your domestic bliss has vanished. Death has intruded, and changed the scene. No more returns at the accustomed hour, the joy of your heart and the light of your eyes. His chair is vacant. His place at the fire-side, which knew him once, knows him no more He is not on a journey. No: he is in the grave, and with him died the world to you. Every thing is now changed; and you too exclaim, "Oh, vain world, thou hast deceived me. Are all thy flattering smiles, and ample promises, come to this? In one hour I have fallen from the heights of happiness, into all the depths of woe. And am I a widow? Yes, and a widow indeed."

Such then is the world: such all it can do to make you happy. Hearken to the language of God, by the prophet, "My people have committed two evils, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." There are the fragments of the broken cisterns; there the spilled water; there the memorials of fragile comfort, and disappointed hope; -and there, hard by, let me add, the blessed contrast, the full and flowing fountain, sending out its never failing streams of pure and living waters. The world has deceived and forsaken you. Now turn to God. You cannot restore the broken cistern; nor gather up tie wasted contents: now turn to the fountain. You have settled your heart upon the creature, and it has proved a quicksand; now settle it on God, "the rock of ages." You have leaned upon an arm of flesh, and it has failed you; now trust to the arms of the Omnipotent Spirit. How many, when the first shock of their disappointment was over, and their faculties have recovered from the stunning influence of their loss, have seen the folly as well as sin, of trusting for happiness to mortal man, and have turned their weeping, longing, and imploring eye to the eternal God. And even those who have been convinced before, of the vanity of the world, at least by profession, and have been taught to set their hearts on God, have perhaps forgotten too much their principles and their profession, and trusted for a larger share of their happiness than they ought to have done, to the things that are seen and temporal. Yes, you who are called the people of God, and are such, we hope, even you have trusted far more to the world, to the life of your husband, and to your other possessions for your soul's portion, than was your duty. An earthly-mindedness has crept over you and damped the ardor of your religious affections. You have sought the day-light of your soul from the smile of a creature, instead of the light of God's countenance; and now the lesser luminary is extinguished, and you are in darkness. Still, however, the greater light remains; the Sun of Righteousness is shining in all its splendor and noon-tide glory; go forth from your gloomy and disconsolate situation into the brightness and warmth of his heart cheering radiance, and sun yourself in the ardor of his beams.

3. What a lesson does widowhood teach of the power and value of true religion: and that in two ways. First by the influence of it, where it is possessed; in supporting the mind and consoling it, amidst sorrows which from any other source, knows not consolation's name. I appeal to devout and holy women, who have been enabled in the hour of their extremity to cast themselves by faith, and prayer, and submission upon God, and to still the tumult of their thoughts, and keep down the rising tide of their grief, by the potency of his grace, whether the value of piety ever rose so high in their esteem, as in that moment when they first answered to the name of widow, and they felt that they could do it without fainting at the sound. Friends gathered round them in all the tenderness of sympathy, and there was a balm in their words, and looks, and actions; but at the same time, each new comer seemed in other respects to open their wounds afresh, and to be a new remembrance of the loss sustained. It was only when the mourner could get to her Bible, and to her God, in all the power of faith and prayer, that she felt she could be sustained; and then she did feel it. Astonished at her own calmness; at her tranquility amidst such a wreck, she at first questioned whether it was indifference, stupefaction, or religion. It could not be the first, for she was as sure of her love, as she was sure of her existence; nor the second, for she reasoned, reflected, and anticipated; it must therefore, she said, be the last; it must be faith laying hold of the promise, and staying itself in darkness upon the name of God. It must be the power of God perfecting its might in weakness the flowing in of grace into a soul, which grace has first made willing and able to receive it. How wondrous must the faith of Abraham have appeared to himself, when he came to reflect on what he had done, or rather what the grace of God had wrought in him, in his willingness to offer up Isaac. Inferior to this, of course, but analogous to it, has been the surprise of many an afflicted widow at the submission and confidence with which she laid the ashes of her husband in the sepulcher. What else could have so sustained her, bereft as she was of what gave to earth its chief interest? Let that religion still support you. What it has done, it can do. It has proved to you its reality and its power: still trust it as the anchor of your soul, sure and steadfast. If it prevented you from sinking, when the shock came first upon you, it can do the same through every future stage of your solitary journeying, and every future scene of your now unshared sorrow. But perhaps your present situation demonstrates the excellency of religion, by another medium of proof, I mean by the want of it. You have not religion to support you, and you have therefore literally nothing. The storm has come, and you are without a shelter. The cup of wormwood and gall is put into your hand, and you have nothing with which to sweeten it. Well then now, when every thing else fails, turn to this one and only refuge that remains. It opens to you now. You feel that nothing else is of any avail. It is not too late. God waits to be gracious. Oh let me now sound in your ears the music of our Lord's comfortable words, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' Oh mark that, the heavy laden. No matter what may be the burden whether of sin, or of care, or of sorrow, there is rest from it in Christ. If you look to him by faith to take away the burden of your sin, he will lighten every other load that presses upon your spirit. Jesus Christ, the Savior of the lost, is the comforter of the distressed. He meets the natural cry of misery, and goes out to wipe away the tears of sorrow, by the hand of his redeeming mercy. He came to bind up the broken-hearted, and to comfort those that mourn: but it is in his own way. Many have come to him, led as it seemed by the mere instinctive longing after happiness, and have tried faith in the gospel as a last and almost hopeless experiment, after the failure of every other attempt to obtain consolation. And oh! what an unlooked for discovery have they made; they who had found no resting place in the world, and who had wandered through it in quest of some object however insignificant, that might divert them from their sorrows, and for a moment at least remove the sense of that hopeless grief which lay dead upon the heart, found now an object which the widest desires of their soul could not grasp, and of such irresistible power as to turn the current of their feelings, I mean the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. They who had been ready to abandon life, as having no charm, and to embrace death as having no greater terror than their present affliction, now see that even in the absence of that which once threw over their existence its deepest interest, they can find something worth living for, in the pursuit of an eternal joy. While in sorrow and in desolation they went to Jesus for comfort, the Spirit, whose secret, but unknown influence guided their steps, opened the eyes of their understanding to discern the path of life, and by the aid of a hope full of immortality, to rise above the ravages of death, and the spoliations of the grave. Thus while like Mary Magdalene, they were lingering round the sepulcher, the Savior revealed himself to them, and they dried up their tears in the presence of their Lord. May it be so with those who shall read these pages. May you in your affliction turn to religion, that grand catholicon, and panacea, for the sorrows of life. You do not know, even yet, how much you will need it, in the future stages of your sad and solitary journey. The friends whom the freshness of your grief has gathered round you, may forget your loss much sooner than you will; and the force of their sympathy may have spent itself, long before the tide of your grief has ceased to flow. Few, very few, are the faithful friends whose tender interest is as long lived and as deep as our tribulation. Sympathy wears out long before that which calls it into existence: and then, what can comfort you but religion? Venture not forward, without decided and fervent piety. Let your next step be from the tomb of a husband, to the cross of a Savior.

Take the following instance as at once a direction and an encouragement:-

In the course of my pastoral walks among my f lock, I one day called upon a young widow, who has become a member of the church under my care since the death of her husband. I found her at her mangle, by which, and by letting a room or two to lodgers, she earns a scanty and precarious support for herself and child. I found her somewhat indisposed, exhausted by labor, and depressed, though not desponding, in consequence of her lodgings being unoccupied, and her work rather short. I entered into conversation with her on her necessitous and afflictive circumstances, when she expressed her strong confidence in God, and her expectation she should be provided for. She soon reverted to her husband, who had been a consistent member of my flock. Her eulogy upon his memory was in strong and tender language. She described him as having been one of the kindest and most indulgent of husbands, and implied that she had of course been a happy wife :-" But," said she, "I can thank the Lord for his death, for in consequence of that sad event, I now hope to be associated with him, in the presence of Christ in heaven." The fact is, the death of her husband was the painful means, in the hands of the Spirit, of her saving conversion to God. In this you see one instance among many in which widowhood has been the furnace of affliction, where God has chosen some of his people, and called them to pass through the fiery trial to bring them to himself. The female whose case I am now narrating, by the piety she then obtained, and by the sweet hope of meeting her deceased husband in the land where there shall be no more death, endures with a sorrowful cheerfulness the desolation of widowhood and the rigors of poverty.

What lessons does this little incident teach! What potency and a heavenly balm are there in true religion; what present and what future advantages does it yield, when it can enable a pool widow, to bow with her fatherless child at the grave of her departed husband, or in the dreary abode once made happy by his presence and his love, and give God thanks for his removal, because of the eternal felicity that would result to both in heaven, from their early separation upon earth! What an admonition to those who like this poor woman have lost pious husbands, while they themselves are not yet partakers of true experimental piety. Let them consider the reasoning which is implied in her gratitude,- “Had my husband lived, I should have been content with my happiness as a wife, and have sought none from a higher source, and perhaps have lived and died a stranger to true religion. Thus after enjoying his society a few years upon earth, I should have been banished not only from his company but from the presence of the Lord for ever: but now since his death was sanctified for my conversion to God, I have lost him for a season, to be with him for ever in glory." O widow, whose husband has left you as did hers, in an unconverted state, let it be your desire, your prayer, your resolution to turn this deep affliction to your soul's advantage. You have lost his life; lose not only his death. He bends to you from the skies, and with accents of faithful love, says to you, "Follow me to heaven. Let us be not separated for ever. Let faith, prayer, and submission, heal the wound of separation. O let us meet in the blessed world of life and joy." Comply with the admonition, and then you too will be able to comprehend the thanksgiving of this poor woman for the decease of a loving husband. And now take the testimony of another widow who related in the following language her sad, yet in another view of it, her happy experience, to a minister who visited her:-

"My husband died, and then disease seized on my children, and they were taken one by one. In the course of a few years, I had lain those in whom my heart was bound up, in the grave. Oh! they were many, many bitter tears that I shed. The world was dark. The very voice of consolation was a pain. I could sit by the side of my friend, but could not hear him speak of my departed ones. My affliction was too deep to be shared. It seemed as if God himself had deserted me. I was alone. The places at the table and the fire-side remained--but they who filled them were gone. Oh the loneliness, as it had been a tomb, of my chamber. How blessed was sleep! For then the dead lived again. They were all around me. My youngest child and last, sat on my knee-she leaped up in my arms, she uttered my name with infant joyousness; and that sweet tone Was as if an angel had spoken to my sad soul. But the dream vanished, and the dreary morning broke, and I waked, and prayed, and I sought forgiveness, even while I uttered it for my unholy prayer prayed that God would let me lie down in the grave side by side with my children and husband. "But better thoughts came. In my grief I remembered that though my loved ones were separated from me, the same Father-the same Infinite Love, watched over them as when they were by my fireside. We were divided, but only for a season. And by degrees, my grief grew calmer. But since then, my thoughts have been more in that world, where they have gone, than in this. I do not remember less, but I look forward and upward more. I learned the worth of prayer and reliance. Would that I could express to every mourner how the sting is taken away from the grief of one, who with a true and full heart puts her trust in God. I can never again go into the gay world. The pleasures of this world are no longer pleasures to me. But I have trust, and hope, and confidence. I know that nay Redeemer liveth. I know that God ever watches over his children And in my desolation, this faith of heart has long enabled me to feel a different kind of Pleasure indeed, but a far deeper, though more sober joy, than the pleasures of this world ever gave me even when youth, and health, and friends all conspired to give then their keenest relish.

" You have learned in your own heart,' I said, that all trials are not evils.'

" It was with eyes up-turned to heaven, and gushing over with tears, not tears of sorrow, but gratitude, and with a radiant countenance, that she answered, in a tone so mild, so wrapt, as if her heart were speaking to her God,-'It has been good for me that I have been afflicted.'"

4. What an impressive view does your affliction give you of the solemnity of death, and the necessity of being prepared for it. You have now not only heard of the awful visitor, or read of him, but you have seen him: and though his icy hand has not been laid on you, it has taken from your side the companion of your life. It is not a book, a sermon, a preacher, but death himself that has spoken to you, who, as he bore away the dear object of your affection, looked back unpityingly, and sternly said, "I come for you soon." He will. Listen also to the voice of one who with milder accents than those of the last enemy, says to you, "Be ye also ready, for at such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh." Can you ever forget the scene? The dread reality? The harbingers, the concomitants, the consequences of dissolution? The pain, the sickness, the restlessness, the delirium, the torpor -and then the mortal stillness which ten thousand thunders could not disturb? Oh what a change is death! Is that the time, that the scene, those the circumstances, to which it is wise and safe to defer the business of religion, the concerns of the soul, the pursuit of salvation? You saw how all but insupportable were the last woes of expiring nature ; or how sudden was the stroke; or how shattered was the reason ; and how impossible it was then to meditate on matters which require the concentrated attention, the calm undisturbed possession of all the faculties of the soul. Learn then a lesson from that scene never to be forgotten, and instantly to be practiced, of being prepared at once, and completely, for the great change. You saw how valueless in death is every thing but salvation, and how all but impossible it is to commence the momentous concern then. Be wise then, and consider your own latter end. Preparation for death is living work. A life of faith, holiness, and devotion is the only preparation for a death-bed. Be this one of the beneficial results of losing an object so dear. On his tomb, devote yourself to the pursuit of salvation, as the business of life, and the only suitable meetness for death.

It is said with equal power and beauty by a well known and deservedly admired living writer, " I consider the scent of death, as being to the interested parties who witness it, a kind of sacrament, inconceivably solemn, at which they are summoned by the voice of heaven to pledge themselves in vows of irreversible decision. Here then, as at the high altar of eternity, you have been called to pronounce, if I may so express it, the inviolable oath, to keep for ever in view, the momentous value of life, and to aim at its worthiest use, its sublime end-to spurn, with lasting disdain, those foolish trifles, those frivolous vanities, which so generally wither in our sight, and consume life as the locusts did Egypt; and to devote yourself with the ardor of passion, to attain the most divine improvement of the human soul; and in short, to hold yourself in preparation to make that interesting transition to another life, whenever you shall be claimed by the Lord of the world."

Solitude improved by divine meditation - Part 1

2007-08-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

SOLITUDE IMPROVED, &c.

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PART I.

CHAP. I.-Of Divine Meditation in general.

ON that noble subject, and necessary duty, Divine Meditation, I have now chosen, by Christ's assistance, to speak to you.

Of meditation in general, according to Scripture latitude, in the various kinds and considerations of it there expressed. My text, therefore, must not be one single scripture, for the total foundation of what I shall tender, but the universal vote, and passages dispersed through the Bible : some of which are the following.

"Meditate upon these things," 1 Tim. iv. 15. Here on Timothy, and, by way of proportion, on every person, is commanded meditation. "In his law doth he meditate day and night," Psa. i. 2. If the blessed man doth so meditate, then all who would be blessed must do the like.

"I will meditate on all thy work," Psa. lxxvii. 12. Both the word and works of God must be the godly man's meditation. "And meditate on thee in the night watches," Psa.

lxiii.6. And, "My meditation of him shall be sweet," Psa. civ. 34. God must be meditated on, and that meditation should be sweet.

From these and the like passages scattered over the Bible, the observation or conclusion is this: Pious meditation is the duty of every Christian; or, It is the high institution of Christ, and greatly incumbent duty of Christians, to exercise themselves much in holy meditation.

A rare and soul-enriching way: none know the sweetness and blessings of it, but such as exercise themselves in it.

Philosophers tell us, there would be no life or motion in the lower world, if the sun and celestial bodies stood still. Physicians say, if the heart did not continually beat in the body, there would be no life and motion in the little world, man. And experience proves, if there were no springs or weights in watches and artificial engines, they could perform nothing. What the sun, moon, and stars are to life and motion here below, what the heart is to the body's life and moving, and what the springs and weights are to motions artificial, that in a high degree is meditation to spiritual life and motion.

Of the various things tendered to us for truths, this is the great trier, the percolation and refiner, the melioration and improver. Such things that come to us crude and raw, become mellow and concocted by meditation. It is the golden scale to give divine things their due weight. The soul's rare alembic, to effect the highest operations, to extract the richest spirits for heart use.

Meditation is of that happy influence, it makes the mind wise, the affections warm, the soul fat and flourishing, and the conversation greatly fruitful.

Who can fail to practice it, continue it, contend to larger improvements in this heavenly art, that hath once experienced and fed upon the surpassing sweetness and refreshments, the unspeakable solaces and delights, both had and heightened in it!

To speak of it adequately I cannot; it is such an attainment that none know the all of it. Nothing but progress in the daily practice, can help to comprehend it. There is still a going and a knowing further.

I shall speak to four things only concerning meditation.

1. The precedents upon the file of Scripture, or some rare examples of the practice, and but briefly.

2. The nature, ingredients, qualifications, and the several sorts of meditation: and here I must be something large.

3. The grounds, and supporting reasons of it, to manifest it.

4. The diverse improvements of it to divers sorts of persons

1. The precedents on the sacred file, recorded instances in Scripture. There are, among others, four instances, which I shall single out, four famous, holy, and eminent ones.

The first is that of the godly patriarch Isaac, Gen. xxiv. 63, "Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide." God is a most free Agent, as in all other actings, so in conferring his Scripture honors. He honors whom he pleaseth, and when and how he pleaseth. He is bound to give no account of his matters. And oft we see him in his goings and doings, but cannot by searching find him out, Job xi. 7. Divine sovereignty and wisdom is pleased, in the Scripture records, to fix the first honor of this practice of meditation on holy Isaac.

Doubtless, his excellent father, holy Abraham, did use to beat this path to heaven, who walked so much with God. Doubtless, those other patriarchs and saints, living before Abraham, traveled much in this heavenly road. Enoch, for his walking with God, so highly honored, was no stranger to this way. Questionless, it was one of his walks. He certainly used to go to heaven mentally, before he was translated personally. He used to ascend up by meditation, before his happy translation. But Isaac is he who first is mentioned, for acting this holy meditating. It may be he exceeded and excelled in this heavenly art and practice; and because it was a duty performed privately, and that was not known, God would reward and honor him openly, by making it known, and that some hundreds of years after, by Moses' holy pen.

It is probable there was something more than ordinary in it, which occasioned this first record of meditation. However, this was the holy pleasure of God so to fix it; to place it first on the file of godly meditators. Isaac is the first mentioned meditator in Scripture records.

The second instance, which is the fullest to all intents and respects, is that high and noble precedent of holy David, that man after God's own heart: among other reasons, I believe, for his beating so much this path to heaven; for the frequencies of his visits made this way.

He soon became a man of great troubles and disquiets; yet then in them he would resolutely cut out his way, and keep his course of holy meditation: witness those many psalms penned in and on occasions of his troubles, and styled his meditations. He, after Saul's death, is crowned king of Judah, had his great multitudes of high employments, was a mighty warrior, and so must be exposed to highest hazards; yet nothing, at any time whatever, should check or retard his course. Though he had his head full of thoughts, his heart full of troubles, his hands full of work, nothing should hinder him in this high exercise of his so experienced sweet meditation.

In Psa. i. 2, he makes meditation the character of a blessed man, to meditate in God's law day and night. And what he makes a rule for others, he makes good in his own example.

Psa. cxix. 97, "Oh how love I thy law I it is my meditation all the day: " there is the practice of the first time, the day; and a full example, and practice, all the day.

And Psa. cxix. 148, "Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word:" there is the practice of the other time mentioned in the character in Psa. i. 2.

Not a watch set in the night, but he had his meditation. Oh most admirable frame of spirit! A king and a daily meditator, and a night meditator also!

It was not family business, nor state affairs, not war's urgencies and difficulties, that so could crowd in and impose upon his thoughts, but he would have his spiritual retreats, his soul repasts, in meditation, mount up to heaven by it. Trace we him with the eye of due observation over the book of Psalms, (the Psalms, which are the choice and rare records of his exemplary this way actings,) we find most excellent patterns, of all sorts, as for this holy exercise. Singular meditations sometimes of the great works of God, as Psa. viii., and Psa. xix., and Psa. civ., &c., wherein the fire kindles and flies up, in the highest strains. His heart, like the most rare and exquisite engine and instrument, produces such raised and sublimated things, that transcend sometimes all the strains of rhetoric and poetry in the world, as some very learned men observe.

Sometimes his meditations (and there they ply more, as of nearer concernment) are on the word of God, as Psa. xix., and Psa. cxix., &c.; and what passages and praises hath he, most high, and sweet, and savory, that what can be fuller and higher, for the nature and properties of it!

Sometimes the most blessed God himself is the high subject of his meditating; and what transcendencies of thoughts, what raptures, what instances of highest soul transportings hath he this way recorded for us, purposely to put us upon pursuit of the like glimpses and tastes, by suitable first breathings and pantings after sweetest communion with him!

It is evident he was a grand master in this art of meditation, by the so exquisite pieces drawn to the life, and reserved for use and imitation in the book of Psalms.

The third pattern is that of the so wise Solomon, in Ecclesiastes, who gave his heart, as he saith, to seek, and search, and to know wisdom, Eccl. i. 13, 17 ; ii. 12. David's strain of meditation proceeds principally on matters in themselves spiritual, as God, his word, and ways, and sometimes on the works of God. Solomon's more upon things natural, and the ways and works of men, Eccl. i. 13, 14; but to demonstrate the insufficiency of all things in the world, .and all the works of men, to make up true happiness, without the true fear of God, and keeping his commandments, Eccl. xii. 13. This is the sum and scope chiefly of that his book, that book of most deep and great considerations, and excellently useful meditations, for all to obtain wisdom by.

It is (of all) the choicest piece of Scripture, in this kind; it sets us an accurate copy of regular and fruitful contemplation and meditation of all things under the sun, which we should strive to imitate and write after, chap. i. 14. It is left us thereby to learn from him, the so great experimenter and trier, the wisest and most exquisite weigher of all things, and the finder of their extreme insufficiency and vanity.

To teach every person, by this his so eminent and exemplary acting, his successful searching, to do in the like manner. To infuse his spirit, and lay it to steep strongly and deeply in this meditation of creature vanity, and the vanity of all men's labors under the sun.

Yea, to sink this down to the bottom of the soul, there to fix and root itself; thence, as by a most potent and predominant principle, to work and act up to more weanedness from the things of the world, and to more wariness of our being ensnared by them.

The fourth rare instance is of the female sex, that of the blessed Virgin Mary. ". But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart," Luke ii. 19. This is the remarkable and special example of meditation mentioned (that I know of) in the New

Testament: we have none so punctual and plain, which I can remember, as this. Some signal honor is hereby intended to this so blessed virgin, to be so noted, more than others, in the gospel records; and thereby held forth, as a pattern and provocation to all after-ages.

The Scripture's silence, as to other saints' practice in this duty, is not a negative or an exclusive of their doing it : because it is not said of every one, they pondered, or meditated, we must not thence infer they did it not.

David, in the first psalm and second verse, saith, the blessed man meditates in the law of God day and night. He therefore makes it a necessary duty and certain character of every godly person, in some sincere measure and constancy performing of it.

As the people of God are all taught wisdom to salvation, so this peculiar wisdom, this way of meditation, of the great concerns of God's kingdom, and their most precious immortal souls, to give things of the highest importance their due weight in the balance of a holy meditation.

CHAP. II. - Of the Nature and Description of this solemn Meditation.

MEDITATION, according to the usual notion and acceptation, is taken for any serious or earnest thinking of any matter whatsoever, for what end soever, whether it be good or evil. So meditating is used in the Scripture, not only in a good sense, but in an evil sense. But ordinarily it is taken in a good sense, for a holy mind exercise, or acting the thoughts in any seriousness upon any matter in a spiritual manner. There is a double kind of meditation.

1. That which is more set and solemn, when a man is serious in thinking of any thing for some spiritual end, and so as to allow some due space of time for a right performance of it.

2. There is that which is called meditation of ejaculation, which, though serious, yet is more short, and quick, and sudden, wherein the soul darts up to heaven, and makes a short visit thither.

I shall begin with the first, that which more commonly is called meditation. The other shall follow in its due place.

Therefore, having mentioned some Scripture instances or examples of meditation as to the practice of it, I shall come to handle the nature and description of the set and more solemn meditation.

Here first I will endeavor to present you with the true picture and description of meditation, in some Scripture lineaments and proportions; and afterward the explication and peculiar handling of them.

I shall give you the description in this manner. It is that ordinance of Christ, and obedience or duty of a Christian, whereby he acts his spirit into a right pondering of either heavenly and spiritual things, or any other things, in a holy manner, unto spiritual and holy ends and improvements only.

Here is the more general nature founding it; and the more peculiar nature and particular requisites finishing it.

The more general nature, in a double aspect: the first looks up to Christ; it is his ordinance, his institution. The second looks down to man; it is his obedience, his duty.

As to the peculiar nature and requisites, notice,

1. The object. I will consider the proper object of this meditation, in two parts:

1. Things spiritual and heavenly.

2. Things, though not in themselves spiritual, yet in a spiritual manner looked upon.

2. The acting on it. The acting on this object, by way of right pondering, where many particulars will be opened

3. The ends of this meditation; for only spiritual ends, or the ends to be aimed at, must be spiritual and only holy.

As to the more general nature of meditation, it is,

1. Christ's own ordinance. 2. Man's duty and obedience. It is Christ's own ordinance, as those Scriptures fore cited, and many others, which will be after named, prove.

Three things there are in an ordinance of Christ, which I shall speak of.

a. The rise and original, it is heavenly.

b. The nature, it is spiritual and holy.

c. The use and end, it is for a help.

a. For the rise and original, it is glorious and transcendent: it comes as far as heaven; it is heaven-born and bred. It bears Christ's image and superscription, brings his broad seal and commission; it is one bright beam of Christ's sovereignty, shining down upon us, one holding out of his golden scepter, for us to touch the top of it. It comes with the King of heaven's must, it must be yielded to, done as the strict and high command of the great King of saints, given in indispensable necessity ; yea, with the very same cogency and necessity, that praying, hearing the word, or any other most usually yielded to duty doth.

Commonly (as by our daily practice we prove it) we lay not such stress upon divine meditation, as we do upon other Scripture institutions. As if there were a less weight of Christ's regal scepter in it. As if it were not so current coin of his; but rather like some light gold, which we need not receive except we please. Whereas this duty of meditation comes in Christ's name, to every soul; and with a commission as full and firm as any other gospel command or duty whatsoever.

b. An ordinance of Christ is holy. Every institution is a participation, and carries a stamp and beam of God's glorious holiness. Not only of his regal authority, but of his inconceivable holiness and purity. The holiness of God is that glorious attribute of his, whereby being free from all impurity, he wills and orders all things for his name and glory.

The holiness of an ordinance, is chiefly that by which it is laid and leveled full at the grand scope and mark of God's highest praise and honor. It must be looked on, and represented to us, as an appointment for the most high God, his highest interest. All religion is principally for living to the living God, 2 Cor. v. 15. All ordinances are but the higher and more eminent ways given us for exalting him; so many ascents and rising grounds, whereby be may mount aloft, and become more transcendently great and glorious. If this be not the predominant ingredient in our performances, we are quite mistaken; and so take his blessed name in vain. This therefore being the chief thing this ordinance of meditation stands charged with, must accordingly be minded and meant in it, God's institution of it. First, for his own highest interest, his intending it first for himself, who so infinitely surpasses all created beings and their total interests, whatsoever they can amount unto.

c. An ordinance is helpful, for our heavenly help; by grace and the Lord's condescension, it is an appointment and institution for us. For our chief interest, the highway of our soul's help; an intendment and a means to the main mark of happiness; the singular way of our God's devising; the sweet way of our great Prophet's teaching; Christ's first setting me up a light, and therewith lending me his hand of help: all gospel ordinances carry light and help with them; the Scriptures call them ways, Psa. cxix. 3. They are Gods ways, and they are also our ways. They are first the King of heaven's highways, his institutions and appointments for us; and they are our ways, our highways to travel up to the city of God, heaven; our ways to walk in to our chief happiness.

I must look upon Christ's ordinances, not as mere impositions and significations of Christ's sovereignty; not as burdens and tasks, the products and effects of severity; but such as are the demonstrations of his graciousness and pity. He sets me and shows me the way, who justly might leave me to lose my way, and to lose myself; to lose both my labor and life, heaven and happiness, and that for ever.

From these three fore mentioned considerations, what extreme need hath every one, to give them the keenest edge, to make meditation more penetrative and powerful! To both facilitate it to us, and fortify it in our hearts!

Ah! when we are to meditate, how do we still find our spirits all overrun and tainted with carnal and hellish repugnancies and recoilings against it I Rom. vii. 21. How biased and acted with strong diversions from it! How sunk down suddenly, in deadness and flatness in it! How overcome with fainting fits and feebleness in it, from the poisonous fumes and dangerous damps ascending out of the hell of corruption, lying at the bottom of our spirits! And how still abused by the frequencies of our heart's deceitfulness and miscarriages about it! The more high, holy, and profitable any ordinance of Christ is, the more fearful and sad are the demonstrations of the enmity and hell in our hearts acting against it. "Lord, I am hell," said a devout meditator.

Ah, what floods, what seas of considerations have we need of, to quench these hellish sparks that rise up in our bosoms! What need of all the heavenly fire we can make and kindle, to extinguish this hellish fire, that so quickly burns and flames up! As we see the sun to extinguish the fire on the hearth; celestial fire our culinary fire.

CHAP. III.-Meditation our Duty, our Obedience.

MEDITATION is not only Christ's institution and ordinance, but every one's incumbent duty and necessary obedience: not like the free-will offering, a matter merely arbitrary, and as a dealing by way of courtesy. Not for a casting in, as a redundancy, over and above all other duties; but it is and must be performed as a duty of indispensable necessity, 1 Tim. iv.15; Psa. i. 2.

1. A duty in reference to Christ. Necessity in reference to Christ himself; an obedience to his law, a subjection to his crown imperial, a homage and service due to him, as the sovereign Lord of our souls, and of that meditating and pondering faculty he endowed them with.

Meditation is Jesus Christ's reservation in the great gift and grant of our soul's thinking power. He hath endowed us with that so noble faculty of minding and musing, and also with a large mind-charter, and liberty of thoughts, for our own occasions and sober recreatings, in our contemplations or studies. But yet, it is always provided, that a holy tribute, out of the whole of our thoughts, is still duly to be paid in, and that as an acknowledgment both of holding our thinking faculty upon him, and our best way of employment of it; and this to be done in the due seasons, both ordinary and extraordinary. The neglect of this duty, is a denying of his right and royalty over my thoughts, and over that which is so eminent an endowment of the mind, and given in to the spirit by God; for it is chiefly thinking of him that is so high and all-sufficient, and the surpassing excellent things of God, as being the soul's best acting. Certainly thus the saints in the Scripture acted highly upon this account, of their paying in the reserved dues of Christ, their liege Lord, 1 Cor. vi. 20. His dues and their duties moving strongly to act highly in this work and way.

2. It is a duty to myself, and my own soul concernments.

In all doing duty, there is a doing myself right, paying in to my own soul its due. Neglecting in any kind my duty, is a wronging my own soul. “He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul," Prov. viii. 36. Performing it is a doing my soul right. Yea, holy duties are the highest doings of right to our souls. There is no way of doing better to myself, than going in the King of heaven's highway. His ways are my soul's best ways, wherein I act best for myself, and when I perform them in the best manner.

CHAP. IV.- Of the Requisites in Meditation.

THERE are these three things I shall mention as the requisites for holy meditation as a duty.

1. What I call a foundation, or preparative to it.

2. Those things that are for the forming and framing it as to the parts and proportions.

3. The things that finish it up.

1. As to the foundation, or preparative to it, this must be laid above in heaven, by the dispositive or preparative work of fervent prayer. The foundation of this soul affair must be, as a learned man saith of the foundation of the world: The foundation of the world, he saith, is the third heaven, which is of a "constant, incorruptible nature, of no pre-existent principles, and so not liable, as other things are, to corruption and resolution; and which, as to the convex or outward superficies, or the highest part, is only bounded or terminated by its own limits, or terms of essence and quantity; but in its concave or hollow superficies, or the lowest part, contains all inferior things, and is fixed immovable." If the foundation of the great world is laid by the third heaven, the foundation of this great work of holy meditation must be laid in heaven, laid by the soul's strong mounting up thither, and fixing itself there by fervent prayer, as the great preparative to this meditation. Fervent prayer: the word in the Hebrew used for meditation, signifies also prayer; prayer and meditation being so near akin, and the one helping mutually the other.

a. To begin with a bringing the soul into the glorious and tremendous presence of the great God, and under his so pure and all-seeing eye.

b. To act the soul, and lay it as it were to steep in self-abasings and humblings, for its former miscarriages and failings in, and present unfitness and indisposedness for, what is now undertaking.

c. To exercise fresh self-denyings, as to any sufficiency of ability to perform any thing herein acceptably and profitably.

d. To act vigorous and strong recumbencies on Jesus Christ, for both his teachings and touchings of our spirits, and upholdings likewise in the work.

e. To procure and beget a warm temper in us, such as may make the heart to glow all over in the duty.

2. As to the forming of the duty in the parts and particulars of it.

a. It must be founded on, and rise from, the spring and great principle of motion and action, which is the will, in a both free choice and firm purpose. A resolvedness and rooted purpose: thus David, "I will meditate in thy statutes," and, “I will meditate in thy precepts," Psa. cxix. 15, 48. The evil heart saith, I will not meditate: Satan saith, (so far as he can hinder,) You shall not: and the profane world saith, You need not. But the holy heart saith, I will meditate. This is my free and firm purpose, and nothing, by Christ's assistance, shall divert me.

The philosopher saith, that in every virtuous action there must be a choice of will; it must come free from the spring of the will, and run in resolution; otherwise it is not a virtuous action.

The Scriptures, for all religious actings, call for willingness: “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power," Psa. cx. 3; or, as it is in the Hebrew, A people of willingnesses, thy people: and in divers places call for readiness in what we perform to God. No work in the world can challenge such an intense degree of readiness and freeness as Christ's work, and such ways as have a clear and lively stamp of his royal will and command. No higher character is given in Scripture of real godliness, than freest choice of will and readiness. To choose the good part, Luke x. 42. To choose the things that please God, Isa. lvi. 4; and as in abundance of places is to be seen.

A carnal heart acts from carnal wisdom and self-interest, or from passion and self-biasing affection, but not from pure freeness and deliberate choice of will. That is not the spring and rise of his duties, as it is in a good and holy heart. A good heart acts from purpose, a well and deep set purpose: with purpose of heart to cleave to the Lord, Acts xi. 23. And Psa. cxix. 106, “I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments." So the will, for holy duties, must put forth in purposes, firm purposes, varieties of fresh purposes; act all the still needful and conducing purposes, any duty in any respect calls for. There are many rare and rich attendants and properties, ingredients and excellencies, divine and heavenly beauties, appertaining to holy duties, which the will must intend and make its free, firm choice of, which the purposes of the will must lie level to and make after, as the proper and proportionate marks and higher tendencies.

CHAP. V. - What the Will must intend in Meditation.

I SHALL name five particulars: there must be,

1. An aim and firm purpose to make the duty a right work, to make sure it be made true.

2. A free and full purpose of a wise work, to have it a work of spiritual wisdom.

3. A firm purpose for a vigorous and spirited performing.

4. A strong purpose of watching and earnest striving against all diversions and interruptions.

5. In a firm purpose of utmost endeavour of success, and having the right and kindly end and fruit of the duty.

1. A right work.

The will's purpose and intendment must be to make the duty of meditation a right work; to make sure it be made true and sincere, John iv. 24. Not a carcass, a painted piece, without soul and substance, a formality without power. Not a mere work performed, as it were to flatter God, who looks for a duty, as they in Psa. lxxviii. 36, 37 are said to flatter God with their lips, but their heart was not right with him. We are ready to flatter him with our modes of meditation, and fashions of thinkings, with our formalities, without realities and truth, and the work's being sincere. It must not be a flattering of God, but a true pleasing him, from being true itself. It must not be a work daubed over with the un-tempered mortar of our own heart's self-deceitfulness, setting up a thing to show like it, and be something near it only, and putting thereby a cheat upon ourselves.

Nor must it be a thing only to stop the mouth of our consciences, keep them from calling on and challenging of us; but we must design it strongly and firmly, to purpose, through God, to proffer to and please him with a sincere work. "Walk before me, and be thou perfect," ' Gen. xvii. 1. This must be understood, certainly, of every walk and path we go in: not a walk in some one way, or divers, and not all; but in every walking sincerity must be a property, a qualification designed and firmly resolved; and we must not be satisfied unless it be right meditating, such as Scripture requires, and saints in Scripture practiced; yea, that they told God himself that they performed, Psa. cxix. 23. And doubtless David durst not tell the heart-searching God he meditated, if he had done it formally and hypocritically, and not been sincere and upright in it.

2. The intendment of the will must be for making this duty a wise work, to make it a work of spiritual wisdom. The apostle, in Eph. v. 17, says, "Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is." And in 2 Tim. iii. 15, there is mention of wisdom to salvation: and in Prov. ix. 12, wisdom is called on for ourselves.

a. Wise in respect of God. Certainly, as Solomon did things of great excellency to show himself very wise; so when the most high God's honor is concerned, and when he will be present at our performances, and comes as it were purposely to them, shall we present him with any foolish piece ; not design a wise work, and not be seen acting wisely?

b. Wise in reference to ourselves. Should we not also strongly purpose to make this duty a wise work, a work of sure wisdom for ourselves, and lay it fully level to the grand mark of eternal salvation for ourselves? Solomon, in Prov. xvii. 21, saith, "The father of a fool hath no joy:" so the parent of a foolish acting will have no joy: it is the godly, prudent acting, whose fruit is peace, and which issues in heavenly joy. Oh how sweet and comfortable is that duty, in which we have acted up to the rule of sound wisdom!

3. A spirited and lively work. There must be a firm and strong purpose and intendment for a vigorous and spirited, a lively and warm work. "Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord," Rom. xii. 11. In every duty we must have a purpose of striking fire, of making the heart burning hot: it must not be lukewarm, in an indifferency, that is but lazy; nor blood-warm, that is but low. But the soul's purpose and design must be for highest heat and fervency, greatest vigor and activity. As artists in some high operations, seek for the hottest fire.

As warmest preaching and warmest hearing, as the disciples' hearts burned within them, when Christ opened the Scriptures, Luke xxiv. 32. And so warmest reading and warmest meditating. In David's heart, while he mused, the fire burned, Pas. xxxix. 3. So when we meditate, we should intend a warm work, to be very warm at the heart.

4. A striving against all lets. In a strong purpose of earnest striving against all lets and interruptions. The whole work of a Christian here, must not only be vigorous and sedulous, but striving and contentious. "Strive to enter in at the strait gate," Luke xiii. 24. Every single and particular duty must bear a part of striving to enter in at the strait gate; for this is to be applied to every particular duty, though Christ speaks only in general, bidding us strive.

Two things make up the notion of striving.

a. Intention and earnestness.

b. Contention against opposition. When a man strives, he acts earnestly; and when he strives after or for a thing, he strives also with that which is against him. Striving is against something that lets or opposes. In all soul work, and peculiarly in this of meditation, the throng of difficulties is great, the oppositions are many, therefore the purposes and resolutions of heart must be strong and high. None ever carry on their work well, who are not first well resolved, and still renew and link one firm purpose to another, to hold on their course to the last.

5. A purpose for the kindly issuing of meditation. The will must purpose firmly to endeavor still the kindly issue and success of the duty. Look, saith the apostle, ye lose not the things wrought, 2 John 8. Who would set up at the labor in vain? Christ's sweet promise is, "The seed of the' blessed of the Lord shall not labor in vain," Isa. lav. 23. The way, among others, of having it performed, is by grounding our endeavors in strong and rooted resolutions for that running and pressing on, and looking after our duties doing; until the work winds up, and issues in the spiritual ends, in the sweet success it is appointed unto; such as increase of holiness and grace, and improvement of communion with God. Success sets the crown on the head of the work: resolve to get the crown still set on the head of every duty, that it may shine in the glory of success.

These are the five special branches this root of resolution should put forth; these, as so many precious corner-stones, should lie at the bottom of this building, the better to bear it up. These should be as so many great arteries branching forth from the heart, to convey vital spirits into the body of this heavenly duty of meditation, and keep it alive, and warm, and improvingly active.

CHAP. VI. - Of the proper Objects of Divine Meditation.

FROM things of a remoter relation to the subject in hand, I pass to such as are the nearer, the more intrinsical and peculiar. And here comes first to be handled, the matter, or the object of this meditation. When the wise king Solomon was to build the temple, first he is providing the rich and precious materials, then he proceeds to the framing and fitting of them, and then to erecting and finishing that glorious structure. That which next is to be done, is first to look out the materials of our work, and then the framing and finishing up is to follow. The materials, or objective parts, are far more rich and precious than those of Solomon's temple. They are, as our description of meditation holds them forth, either,

1. Such as are more properly and purely spiritual and heavenly in their own nature.

2. Or things considered in a spiritual way, and to a spiritual end and use.

It is not the consideration of things as to their entity or being, that is metaphysical: metaphysics treat of entities, of the mere beings of things. Of the first Being, namely, God; and of secondary beings derived from God, the first Being. It is not the consideration of things as rational; the rational respects things have one to another, this is logical: logic, that considers respects of things, as causes, effects, subjects, adjuncts, and the like.

It is not the consideration of things in their particular natures and natural properties: this, natural philosophy contemplates.

It is not the consideration of things civil, moral, or political: these, moralists and statesmen are exercised about.

Neither is it the consideration of particular crafts and trades: this is mechanical, and but a work prudential and human, not divine. But this meditation hath objects of a far higher sphere and rank; things of a divine and theological consideration.

Nay, nor yet is it the mere study of things theological and divine. A man maybe a student in divinity, beat and busy his brains about the high points and mysteries in it, may read and muse on matters divine, and yet not be a meditator, such as we speak of, not act divine meditation. A man may act upon things as notions, and as matters of knowledge; or, to make a universal knowing person, he may act contemplation for curiosity; for such a use, as the heathen man Aristotle made of reading Moses' first chapter of Genesis; whereof he passed his undue and heathenish censure, that Moses affirms all, but proves nothing: he read first, and then pondered, and then censured. But he acted not meditation, not that we speak of: it was not a consideration of spiritual things as spiritual, and for spiritual ends; but only as a wise man acts his thoughts upon things as new, for new notions and improving knowledge. Many thus consider things Scriptural and divine, study them, as we call it, study books of divinity, study things in the Scripture; but they act not the duty of meditation. They act upon things as matters intellectual and rational, not as heavenly and spiritual. Act for notion and speculation, and not for holiness. Act curiosity, not Christianity.

The right meditator far transcends any mere student; he acts a more noble part, hath a more noble and sublime manner of operation. Aristotle's studying Moses' writings, and David's meditating in the law of God, how far do they differ! So a heathen's, or a Mohammedan's, or a Jew's, or any such person's studying matters in the Bible, differs greatly from meditating in it.

Nay, many protestants are great students in divinity, that never meditated: they dwell upon the study of it, but touch not with the least of their fingers the hard work of holy meditation.

But to return to our matter in hand, and to speak to this subject of meditation: formerly it was said, that spiritual things, or things in a spiritual and heavenly manner considered, are the proper and adequate object of this meditation.

And here, oh how large and fair a prospect hath the spiritual eye to expatiate and recreate itself in! The infinitely glorious and all-sufficient God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as the Scripture reveals: the vast world, the frame of heaven above, and earth below, with all the innumerable things contained in them.

Their sundry natures, properties, and uses, with the so beauteous and various excellencies of them. The mighty sustentations and preservations of all things created, as to their beings, their faculties, and their acts.

The most wise, righteous, and holy governing of them, with a most steady and never-erring hand, unto their particular ends ; and with a most certain winding them all up ultimately, in the supreme scope of the great Creator and Governor.

Then that peculiar government of the rational creatures, angels and men: the unspeakably sad fall of some angels, and all mankind; the recovery of some men, and their eternal salvation, by Christ the Redeemer, God in our nature: here, here is matter of

meditation, the great mystery of godliness, as in 1 Tim. iii. 16. And particularly, the four last things, as they are called, namely, death, judgment, heaven, and hell.

Besides, there is for meditation, the whole book of Holy Scriptures, now complete in the New Testament times; with the ordinances of Christ, and the covenant of grace. And lastly, the meditation of that so great concern, our own particular estates, how matters stand with us, and are like to be with us to all eternity; which eternity challenges and imposes on every person the greatest intensity and frequency of thought. But though this be so great, yet again what is there in all the vast circumference of the whole world; I say, what is there, although ever so small, but by a wise and holy heart may be an object improvable to an excellent use and end ? As the art of chemistry can extract rare and efficacious remedies out of putrefactions and poisons.

That soul must be a pitiful, vain, and barren piece, that wants matter and mind to move and act fruitfully, in so large a sphere and compass as meditation hath: it affords the whole latitude of all things properly spiritual ; and it comprises likewise all other things, which, in some respect or other, wisdom can improve by this rare art.

No artist in any way of operation, with all his rare instruments and efficacious engines, can operate more eminently than an artist in this holy kind may do.

Of this the Scriptures give plentiful proof in the many precedents left us in it for imitation. So we see it in holy David, in many of his psalms, (besides those concerning the word of God, his greatest subject of meditation, in those made of God's great works,) yea, the works of his common providence and guidance; as the growing of the grass, and herbs, and trees; the singing of the birds among their branches; in the waters, the playing of the leviathan, the innumerable creeping things in the seas, and the going of the ships in them, as in Psa. civ. The wise Solomon hath his meditation of the horseleech, with her daughters, Prov. xxx. 15. The ant in her industry, sending the sluggard (that turns on his bed, as the door on the hinges, that often moves, but never removes, Prov. xxvi. 14) to her to learn industry, Prov. vi. 6.

Yea, sometimes the most inconsiderable things the Scripture takes notice of, for us to mind the hairs on the head, which all are numbered; the sands of the sea, which though so weak and small, is thereby bridled; the dust of the earth, by God's power, as in a measure comprehended, Isa. xl. 12. And not only God's great works and high actings, but the lowest actions of men, and the meanest actings of the inferior creatures, are in Scripture held forth as occasions for this meditation, as advantage-grounds for the ascending of thoughts, and raising up the mind heavenward.

All this pains taken by the Spirit of God, in the Scriptures, is to show what a wise and fruitful spirit may extract, by this holy art of meditation; yea, to teach us how constantly thought-busy we should keep our hearts, (like that wonder in nature, the so wise and laborious bee,) still ingathering some celestial sweetness from every flower of Scripture or providence, or any other object we stay upon.

CHAP. VII. - Of the Requisites for Meditation.

FROM the object and matter of meditation, we must next come to the requisites and qualifications, and the things contained in it, and constituting it.

Here, by the way, there were two sorts of meditation mentioned.

1. That which is set and more solemn.

2. That which is short, sudden, and ejaculatory.

1. The first, that which more properly is called meditation, is that so frequently we have spoken of in the Scripture, and mentioned in our divinity books, and in discourses. Meditation in the ordinary acceptation of the word, taken for a work of time, seriousness, and solemnness, that must have a due proportion of time, labor, and diligence, to affect that upon the heart it is to be used for.

2. There is that which is called ejaculation, sudden, quick acting, or ascending of the soul to heaven. This is a holy spark that flies up out of the heavenly f ire, burning suddenly in the heart; this is but meditation rather more improperly so called. Of this I shall speak something hereafter.

But that we are now to proceed upon, is the meditation more properly so called, more set, solemn meditation, a business of time and seriousness.

I shall mention eight particulars or requisites for this meditation.

a. There is requisite a holy awe and reverence, a putting on a reverential frame of heart suitable to the holiness of the duty.

b. There is requisite a retreat of the thoughts, calling off the mind from all its preceding excursions or engagings other ways.

c. There is requisite the setting of a strong guard and so sure a watch upon our slippery spirits as we are able, to secure it against all diversions.

d. Meditation, as to the form and nature, proper notion and essence, consists in application of the mind and thoughts, and setting them upon the subject or matter intended to be considered.

e. Meditation, as to the nature and essence, consists, as in application of the mind to, so in the intension and due seriousness of thinking on a fit object.

f. In a diving and searching of thoughts, scanning for a best discovery.

g. In an abiding due stay of the thoughts upon the work in hand, without precipitation and undue hastening.

h. It is requisite there be an infusing and intermixing the life and beauties of such affections as are suitable and proper for the duty.

a. Meditation must have the dispositive and preparation of holy awe and reverence; a still engaging the spirit to, and imposing upon it, and framing of it, unto all that holy awe, and highest reverence, which this so excellent duty calls for, both in the entrance, and over all the performance. I say highest reverence, as that which is to be done in the infinitely pure presence of a God; a God whose eye is observing in a special manner our heart-temper, not only in a duty performed in his view, but a temper presented and tendered to himself, as a homage and honor. As a way of ingratiating ourselves with him, as a way, and one of our sweetest ways, of higher intimacy and communion with him. The spirit of a creature perfect, much less of a sinner, cannot have too strong an infusion, too deep a tincture, of holy reverence.

CHAP. VIII. - Two other Requisites.

b. THE next requisite is in sounding a retreat of the thoughts, and calling off the mind from all pre-engagements, not only evils and vanities, but all business and duties. Nothing must detain the thoughts, or divert the thoughts, when we design and intend

meditation. God complains of men when bodies are brought, and hearts are left out: well may he complain, if we go about meditation, a mind, a thought exercise, if we let the mind and thoughts be sent abroad, and not called home.

The philosophers say truly, that intention can be only of one thing at one particular, individual time. Divinity tells us, there must be no allowance of disintention, neither a giving way to a seizure of impertinencies to keep possession of the mind; that will keep off that which is incumbent, and our present duty.

David, in Psa. cxix. 113, says, he hated vain thoughts, when they were intruders, when they crowded in: much more as they were excluders, and crowded out good thoughts. Therefore, most of all, when they obstructed and interposed at the time of his

meditation. Therefore, being so rare an artist in heavenly meditation, he still would shake out and empty the vessel of his heart of other previous improper thoughts. Do as Nehemiah; when Tobiah had laid up his stuff in the temple, he throws it all out to make way for the proper furniture.

Musing in this sort, therefore, must have its preparative, its stand, and its retreat off and from all impertinent thoughts: a making the coast clear, a setting the mind free, disburdening and disclogging it: casting off all weights when we are to run this race, and mount up the hill of divine contemplation. Now is the time to call to by-thoughts to void the room, and leave it free for other thoughts to enter.

c. When meditation is to be performed, there must be a strong guard set, a sure watch kept upon all avenues and passages, on all the inlets and outlets of the heart.

As Jehoiada the priest set a guard round about the young king, when he was to be crowned, 2 Chron. xxiii. 7, so when this duty is endangered, and ready to be hindered from having the crown of a right performance set upon it. The Scripture rules impose

circumspection, great caution in all our concernments, but more peculiarly in things pertaining to God, and his worship. Take heed to thy foot, &c.; so, Take heed what you hear. And, Take heed how you hear. So there must be heed, and a great take heed how we

meditate. The strongest guard is little enough, yea, too deficient and weak, for the holiest heart, and the best exercised in this part of godliness. Oh how inconceivably evil is every heart in its leakings and runnings-out, in its rovings and wanderings, in its slipperiness and inconstancies; and likewise in its sinkings and fallings, instead of keepings-up in its

heat and heavenly vivacity, and keepings-on in any evenness and equality!

No sieve is more unapt to hold water, no hand more unable to hold sand, or oil poured into it, no bone, which often hath been out of joint, is more apt to dislocate and slip out of place, than is the best heart to slip off, rove, and range from this duty, in diversions and admissions of impertinencies. When we are most serious and intent, suddenly our carnal spirits give us the slip, and are gone: like the bird, if the cage be but open; or the prisoner, if the doors be not fast and watched. Or, if the heart get not out in

diversions, it falls flat in deadness and sudden coolings: like the iron in forging, no longer hot than the workman keeps blowing: like melted metal, which cools as it runs and is pouring forth. This made David in the Psalms so often and earnestly to call for

quickenings, from the sense of his frequent heart-coolings and.sinkings.

The acting of meditation must not be going up a hill of ice, where footing is both slippery and cold, but like the going up the burning Mount Etna, where the footing, if not firm, yet is that which the travelers (as they say) feel warm. Or like Moses' going up the mount to God, which was steady and earnest till he came to the top. Still a due guard must be kept about our hearts in this so important soul affair. An intense care must be used, and a holy fear against all diversions, all heart-sinkings, and against all disappointments also, that we lose not the real benefit and comfort of this work.

CHAP. IX. - Meditation in applying the Mind to a proper Object.

d. MEDITATION stands in an application and bringing the thinking power of the soul upon the object, or thing to be meditated of. Taking that great engine of the spirit, and setting it to act upon some fit subject.

The thinking faculty is a rare endowment; an engine whereby the reasonable creature can draw up and take in any object, and act or exercise itself about it for that use or end we aim at in our thinking.

In all meditation there must be an applying and conjunction of the mind and the thing. As sensitive seeing must have some union, virtual union, with the thing seen; so intellectual seeing, seeing by the eye of the understanding, must be by a bringing the thoughts upon that is to be thought upon. The Scripture hath this expression, of setting the heart upon a thing, Hag. i. 5. So it is in the Hebrew, that which we translate “Consider your ways," is, Put or set your hearts upon, &c. In consideration or musing there is not only a taking of the heart and thoughts from foregoing minded objects, but a putting or setting it on some new thing, setting that on there where it was not set before.

The sinful heart of itself will run any way; upon earthly things, upon evil things, or upon impertinent and unseasonable things; not come to or keep upon that it should intend and mind: therefore it must be taken as by strong hand, and set upon spiritual things, set on musing and meditation of heavenly things. A carnal heart is like the loadstone, it cleaves to nothing but steel or iron, and both of them easily unite: but the heart must be of another property, and act in a higher way. And a good heart, though it thinks too much earthward, runs often wrong; yet it will set itself in its thinkings right, on right objects, make itself and them to meet and unite. David tells us, how he did, he inclined his heart to God's commandments, Psa. cxix. 112, both to keep them, and to meditate on them. He took and bent his heart, as a thing bending too much to other things; set his mind on musing on it. He found his heart and the law of God too far asunder, and so would continue, unless he brought them together and made them one. If he had not brought his heart to the word, he had never meditated: the object cannot apply itself to the mind, but the mind must bring itself to the object. No holy duties will come to us, we must come to them. Many, in a secret folly and sluggishness, would have things do alone of themselves, without their stirring or acting: but they mistake; it is something like to Mohammed the deceiver, who once told the people that were met by his means, to see him have a mountain, upon his call, to remove and come unto him; but when the mountain would not come, he boldly then tells them, If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must or will go to the mountain. What he did attempt in pretence, and act in impudence, but was fain to go at last to the mountain, that would not come to him; I say, like to this we are ready to do in slothfulness, we look that duties should come to us, that they do themselves, and we do nothing. But that which will not come to us, we must go to it; we must bring and set our hearts to this and all other duties. There must not be a letting the mind lie still; that so matter of meditation may come to us, and make us meditate; but we must bring and set our hearts to objects of meditation, and make this happy meeting, of excellent objects, and this excellent musing power. This is the more to be contended for, because this work of holy meditating hath so many busy adversaries, but chiefly in the constant progress and carrying of it on.

Ah, it is extremely against the grain of a natural heart, to be broken off from its customary wildness, wanderings, and rangings of thoughts; to cage up itself, and become tame, and tuned to serious musings and thinkings heavenward. In the best heart, that sin that so easily besets us will be ready quickly to interpose, and cut off the passages otherwise open.

Oh how the heart strives to beset and block up all passages, when we are beginning to enter on this work! All the whole garrison of disinclinations and repugnancies, the hellish heart, venoms, and contrarieties take instantly the alarm, and endeavor to hinder the heart's conjunction with spiritual objects by this meditation. The soul under its complications of lusts and corruptions, is as if you had a bowl of many biasses clapt upon it, all ready to draw diversely, but all from the duty in hand: and as natural corruptions will be acting contrarieties and diversions; so old customary evils, haunts, and wonts, will be calling upon us, coming to give us their visits, calling us off to some other way.

Satan also, and the power of darkness, will not be absent at this time, that may turn so much to his prejudice; but he will be sure (if he any way can) to divert thee totally, and cause the whole current of thy thoughts to run out in useless impertinencies.

Great circumspection must therefore be still used in our settings upon this duty: a work well begun is half done.

CHAP. X. - Meditation must be a serious Thinking.

e. MEDITATION includes, as an application, so an intension and seriousness of thoughts.

Serious objects, and serious work, must have thought-seriousness; an earnestness, and acting the vigor of the thinking power. We can think slightly, but this we call not meditation; but serious and earnest minding must be ever an ingredient of due performed meditating.

In Scripture it is sometimes expressed by the term of considering. "I will consider thy testimonies," Psa. exix. 95; that is, mind them with a serious and earnest thinking. So Psa. lxxvii. 5, "I have considered the days of old; " he acted in not a slight eyeing, but serious musing.

Thus Solomon in his Ecclesiastes often expresses it by the term considering ; " I considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun ;" and, " I considered all travail," Eccl. iv. 1, 4. Consideration (besides the bringing of the mind unto a thing) includes also seriousness, an intension of the mind upon the object. Sometimes in Scripture it is expressed by the word pondering, "Ponder the path of thy feet,” Prov. iv. 26; that is, earnestly mind them. So Mary is said to ponder the sayings of Christ in her heart, Luke ii. 19; she made it a work of great seriousness.

There is a slight and easy thinking, an acting of thoughts cursorily, and when a thing is out so soon as in, and the thought off so soon as on; and there is a serious thinking.

The mind of man hath not only an ability to act, but can put forth an exceeding great seriousness. That as in things natural they have not only power to act, but can also act intensely and vigorously. Thus in things inanimate, as in fire, how hot and intense may it be! In brute creatures, how earnestly can they act, when they put forth their strength! As the horse in running, the eagle in flying. In things artificial, to what intense degrees can divers instruments and engines operate, and discharge themselves! Oh what can this engine of the mind of man effect! what heights of seriousness can it arrive at! what contributions of earnestness can it pay in, when it is highly concerned, when it is edged by some real or supposed grand interest; as some weighty affair, urgent business, some imminent danger to be escaped, some rare pleasure, high preferment, vast sum of treasure, or such like engagements! Yea, what can the mind, as to a high seriousness, act sometimes upon objects totally unworthy of the thoughts! vain thoughts can be very eager and intense.

If we can be so serious in matters inferior, certainly divine and spiritual matters must needs claim a far greater share of seriousness. There should be no earnestness of thoughts on any ground or interest whatsoever, like to this meditating earnestness.

There are several spheres of seriousness of thoughts which we may observe men move in; steps and ascents of seriousness.

(1.) Countrymen, in their lower ways, have their plodding seriousness: how earnest do divers of them appear in minding of their occasions, which they account great!

(2.) Citizens, in their higher ways, have their higher and more improved seriousness. Oh what are the various earnestnesses, how strange and amazing to consider are the daily beatings of brains, and intendings of thoughts, on daily occasions by multitudes of persons in a vast city!

(3.) Students and scholars, in their ingenious ways, what intense and earnest musings do many of them habituate themselves to; and what improved

heightenings of the ways of studying do they contend unto! The highest seriousness makes the best scholar.

(4.) Statesmen and soldiers, what seriousness do their grand and important affairs for the public (that lies at the stake to be preserved and advanced) engage and draw forth! How great is the great politician's seriousness about his designs!

(5.) Debauchery and vice hath its sinful seriousness. Sensuality, uncleanness, contemplative fornication, hath in all places and ages given highest evidence of unparalleled seriousness what ever hath raised and wound up the seriousness more; as in amorous poetry, and wanton romances, and such-like filthy writings

appears! All sorts of vices and lusts, the lower they lie in the sink of the sinful heart, the higher they act in saddest seriousness and studyings for satisfaction.

(6.) The black train of hell and devils have their unspeakable heights of seriousness and musings for souls-destroyings.

But whatever spheres and heights of seriousness there can be, spiritual things of right must challenge of every Christian a far other and better seriousness. The perfect rule of religion obliges Christians to outdo all others in their greatest seriousness.

(7.) Doubtless the saints in all ages have excelled in this kind. In their retirements and happy engagements between Christ and their souls. Such as Enoch, who walked with God, such as the other holy patriarchs, such as Job, and other eminent ones. And peculiarly David, that so rare artist in this way. What may we also say of the holy prophets, blessed apostles, glorious confessors and martyrs, and the eminent saints and excellent lights of the church? these no doubt have been highly serious in their heavenly meditations.

Certainly the rare artists of the world, neither Apelles in painting, nor Phydias in carving, nor Dedalus in contriving the Labyrinth at Crete, nor Archimedes in devising his mathematical instruments, nor Plato, Aristotle, and the great philosophers, did arrive at greater seriousness in study, than the worthies

of Christ in the passages mentioned before; neither than that seriousness of such as lived after the apostles, as holy Ignatius, Cyprian, Justin Martyr, Ambrose, Augustine, and others of the ancients, rare men in contemplation. And such as not only the blessed reformers abroad, Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, Martyr, Calvin, Zanchy, and others of them were, but such of our own martyrs, holy Cranmer, Latimer, Bradford, and the rest of that glorious army; and as many after them, in the several parts of these nations; one of whom would say, he thanked God, that for twenty years together he had studied nothing but the Bible and his own heart. I believe none of those philosophers and artists ever acted any seriousness to that height and sweetness, that the holy ones of Christ have done.

CHAP. XI. - Meditation must be a Searching and Scanning.

f. THIS meditation, besides application of the mind to the object, and intension or seriousness on it, includes a searching and scanning, or diving deep, an extension of thoughts, a looking about, or endeavor of comprehensiveness, in respect of the object, so far as we can. To make as perfect and full a view of it, and to see into the dimensions and extents of that we think on. Thus when a man studies a thing, he endeavors an extensive and a comprehensive seeing and having the fullest view. He sets it not before him to see a little, but the most he can.

The Scripture phrase I cited of Proverbs iv. 26, and that of Luke ii. 29, of pondering, includes this particular likewise we now are to treat of. In pondering, there is both first the mind's applying itself to a thing, and the intending its acting, and then this third, of an acting, of searching and diving into it, or knowing what we can of it.

Pondering is an expression taken from goldsmiths and tradesmen, that desire to know the full weight of a thing, and thereby the value or worth for their profit and use. Thus the merchant weighs his merchandise, the goldsmith weighs his silver and gold, the jeweller weighs his rich pearls, rubies, and diamonds, to know them more exactly. There is exceeding great weight and worth in heavenly and spiritual things: meditation must hold the scales, to weigh, so well as we can, these so rich and precious things, these diamonds, and pearls of heavenly treasure; yea, weigh them as things that unspeakably surmount all other things. As Prov. ii. 4, Wisdom must have a searching for as for hid treasures: as the searching for and searching in the gold and silver mines; in which there is not only great earnestness of search, till the rich vein is discovered, but being once found, there is a following it with exactest industry, and utmost curiosity, to find not a part or quantity of the treasure, but all the riches scattered over the whole mine, part after part. A Christian in his exercise of meditation, must act the part of the exquisite miner, to dig deep, dig over all the mine, and gather up the riches of it, the lesser and greater quantities, as they come to view, in the mines of spiritual treasure. Travelers tell us, that in the Persian Gulf, at a certain season of the year, great store of a kind of shell-fish is to be found near the shore, in which shell-fish they find the precious pearls bred in their shells; but the way of finding them is by diving: there are men that have an art of diving down to the bottom of the sea, and bringing up their baskets filled with these shell-fish; the shells being opened, they find and take out the orient and rich pearls, of several proportions, some of them very great and rich; whereby they greatly enrich themselves and those that deal in them. Meditation is the spiritual merchant's art of trading for heavenly riches, pearls of great price; but there must be a diving deep. If we have not this art of diving, we shall lose the rich pearls: the deepest diving down in the practice of meditation, comes up with the greatest returns of soul enrichments.

Solomon, in Eccl. vii. 25, hath a very emphatical expression, to hold forth this we are upon: our translation hath it, "I applied mine heart," but the Hebrew hath it, I compassed, and my heart that is compassed to search, and seek out wisdom: or, I and my heart

compassed; so in the margin we have it. There is comma upon a thing, and a compassing a thing; the heart in meditating is to compass in a thing as well as it can. They say in philosophy, that wisdom lies in perspection, introspection, and prospection; that is, in viewing throughly, all over, viewing inwardly, and viewing what may be eventually, what may be the issues of things: it pries into a thing, and looks round about a thing; makes the mind endeavor an extensive and comprehensive knowing, as was said. Meditation in spiritual things should be like Nehemiah when he came to Jerusalem, and would go view it; he went and viewed first one part, and then another, till he had gone round. So meditation looks largely, views what it can take in and consider.

As God took Moses to the top of Mount Nebo, showed him all the land of promise, part after part round, Dent. xxxiv. 1; thus when we go up this mount of meditation, we must search, view, look round, take in as large a prospect as we can.

CHAP. XII. - Meditation is a Dwelling of Thoughts.

g. MEDITATION includes a dwelling of the thoughts upon the object, drawing out the golden thread of holy thinking to its due length; giving the mind its full scope and allowance of abode on the meditated matter. Meditation is, in Scripture, and often particularly in the book of Ecclesiastes, expressed by the phrase of considering.

In consideration, there is, 1. Application of the mind to an object. 2. Intension upon it. 3. Pondering of, or searching into it. And this, 4. thing, the dwelling of the thoughts for some due space of time, for viewing and reviewing; for second thoughts, bettering of thoughts, and better completing this great soul affair of meditation. This meditation needs must have that allowance that all great musings and considerings have. Such as rare artists, exquisite engineers, deep philosophers, and great statesmen, all noble and ingenious ways must have for their times of studyings: they must have their due space of time for thinking, and lengthen out their mindings in that time; to make, as we say, no more haste than good speed. A staying awhile will make an end the sooner, make the work the surer.

Meditation is not a hasty hurry of thoughts: that is precipitation, not meditation. It is not gathering half-ripe fruit, that which hath not its time for the influence of heaven to come down upon it, and its own internal principle and power of its nature, to produce a kindly maturation, a kindly ripening. We will not have (for want of time) our bread dough-baked, or meat raw-roasted; knowing that what is not rightly prepared for the body, may breed distempers, if it bring not death. It is not the way to thrive, look well, and be strong, lively, and cheerful: why should we gather our soul's precious fruits half-ripe? feed our souls with dough-baked bread for want of a little time? Some things must have infusion for taking forth the spirits and tinctures of colors. Others a due time for percolation and straining, for a separating of the finer parts from the feculent and dreggy: and some things a longer space, in a slow and constant f ire in the operation, or the cost and labor is lost.

Intensions for effecting things greatly beneficial and admirable, are most freely allowed a larger proportion of time, both for frequencies and repetitions of musing seriously. But oh how too ordinarily do the best of saints fall short of the actings of rare artists, in their higher operations, in their stands and abodes of thoughts for more curious observations, and intellectual satisfactions! usually we are too hasty and eager to have duties over. The soul is in pain till it be delivered of them. In meditation it is hard (sometimes at least) to take off the thoughts for it from preengagements of other thinkings, and apply them to the duty; but harder to become duly serious in acting in it; harder yet to dive and ponder; and hardest of all to hold up an abiding of thoughts, and dwell long enough, and after views to make reviews, to react the same thinkings, to taste things over and over when the freshness and newness is past, when by long thinking the things before us seem old : we are ready to grow dead and flat in a performance, except we stir up ourselves often in it. It is hard to hold on and hold up, unless we hold up a wakeful eye, a warm affection, a strong and quick-repeated resolution; yea, and without often lifting up the soul to Christ, for fresh recruits of strength to hold on. David, that so excellent artist in this way, saith he will meditate, often saith he will. See Psa. cxix. Doubtless he not only said I will, when he was to make his entrance into this hard work ; but likewise for continuance in it, to keep up his heart from flagging, till he well ended his work. It is not the digging into the golden mine, but the digging long, that finds and fetches up the treasure. It is not the diving into the sea, but staying longer, that gets the greater quantities of pearls. To draw out the golden thread of meditation to its due length, till the spiritual ends be attained, this is a rare and happy attainment.

CHAP. XIII. - Of Affectionateness in Meditation, or the Life and Luster of it in the Intermixings of suitable Affections.

h. I NOW observe that, for finishing the work, there must be intermixtures of the life and beauties of such affections, as are proper and suitable for the duty. It must be an affectionate acting, warm and zealous, lively and vigorous. So David's meditation, while musing the fire burned, Psa. xxxix. 3. Not only it should be so eventually, but by way of concomitancy; when we meditate with the mind, we should be warm at the heart: the fuel and fire of holy affections must come to the offering up this sacrifice. There must be an affectionate acting, which brings the life and beauty into the body and face of the duty.

They say beauty must have these four things.

1. Perfection, or entireness of parts, no part wanting.

2. Proportions due, no part too great, too little, or unsuitable: and proportion of colour, white and red in a just proportion.

3. There must be right order of parts, that nothing be misplaced.

4. There mustbe spirit and vivacity appearing in the face, as a chief ingredient or superaddition to all the rest, as that which adds singular grace and luster to all.

So besides the parts and chief lineaments, there must be that which completes the beauty of meditation; those things which are as, not only the beauteous colours, but the freshness, liveliness, and spirits dispersed and appearing over all the face of this rare piece, this excellent performance. That as the heart, with its diffusions of heat and spirits in a due proportion, makes a comely, graceful, and lovely color, which in heart-distempers, faintings, and sinkings, disappear and vanish; so the holy heart, with its diffusions of heavenly warmth and spirits, heavenly affectionateness, makes meditation comely, beauteous, and lovely.

If meditation be only head-work, and not heart-work, it is like a picture without life; like a student that studies in a mere acting of wisdom only. The right and genuine meditation is an affectionate thing: as the head acts, the heart glows. The life-veins of warm affections run and disperse themselves through the whole duty, and give luster to it. This we may see in the meditations of that great artist in this kind; in holy David you may see a beauty and excellency of holy affection mixed and interwoven, like the gold in the tissue with the silk, and sparkling in his thus acting; affections appearing set as so many rich stones, rare beauties, and glories among his various musings.

There are three sorts of affections that shine gloriously in David's and other holy men's meditations left upon record in Scripture, which needs must be patterns to provoke us to imitation.

1. The affection of desire.

2. Of love.

3. Of delight.

CHAP. XIV.-Of the First Affection, Desire

THAT affection of desire wound up, and let out to pantings and longings heavenward, and being above, in this heavenly exercise of meditation. David, with his meditating of God and his word, tells us what longings and heart-pantings he had. “My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times," Psa. cxix. 20. How was this? to have the book of the law? No, it was to be exercised in it, to an improving of meditation on it, Psa. i. 2. Ah, he could not meditate enough, act freely enough, far enough. The commandment was so “exceeding broad," as he saith, Psa. cxix. 96, so very broad, and his heart so narrow: sin so encompassed and straitened him, that his soul breaks that he could have no larger thoughts. Such an edge and eagerness of affection, such a large, strong, and vehement desire, should be an attendant, an assistant of meditation, one strong feather added to the wing of contemplation to make it mount up fast to heaven.

Ah, say Christian, Lord, that my soul could meditate still better, fly further, mount higher, be more upon the wing, make sweeter and more happy discoveries, and prove a greater proficient in this heavenly way! Meditate with desires and breakings of soul, to dart up the highest you can to heaven, and stay there.

CHAP. XV. - Of the next Affection, Love.

THE next affection, which sends a great artery of vivifying heat, a glowing heat, into this meditation, is that of heavenly love; love to the duty and the excellent things to be meditated upon. Love is the great heart fire, made to warm every holy service: "Oh how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day," Psa. cxix. 97. Love led him into this pleasant soul walk of sweet meditation, and love kept him company, kept his heart warm in it. The fulfilling of the commandment is love, Rom. xiii. 10, and love is the fulfilling of this commandment of meditating; it is performed in love. This heart-vital heat of love must move to and in meditation; must glow through the whole work all the time of it. Meditation is either of the infinite beauties of the most blessed God, the infinite perfections and surpassing glories of his essence and attributes, and of the three Persons in that essence; or else of the precious word or works of God, his general providence and government, or his peculiar governing of the reasonable creatures, especially that so stupendous work of redemption by Christ, and all those things which are reducible to his praise; which must needs, being so beauteous, have their supassing loveliness. And therefore there is great reason to act love abundantly towards them; to have meditation still richly perfumed with actings of burning love all over it.

Oh let love ever come in and act its part in meditation, wherein the soul's eye is not only glancing, but wishfully viewing the surpassing beauteous things of heaven, or such things as may lead up to heaven.

Ah, if I cannot ascend in a flame of love, yet let me in meditation fly up in some sparks of love. If my heart cannot burn in the flame of love, let it keep warm upon the embers of love. Let love give it a spirit, vigor, and liveliness. As Solomon's temple was inwardly all overlaid with gold, let this rare work of contemplation be overlaid and inlaid with love: as Solomon's chariot in the Canticles, the midst of it paved with love, Cant. iii. 10; so let this chariot of contemplation, the midst of it be paved with love.

CHAP. XVI. – Of the last Affection, Delight.

THE last affection, to make a threefold cord, to draw up the heart in meditation, and that winds the work up higher, and that is a great superadded beauty and glory, is the affection of delight, joy, and pleasure.

Meditation must not be a dull, sad, and dispirited thing; not a driving like the chariots of the Egyptians, when their wheels were taken off, but like the chariots of Aminadab. Make me like the chariots of Aminadab, that ran swiftly, Cant. vi. 12: so let us pray, Lord, in meditation make me like the chariots of Aminadab, that my swift running may evidence my delight in meditating. Holy David makes delight such an ingredient or assistant here, that sometimes he calls this exercise of meditation by the name of delight, Psa. cxix. 16; speaking in the foregoing verse of this meditation, “I will meditate in thy precepts;" in the 16th verse, "I will delight myself in thy statutes;" which is the same with meditation, only with superadding the excellent qualification due meditation should have: this name is given from this noble concomitant.

As Wisdom's ways are all paths of pleasantness, so this path hath its pleasantness and sweetness. Contemplation hath its rare and most pleasant walks: no habitation hath such rooms, such galleries within, of pleasure; nor gardens without with such walks and

curiosities; no situation, or stand, such prospects and varieties of delightful eye-objects as meditation enjoys. All objects that nature or art can present to the eye, are mere shadows and nothings compared with the rich and rare furniture the eye of meditation is provided with. The traveller, whose feet and helps have carried him the farthest, whose eye and observation hath viewed and taken in ever so much variety and curiosity, that hath recreated and satiated itself ever so largely, with any of the most taking things the whole world's fullness comprises, hash not, cannot come near to, and compare with, the transcendencies of purest, highest, soul-refreshing delights this high operation and more sublime acting conveys and gives in; where the object is spiritual, the eye spiritual, the heart holy and spiritual, and the way of acting upon this spiritual object is spiritual, as every way or ordinance of Christ is. Or where the object is excellent, the faculty exercised on it is excellent, the medium or way of applying the faculty to the object is excellent, there the delight and pleasure is most rare and excellent.

There are sundry sorts of pleasures; there are sensitive pleasures of the external senses, as of hearing, seeing, tasting, and the like: these are very various and very great, but too often bewitching and besotting.

There are fancy, imagination pleasures, which are rare and higher than those of the outward senses. Imagination and fancy, which is a quick, sudden, short, and shallow apprehension of things, (it is not judgment that ponders,) but a sudden slight taking in and acting: this is (especially in some sorts of persons) a very high spring and strong feeder of delight or pleasure; of pleasures that come like things fresh, quick and spirited to the body and senses. Fancies, oh how they perfume like richest scents, please like briskest and most racy wine! fancies (though often very fond and vain) yet are great inlets of delight.

3. There are intellectual pleasures, rational joys and delights. These are more high, sublime, and refined, and therefore more sweet, such as the pleasures of understanding new, rare notions, excellent speculations, and apprehensions of solid and precious truths, and the mind's musings on them, tasting, feeding on them: this in itself is a more transcending delight than the two former; though fancies weigh more with some, yea, though sensual pleasures take most with abundance.

4. But there are beyond the former, namely, those that are spiritual pleasures. Delights found and felt in a holy and spiritual heart, in one that hath a principle far above sense and fancy, and natural reason : that a renewed mind, a spiritual understanding, a wisdom from above, only reaches and relishes; and these are best and sweetest, when they are not only taken into the soul by an act of apprehension and conceiving of them, but when they pass into the more inward room, or office of the mind, into the judgment; when they are there detained in consideration, and by meditation give down their delicious sweetness, like grapes in the wine-press. Meditation is such a soul engine, such an instrument of such a manner of operation, that nothing in the world, the highest objects of sense, fancy, or mere natural reason, can act with that complacency and delight.

Solomon, in his Ecclesiastes, that rare record of his large and infallible experience of all things for pleasure and delight, tells us he found nothing so sweet, and which he could act upon with that delight, as when he acted up in meditation, Eccl. xii. 13. David oft expresses what joy he acted in this soul engagement; yea, tells us as he did, so he will delight himself in it, and the heavenly objects of this heavenly work. Heavenly things and a heavenly heart meeting in meditation, will act and make the purest pleasure.

Meditation therefore must have this attendant of delight; which like a flame, like the chariot of Elijah, carries up the soul in musing into heaven.

CHAP. XVII. - Some other Particulars added in some special Scripture Expressions.

BESIDES these three affections of strong desire, ardent love, and holy delight, that, like heat, and spirits conveyed from the arteries (arising in the heart) into all the body, to add to and complete what we have in some measure expressed, there are these three or four things I shall a little speak to.

1. Meditation should be a work very savory to the soul.

2. It should be sweet and pleasing to it.

3. It should be with satiety in it.

4. With an admiration, as the crown on the top of it.

1. It should be performed, not as a thing that is disrelishing, but savory to the spirit in the doing, Rom. viii. Those that are after the Spirit, savor the things of the Spirit. There are some things that are unsavory in themselves; others, though savory, yet not savory to some palates. The things of heaven are none of them in any degree unsavory in themselves. Meditation is not so in itself, but to a carnal spirit it is one of the greatly unsavory things, greatly displeasing and disrelishing; but to the spiritual man it is not so, but a work singularly savory, like Isaac's savory meat, like feeding at some noble feast: where a good appetite, and a right palate, feed and savor, still savor the delicacies and varieties successively, every thing is savory. There are some things savory, as nature yields them; others, and in great variety, as art reduces and orders them; and, accordingly, there are very admirable.diversities of savory things, which have their degrees of savoriness. What great varieties are there made by art, from the meanest food to the highest delicacies! yet in the gospel feast of fat things full of marrow and wine on the lees well refined, in the feast of all heavenly varieties, meditation hath more unspeakably rare dainties, than all that nature or art can yield. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him," 1 Cor. ii. 9. Not the greatest of the greatest princes, not Solomon's most glorious feast, not Ahasuerus' royal feast, not any of the Persian or Roman emperors so much spoken of in histories, could occasion a feeding with such high savoriness, as may be had in the rich and precious things meditation hath to feed the soul with. Therefore, O let meditation be still most savory, let every spiritual thing be very savory; as there are more varieties of objects, and higher degrees of excellency in them, endeavor a suitable, and extensive, and an increasing savoring: as men at a feast pass from the first dishes to the after dainties, with a more eager feeding and better relishing. This is the first thing.

2. Meditation should be sweet. This I further add, in that the Spirit of God is pleased to honor this pious expression of the holy prophet, (by recording it for us,) who after a most heavenly torrent of elegancy in expressing the surmounting excellences of God in the wonderful ways of his workings and governings, says there in Psa. civ. 34, “My meditation of him shall be sweet." How sweet must meditation be upon infinite sweetness, and from whom all other sweetness, creature sweetness, word and ordinance sweetness, derives itself!

"How sweet are thy words unto my taste I yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth," Psa. cxix. 103. This must be chiefly by meditation: it is that which presses and sucks out the rare sweetness in the precepts, so holy and righteous; in the promises, so precious; in the encouragements, so high; and in all the excellent things in the so perfect word of Christ. He not only asserts the sweetness he found in meditation, but is transported with high admiration. And when he could not speak of it to the height and fulness, then (which is our usual manner) when we are at a loss or expression in words of comprehensiveness, to wrap up ourselves in the elegancy and terms of an interrogation and admiration; yet not contented with this way, for fuller representing his experimented sweetness, he takes up a comparison, says sweeter than honey, which in that pure air of that blessed land of Canaan, was the most surpassing sweet honey in the world. Yea, in Psa. xis. 10,

"Sweeter than honey," and the distilling of the honeycomb, which is the sweetest of all others: but this was in holy meditation, that made the honey melt in his mouth, and give down its sweetness. Meditation that drives the hive, drains the honey, and drops in the delicious sweetness into the musing spirit. Lord, teach us the way of this heavenly art, and make this honey drop, and the heavenly manna of Divine truths fall richly into our hearts.

3. Meditation may and should be attended with a heavenly and spiritual satiety: "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches," Psa. lxiii. 5, 6. His rare hours introduced and made returns of heavenly satisfaction.

The largeness and excellency of it he sets out by a very suitable expression, satisfied as with marrow and fatness, which to the stomach yields the best satisfaction, the speediest and sweetest, the most large and lasting. No food satiates better than marrow and fatness. So Isa. xxv. 6. The gospel feast is "a feast of fat things full of marrow." There are the fat things of a perfect righteousness applied, of a full pardon obtained, of reconciliation and peace with God made, and glorious adoption conferred through Christ, John i. 12; the feast of the feast, together with the satisfaction of the blessed image of Christ, in the beauteous lineaments of holiness and righteousness, light and life, of all graces and excellences; and all drawn to the life, and wrought up by the Holy Spirit's inhabitation and operation, and arising from believers' happy union and communion with Jesus Christ and his fullness. And likewise as a glorious superaddition, that of assurance of a most happy condition, and of the unchangeable love of God, and that blessed hope of eternal life, which strews sugar, drops unspeakable sweetness and satisfaction, upon and into the holy heart, 1 Pet. i. 8. These and sundry others are the fat things full of marrow, and make up the feast; and are from the actings and industries of this happy way of meditation. As therefore the heart is hungry and thirsty, in continual lingerings and longings, and never quiet, meditation must carry it to this royal gospel feast, and thereby meet with a blessed satisfaction, not being contented with the sight of the feast and the delicacies of it, without attaining some happy satiety.

The prophet Isaiah mentions one dreaming of eating, but when he awakes his soul is hungry. If we look not well to it, meditation may be but such an unprofitable thinking, as when we have ended it, we may miss of this satisfaction, find our souls empty. It must be still so managed, that it prove a help and cure to my soul's inordinate lingerings, and improve to a spiritual satisfaction.

Plutarch in his Morals tells of one Pythos, who, finding a rich mine of gold, and out of his eager desire to have the treasure in the mine, was so continually attending at the mine, that he neglected coming home to his meals. To confute his covetous industry, his wife one day (instead of providing him food) prepared nothing but golden dishes, with several sorts of meats cast into the forms of sundry things edible, but all of gold; whereby he could observe a curiosity of invention, but was disappointed of feeding and satiety. We must not in our meditation content ourselves with feeding the eye for curiosity, but endeavor feeding the soul unto satiety, heavenly satiety. Ah, let my spirit mind more a fullness of satisfaction, than newness of notion; carry it from head work to heart work, from bare speculation to rare and ravishing satisfaction.

4. Admiration. Let me, to set the crown on the head of the duty, add one thing over and above, let meditation be carried up to admiration; not only should we be affected, but transported, rapt up, and delighted with the beauties and transcendencies of heavenly things, act meditation to admiration, endeavor the highest pitch, coming the nearest to the highest patterns, the patterns of saints and angels in heaven, whose actings are the purest, highest ecstasies and admirations. Thus were these so excellent artists in meditation, David a high actor of admiration in meditation, as often we see it in the Psalms, as in Psa.

viii. 1, 9. "Oh how great is thy goodness!" Psa. xxxi. 19. "O Lord, how manifold are thy works!" Psa. civ. 24. And in other places David's meditation and admiration were as his harp well tuned and excellently played on, in rarest airs, and highest strains; as the precious gold and the curious burnishing, or the richest stone and the most exquisite polishing and setting of it. So blessed Paul, who was a great artist in musing, acted high in admiration; his soul was very warm and flaming up in it: it was as a bird with a strong and long wing, that soars and towers up aloft, and gets out of sight.

Thus sundry of the ancients, as holy Augustine, Bernard, and others of those, who have recorded their rare hours of meditations and transportings of admiration, liftings out of themselves, and liftings up to heaven. A precious minister of Christ often in his lifetime would wish he might die in the heavenly exercise of singing a psalm, in which he used to be transported in meditation and admiration: at length he had, in singing a psalm, his holy wish, dying in the performance; whereby he was rapt up (after his rapture in the duty) into heaven, changing his place, but not his work. Another, a man eminently learned and heavenly, riding with a friend in his coach, fell into a rare contemplation and discourse of the glory of heaven, and the beatifical vision, and within a short time he was suddenly taken from this earth, to take his possession of that glory he had so before in contemplation.

CHAP. XVIII. - Of the Ends of Meditation.

MEDITATION we described to be an institution of Christ, and duty of a Christian, wherein the mind acts upon spiritual things, or other things in a spiritual manner, by a due considering of them, and this to holy ends or spiritual uses only: now the ends of meditation are three.

1. Such as refer to the most high God.

2. Such as respect ourselves.

3. Such as relate to others.

1. Such as refer to the most high God. Meditation is to be the motion of the heavenly spirit heavenward; to carry it up to heaven and keep it a time there: a looking of the eye of the mind, and a lifting up of the heart, a making a stay, and taking a spiritual solace in heaven with God.

All duties we perform must be done to the living God, “to serve the living God," Heb. ix. 14. If otherwise, our duties are but dead works, loathsome as dead carcasses. A living work must have for its supreme end the living God. God that is the first and best, must have the first aim and leveling to.

They say in philosophy, the last end must have the first intending: the first looking at, as the first ground and mover to any work. And as they say in optics, in treating about the nature of seeing of objects, that which first irradiates, sends forth that which through the medium first conveys itself to the eye: this is first visible, and that is light. The first thing the eye of meditation should fix upon, is that which is the light of lights, and that is God, who is all light, beauty, and glory. Meditation should be chiefly acted to see God, and to aim at glorifying of God above all; "Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God," 1 Cor. x. 31.

The Gentiles, wise men, and great philosophers, because their speculations were not acted to the glory of God, were vain imaginations: see Rom. i.

Whatsoever the aim be, if the glory of God be not the real scope, nay, if it be not the master mark, the work is miscarried ; and but a raveling out of time, a losing of labor. Meditation must make sure of the right method and order of aiming at the glory of God, like the sun in the heavens that outshines all other lights below and above, and that which is to be seen before, and above all others; so this must be eyed and aimed at likewise, far before all other.

Three things to be eyed: 1. The infinite glories and resplendencies of the eternal and all-sufficient God. 2. The infinite distances and heights he is in above us. 3. The infinite obligations that ever lie upon us, to exalt him, beyond all.

As in the making of our whole man, whereby he is total owner of us, and proprietor in us. And in our preserving, whereby we are yet more highly bound. And in the provision for our eternal happiness, which is far beyond all the former.

Therefore there is an absolute necessity of this method and order, of still first aiming every duty, and acting at this grand mark; and then to make it the striving and pressing hard of our spirits to it. Oh that in my thinkings, in the ascendings of my thoughts, this glory of the great God may ever still ascend I for no thoughts nor actings can truly ascend, if they go not up to the blessed God and this glory of God: if God goes not up higher in our thinkings, they then go not higher than self, and which is but indeed downward, and not upward at all. Nay, it is a worse descent than that also, it is destruction and hell-ward whatsoever is self-ward, and is not to the advancing of the great God. Meditation is not only to be acted to God as a duty, but as this duty, in its peculiarity and propriety, as being a peculiar straight line to God, as a singular way for our taking aim, this high aim, at exalting the praises of God.

Thus did that rare marksman, holy David, as it is admirably conspicuous in the Psalms. In Psa. ciii. 1, 2, in the very entrance he lays a strict, a repeated command upon his soul and all that is within him, to bless, and bless, and praise God: yea, not only lays his meditation level to the mark, but raises up his spirit to take the purest, the fullest aim; this both by a selecting and improving of spiritual reasons, the strongest he could find, and the most quickening motives he could apply, all that his heart might carry up (in a heavenly flame) the highest praises of God. Thus you shall see him very frequently acting his meditation up with the greatest fervor to this exalting highly of God.

Meditation is a peculiar visit made to the great God; a mind, a thought visit, wherein, as to a great friend, the soul, as it were, comes and saith to God, Lord, I come to see thee, I now come purposely to see thee, to spend some fit portion of time with thee, and I come for that high honor and observance I am infinitely obliged to tender to thee. Every meditation is giving a fresh visit, and thereby a new tender of highest honor we owe to this best of friends.

The next end is, our highly pleasing of God, which by meditation we are to intend: God will be both obeyed and pleased with our respecting and acting of every appointed way; meditation is the beet way, the most pleasing way of thinking. We are to "walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing," Col. i. 10. Therefore this must be performed to an intended pleasing, a due serious thinking, a pondering and dwelling of the thoughts upon heavenly things, and chiefly upon the infinite beauties and excellences of God, who is the perfect thought and heart knower, the exquisite searcher and observer of soul actings. And then most, when purposely pleasing is designed: this must very highly please him, when we especially design pleasing, with our most wishly eyeings of him, yea, to intend the doing our best to please him; and this, oh how should it greatly also please us! David, in Psa. xix. 14, prays for pleasing God, “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be accceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer." So it is not only to be prayed for, but made the holy aim of meditation with our utmost care. What industries do the favorites to great princes use to please them, especially that their thoughts offered in counsels may be acceptable! Thus, how did Philotas act, who was the favourite of Alexander the Great; and Maecenas, the favorite of Augustus; and so divers among ourselves! But how near goes it to them if their counsels please not! as with Ahithophel, when his counsel pleased not Absalom; and on the contrary with Hushai, when his counsel pleased. So when Haman's counsel was rejected; and how contrary with Mordecai, when his counsels were adopted! Pleasing of a prince is a great encouragement; but pleasing of a God is a sweet soul contentment; it is most worthy striving after. Oh how unspeakably sweet will the finding and feeling of this prove in thy heart, when meditation is performed purposely to please thy God; when it runs in a pure stream, when thy spirit, reflecting on its actings in meditating, makes discovery of this holy aim of high pleasing the most high God! As the Scripture commands pleasing, the saints are peculiarly commended and greatly honored for it. As with wise and well-bred people, (obliging and pleasing in good things,) great pleasing is a great praise. As Abel, Enoch, and others, from this character of pleasing God. It is a heavenly ambition to earnestly design pleasing; as in all others, so in this walking with God in meditation.

CHAP. XIX. - Meditation respecting Ourselves.

As there should be such aims relating to the great God, so meditation must have its advantageous aims respecting ourselves.

1. The grand scope and end of our own happiness.

2. All other subservient and excellent ends.

1. The grand end of our own happiness, and working out our own salvation, is the next spiritual end that meditation as a mighty engine should set on going to effect. It should be sure to be ordered up, and duly aimed at; acted according to the aptitude and fitness of any way in it, to further this important end: musing and right meditation hath a most rare tendency and helpfulness, as to the working out salvation. As it is a sanctified means on God's part, so it must be an earnestly employed help on our part. We must ever so meditate that it may help on salvation; we must mean it and level it sure, not any way deceive ourselves, but take the best and surest aim. Salvation challenges the best eyeing, the fullest, steadiest, strongest aiming of every way and help. Soul happiness must not have slender aims; we cannot have aimings too serious and intense.

Let my aimings here have the keenest edge of seriousness, be elevated the highest, made the firmest and the most extensive. Let them take in universally whatsoever may most excite to and quicken in this high operation, proportionate it to this working out salvation, the so great gospel salvation.

Thus did the prodigal, (who represents the returning sinner,) when sensible first of his unspeakable misery; and thence, apprehensive of the great obtainable felicity, the so glorious gospel salvation; never did he so act any thinking, make such warm work of it, as now. In like manner the jailer, Acts xvi. having such a dreadful awakening from sense of a lost condition: oh what a pondering of salvation was that, from a heart so warmed and edged! when extremity of misery bath the deepest sense, meditation of salvation and recovery bath the highest seriousness. What can have such a thinking, as when one thinks for life, and that eternal!

Let meditation take in those considerations that are most awakening, that unspeakable misery comes upon us by sins so innumerable; as contracting on the person such horrid guilt, and conveying into the heart such hellish filth. Every sin, with the aggravations, contracting a debt to Divine justice, and that entered into God's debt book, which we never can pay or get paid without a surety, but must bring destruction in eternal fire. Then weigh the great uncertainty of life, and how certain death casts every one upon an eternal state unavoidably, upon inconceivable eternity. Then must be weighed the mighty enemies, and multitudes of hinderances, lying in the way of escaping. Next come the considerations that are the most highly encouraging to strive to enter in at the strait gate, such as the Scripture's fullness supplies. Oh how great and prevalent are those in the gospel, to make wise and warm us, to strengthen and heighten meditation! As eternal life, which in the believing heart is already begun, with sure promise of carrying it on to perfection, by our yet co-working with the Holy Spirit of Christ, working in all his, which we must do continually: “ Work out your own salvation," &c. Phil. ii. 12. What may I say of conjunction with God, by union with Christ, by faith of communion with Christ, in justification and pardon of sin, a most glorious righteousness, reconciliation, adoption, with a sure title to heaven, and the glorious graces of Christ, his image, holiness, wisdom, life, power, peace passing understanding, joy unspeakable, with establishment, growth in grace, victory over all enemies!

Ah, what wishful lookings should we exercise daily at this so great salvation, and the transcendencies and perfections of it; and at last such an outlet of all evils, such an inlet of all good, such a crown of glory, with all the inconceivable excellences of it, and the perfect fruition and vision of God for ever!

I shall yet add one thing more, and that which is (after all momentous considerations besides) the greatest, of strongest influence and efficacy, that is the vastness, inconceivable vastness of eternity: not eternity merely in the abstract, only considered in itself, but in reference to misery or felicity. I say, to all other inducements add eternity; hang on this great weight of eternity of misery and felicity. Endeavour with thy utmost art and industry. by all resemblances, to have the liveliest and most operative

representations of it.

Breathe thy soul often by healthful exercise here; breathe thy soul frequently up this hill of eternity. Whatsoever thou meditatest on, let still this be one object entertained in thy serious thoughts, this vast eternity: let this have its due time.

Holy meditation hath, besides the former, several other excellent ends to be aimed at and improved to. As artificers do with their gold, beat it out sometimes to its utmost ductility and extensiveness; improve this gold of precious heavenly objects, beat them out

to the utmost by this hammer, this art of divine meditation. The art of meditation will, like Solomon's temple overlaid with gold, overlay thy heart with Christ's pure gold, and make it rich and glorious.

Ah, therefore, Christian, act up thy meditation to these precious ends, and chiefly lay a mighty stress upon that so momentous thing, eternity of soul misery or felicity.

CHAP. XX. - Of the particular Ends of Meditation in respect of Ourselves.

THERE are various ends of meditation respecting ourselves: I shall mention, among others, these seven, relating to our own spiritual advantage.

1. As a principal improver of saving knowledge.

2. To make our knowledge clear and distinct.

3. To found a rich treasury of truths, and make them sure.

4. To be an introducer of habitual wisdom, an acquired habit of wisdom, to the first given wisdom, in heart renovation.

5. For a kindler of heavenly fire and flame in the heart.

6. For a mighty corroborater of holy purpose.

7. To be a constant quickener of the Christian course.

1. Meditation is a principal improver of saving and heavenly knowledge. To set as it were more lights on the golden table in the temple of the holy heart, to replenish the golden candlestick with more and better lights, and glorious burning lamps, to yield clearer light in the dark heart. I am wiser than my enemies, for thy commandments are ever with me; that is, in meditation continually, as, Thy law is my meditation continually, or "all the day;" " I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation;" and, "I understand more than the ancients," Psa. cxix. 97-100. Here is an assertion in a kind of gradation of the successfulness of his holy meditation, namely, understanding, wisdom, and excelling in them: wiser than his enemies, yea, than his teachers, yea, than the ancients, that have had longest time, largest opportunities, for greatest knowledge and highest wisdom.

Meditation is the ground, inlet, and improver of knowledge. It is not the great and much reading makes the scholar, but studying and pondering what is read. It is not reading much that makes the knowing Christian, but meditating on what is read: reading without meditation is like swallowing much meat without due chewing; that makes a lean man, so this makes a lean mind. Many read and hear much, but understand little, because they bring themselves so little under this ordinance of meditation. If thou wouldst be right excellent in knowledge, be rich in it, and of a higher stature in wisdom than others, as David was; strive to write after his rare copy in abundant meditating.

2. Meditation is to make knowledge clear and distinct. The apostle, in Phil. i. 9, mentions love, its abounding in knowledge and judgment, and in other places we have mention of discerning and judging. As to matter of learning in arts and sciences, they have the most clear and distinct heads, have their notions most methodical, distinct, and most mellow, who muse most; on the contrary, those are the weak and easy scholars that muse least. Divers Christians have their heads full of raw, confused things, a company of broken ends, notions of small use to themselves or others, for want of due digestion in meditation. Gold ore, without refining and sound hammering, is of little use; want of refining keeps the metal base, want of hammering makes it brittle, it will not be burnished up to a full and perfect brightness, it will not obtain a just firmness: you cannot have so rich plate or utensils, no vessels of it for your special use. The minds of too many Christians lie strewed over with precious truths, but neither clear nor distinct: they are like houses or closets where the rich things, furnitures and rarities, lie covered over with dust, or want brightening; or are so dissevered, lie so scattered and out of place, that scarce any thing is for any present use. So there may be multitudes of notions and truths in the mind, but they are obscure and confused; a dust covers them, a curtain is drawn too far over them; they are of little use, because meditation is little used. Meditation is that, and must be that, which methodizes them, that sets them in order: meditation brightens them, and helps to make them clear, and give them a luster. Clearness and distinctness will not be had without giving down-weight in due meditation. And without a clear and distinct apprehension of things, they are of little light to the Christian; of less influence as to others' instigation and encouragement. A scholar that hath his notions raw and obscure can make (at the best) but a bungler. An artificer, any tradesman that hath not his art but imperfectly, will make of it but a mean way to live and subsist: he that understands his way in religion, will prove the wise, warm, and fruitful Christian.

3. Meditation is to be a chief help to the repository and treasury of truths, to lay and lock up store of precious and useful truths more sure, to fix the lights of truth firm, make them stand fast in the mind. Serious meditation is a great advantage to memory, the soul's treasury; that lays up precious truths in the close conveyances of the understanding, and locks the doors fast. Such as meditate most, will have the surest memory for things heavenly.

Holy David, to lay up and hide the word in his heart, Psa. cxix. 11, did it, as by other, so by the way of meditation: as in the 15th verse, by meditation, and in ver. 97, continually. As truths came to him, so made he them sure by meditating: his treasury and stock grew richer, and were kept the safer. As in scholars, not the multitude of books, or great reading, will make a treasury of precious notions, and make them sure for use, but the due afforded allowance to the clearing and fixing of them by meditation. Christians that meditate will be rich in knowledge, and keep it sure.

CHAP. XXI. - Of the next Particular, the fourth end, to produce habitual Wisdom.

THE next particular end of meditation, is to produce an habitual wisdom in the mind of a Christian. To be a moulder and former of the spirit into habitual wisdom, to superinduce upon the first fundamental, (that infused wisdom given in renovation and heart change,) I say to the first saving wisdom, to superadd and introduce an habitual wisdom, (acquired, as they call it,) such a wisdom as makes a Christian more knowingly and wisely skilful and ready for his way and work; to be beyond a mere learner, to prove an artist for working out his own salvation.

There is an infused knowledge, and an infused wisdom; a wisdom stamped upon and given into the mind in its first renovation and conversion, for then a man ceases from being a stark fool for salvation, as the Scripture makes all in the state of nature, Prov. i.

22. But by conversion and change of heart, and by union with Christ first, and then communion with him, as the wisdom of his members; by this they become wise, by an infused wisdom, whereby they are wise indeed, wise to salvation; wise whereby the right and chief end and happiness is discerned, and the right way and means to that end is discovered, and both thereupon designed and intended. But this is but a lower measure at first, a seed, a grain of mustard-seed, as the Lord compares the state of grace begun in the heart, Matt. xiii. 32.

But beside the former infused wisdom, there is requisite an acquired wisdom, a superaddition to the other. This is a noble help, and an improver of the first; that as to the eye of reason and natural wisdom, learning and experience and exercise brings in an habitual wisdom, enlarging the natural. As it is with a scholar, or an apprentice to a trade, first his tutor or master infuses principles for the wisdom or skill of his profession or trade, whereby he can a little begin to act or work, make trial, though but in an imperfect

manner; but then by minding and musing of his instructions, and by exercise, he comes at length to an acquired habit, to act and work knowingly and with facility, because he hath a new wisdom to understand his way. But without minding and musing he would never have had the way, the art or trade intended. Meditation (beside others) is a singular help to habitual wisdom, to attain the art and trade of Christianity. 10 The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way," Prov. xiv. 8. And Eph. v. 17, "Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is." Though they were excellent Christians, by the large measure of wisdom they at their first conversion received, yet he calls upon them to seek for more, to improve the wisdom infused to further wisdom, to a spirit of wisdom, to an acquired habitual wisdom, to be artists in their way, and excel in it.

Nothing doth so mould the mind into habitual wisdom, as meditation; nothing so improves and enlarges spiritual understanding, makes to understand our way and rule of walking, as meditation, as serious and repeated thinkings.

In natural, or any civil affairs, wisdom in and about them is not obtained by bare thinkings, slight, short, and transient thoughts, or by seldom, and now and then in a fit to think and away, but by serious thoughts, weighings, and ponderings, yea, by frequencies and constancies of thoughts and mindings. This way of thinking makes a man wise in his way, trade, or in any business. It is impossible to be wise with this acquired habit of wisdom, without taking time, making a stand, an abode of thoughts, and those

serious also.

If we are hasty, short, give not due allowance of time, and down-weight of thoughts, serious thoughts, we shall not come up to habitual wisdom; nor shall we act as wise Christians are required to do, if habitual wisdom be wanting. No man can act wisely, or in height or eminency of wisdom, except he act by a perfect principle, as the angels and saints in heaven do, or as a perfect artist, that hath a perfect skill and hand at some art or work. Most good Christians, though they have true, saving wisdom for the substance, yet have little, very little, wisdom to understand their way, little of this acquired habitual wisdom. This is the reason of their being so frequently to seek, so at a set, and at a loss, not knowing what to do. The want now of this wisdom, is from want of meditation, serious and frequent musing to frame and mould the mind into habitual wisdom, and so increasing in wisdom daily.

That a Christian may be an artist, and have his trade, have head and hand adapted and ready for it, this must be by habit, through custom and use. There are these four special things, excellent advantages in a habit among others. 1. It lays in ability for doing. 2. It induces facility in doing. 3. It produces delight and complacency with doing. 4. It holds up evenness and constancy in doing.

A scholar or an apprentice put upon employment for learning an art or mystery, at the first wants the ability to act as an artist, a logician, a philosopher, or the like; and so the facility, pleasure, and constancy cannot be come at, because they are the higher steps or stories built upon the first, that of ability. But when by time he hath accustomed himself in a way, he comes to an habitual knowledge and skill, and that habit brings ability to do; and with ability goes facility, easiness to act in the art or way; then with facility is pleasure and delight attending; what we do with ease is pleasing. Then what produces pleasure, brings also constancy, and doing with evenness and equality. Oh how desirable is this wisdom in Christianity, how highly is it to be contended for, to have this wisdom, this art of going to heaven, of living to the living God, to arrive at a doing with an improved wisdom, a wisdom of superadded ability, with a happy facility of acting, a sweet delight in acting heavenward, and a beauteous, a glorious evenness and constancy; so as not to be and remain still weak in our trade of godliness, not to be to seek so often, as not knowing our way in divers cases, not to drive so hardly on, not to be so dull and heavy, nor yet so unevenly and brokenly to carry on our work, but with all the forenamed advantages, to be daily still experienced to higher encouragements!

This is a grand end of meditation, to work up to habitual wisdom, to help a Christian to excel in this soul beauty of an exquisite artist and operator for heaven and eternity.

CHAP. XXII. - Of the fifth End of Meditation, to kindle and inflame the Affections.

MEDITATION hath not only its excellent ends and uses, relating to the understanding and mind, but also is of singular use relating to the affections. Meditation is that which keeps alive the fire on the altar, and helps to make it burn: it is that which both gathers the sticks, the fuel, and materials for keeping the fire from going out, and that which kindles them, blows upon them, and makes them burn and flame up to heaven.

In the Levitical law, the fire upon the altar must never go out, but it was kept burning by the priests' continual minding it: if they had not minded that fire continually, it would have gone out. The fire in the holiest heart must be kept in, kept burning continually by meditation and constant mindings. Meditation is a great heart warmer; it renews and increases spiritual heats, drives away dullness and dead-heartedness, brings a new life, strength, and vigor into the spirit, when it faints and flags.

They say of the loadstone, (that wonder in nature,) when either by carelessness in keeping it, or by some accident, it loses its virtue, yet by laying it some good space of time in the filings of steel, it will again recover its virtues; when the spirit of a Christian, by not looking well to it, loses of its heavenly heat and liveliness, the way of recovery is by laying it asteep in this so warming and quickening meditation. Oh how burning and flaming may we often observe the spirit of the holy psalmist David, in his acting of meditation! As Psa. xxxix. 3, "My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire" kindled or "burned:" musing made him hot, yea, burning hot at the heart. Thus often in the beginning of a psalm we find his heart low and discouraged, but as this musing was acted and heightened, his spirit grew hotter, and at last flies all on a flame, flies up to a

very high pitch of heavenly heat. Oh how do all the conscientious practisers of meditation, ever and anon experience these happy heavenly heats and heart enlargements! Oh if all the saints' so glorious heart quickenings were gathered together, what a rich chain of pearls, pearls of rare experiences, would they make up of the heart-warming efficacies of meditation!

Meditation is a mighty engine to kindle cooling hearts, and make them flame in fervency. The rule of effecting a business, especially entangled in difficulties, is by removing the obstacles first, and then applying furtherances. Meditation is instrumental to heart warmings and quickenings:

1. By making a grand inquest into the occasions of heart coolings, and helping to remove them.

2. By stirring up to the efficacious means of warmth and quickening.

It is a rule among the schoolmen, that every negative is founded in an affirmative; that is, every not doing is founded in some positive act of doing something else. And as to the like purpose, we say in philosophy, the intention of one thing is the disintendmg of another: meditation makes an inquiry, and thereby a discovery of that which hinders spiritual heat. The extinguishing of fire and heat in nature, is either by casting on much water, or smothering it; by either throwing on much incombustible matter, or hindering the air's openness, and its free coming to it, which chokes it, or by withdrawing the fuel upon which it feeds.

1a. Meditation finds heart coolings to proceed from a giving way to and the present prevailing of some corruption or lust, that like water quenches the fire. They say that some rich spirits and rare extractions, if taken in some acid or sour liquor, the sour liquor turns the edge of those spirits, and frustrates their operation: as cold, clammy humours at the head of the nerves or sinews, stop the course of the animal spirits, and occasion the numb or dead palsy; or as some cold poison taken in, quenches the vivifying heat and spirits, endangers, if not induces, death; so a corruption or sin let out and given way unto, chills, and cools, and quenches the heart heat, and the longer yielded to, the cooler will the affections grow.

A sin given way unto, damps the heart-warming ordinances, quenches the heart-warming spirit, obstructs thy communion with a heart-quickening Christ. "Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart," Hos. iv. 11: what is there spoken of a more total taking away the heart in evil men, is true of a gradual taking away the heart, the heat and liveliness, in godly men.

1b. Meditation on due inquiry finds heart coolings to arise from Christians smothering their heat with heaping up businesses and troubles upon themselves, launching too far into the seas of worldly affairs and over-carings. The thorny ground had the word choked by cares and affairs of this life: what cares and business doth to the word, it doth to the heart's warmth. If thou canst entangle thyself in the matters of the world, thou wilt cool apace. The farther a man travels from the sun northward, the cooler he is: turn your face from heaven to the world, go far, and you come to not only cool, but freeze. Or as the woman in Roman history, that out of a design to enrich herself, contracted with the enemy to betray the castle for that which the soldiers had on their left arm (meaning their golden bracelets); but the soldiers, instead of their bracelets, threw their shields on her, whereby she, instead of being enriched, was smothered. To engage in a throng is the way to be smothered: the world will smother thee if thou engagest too far; it will still cool thy heart beat, make thee of a warm and lively, a cool, dead-hearted Christian. There is a fish called the torpedo, if you touch it with your bare leg, or hand, it presently benumbs the limb that touched it. Touch with thy heart upon the world, it will leave it numb; there is no such way to keep in thy heat, as to keep out the world, avoid the danger of a crowd of business and cares.

1c. Meditation, upon searching, discovers the decay of heat is from decay in heart-warming ordinances, where the Sun of righteousness shines warm upon thee, whereby the soul heat is both preserved and increased. Abatings of heavenly heat arise from drawing away the fuel of heavenly duties, or thy own remissness and negligence in them. If a man shall cast away his clothes, leave his food, and decline the means of preserving heat and life, he must needs grow cold, if he be not quickly killed. If a man reads not, meditates not, prays not, hears not, or is negligent and formal herein, be must needs, like a dying man, grow cold. It much depends upon the lively performance of holy duties, that you keep heart warm, or that you decay in your fervor by carelessness in the means: editation will mind you of this, and put you upon mending it in time. The angel of the church of Ephesus, forsook or left his first love, his heart heat; and Christ intimates, he had left off

his first works, Rev. ii. 4, 5.

2. Meditation is instrumental to spiritual vivacity and warmth, by helping to apply the things that recover and promote heat and liveliness.

2b. Meditation mightily helps here, by being a great instrument of searching out, applying, and working home the Scripture's heart-warming considerations, such as the quickening Spirit, the Inditer of the Scriptures, that knows what things are most proper and proportionate for recovering or increasing heat, what he hath left upon record to use in this case. As consideration is the first mover in the soul, so warm considerations are the first warmers. Oh what a latitude and fullness hath meditation to fetch heartwarming considerations from! If the eye looks up to the heavens, what abundance of heavenly bodies for conveyance of light and heat it soon discovers! But if the eye of meditation looks into the Scriptures, what a prospect of various rare and glorious passages is there to be found of considerations! like abundance of richest spirits, highest cordials, and preparations of all sorts, in artists shops and closets. Oh what heart-warming considerations can meditation fetch and apply from the infinitely blessed God, his infinite excellences, eternal love, sweetness unspeakable, of the sense of his favor, and the like! Oh what heart-warming considerations from Jesus Christ, to behold him and view him all over, in all he is in his inexpressible glories! in all he hath done, whereby he hath outdone all that ever was or shall be done! What warming considerations in respect of the Holy Spirit, the grand and mighty applier of redemption, by his habitation and operation! What in respect of the word, the precepts, promises, threatenings, and examples in it of sundry sorts, all for our help and comfort! What of the covenant of grace, so sure and sweet! What in respect of ourselves, soul's state, and all the great concerns of it in salvation! Meditation can never want heart-warming considerations, can bring stores of arguments of all sorts, and blow upon them, to make the heart kindle and flame, although it was chill and dead, and never so low brought.

2b. This engine of heavenly meditation produces heart warmth and vivacity, by taking thee out of the shade and cool, and leading into the sunshine of heart-warming ordinances, wherein the Sun of righteousness arises, and shines warm, and his quickening Spirit breathes warm upon thee. As a cure of cooling and decaying love, Christ counsels the angel of that church of Ephesus, first to repent, and then to do his first works, Rev. ii. 4, 5. Negligence in holy duties, omission of them, or remissness in them, introduced a cooling of his love; therefore what was lost by not doing, must be recovered by such a doing as the first was; that his first works done again, might be a rekindler of his first love: disuse of exercise abates the natural heat and vigor, but returning to it will again recover it. Meditation, when it finds the failure and defect, will provoke and engage to the just remedy and relief.

CHAP. XXIII. - The End of Meditation in Reference to the Will.

MEDITATION, as it is to be a helper to warm the affections, so for a means to strengthen and fix the holy purposes and resolutions of the will. It is not a wavering and weak purpose, or a feeble resolution, will, serve for a foundation for building so high as heaven, for carrying on so great and hard a work as soul saving. The Scripture mentions cleaving to the Lord with "purpose of heart," Acts xi. 23. Holy David often in the Psalms tells us of his will, his purpose of heart, Psa. cxix., and his heart was fixed, Psa. cviii. 1. Meditation is singularly instrumental here,

1. Of fixing and deeper rooting of the grand general purpose of pleasing and glorifying God, and working out our own salvation.

2. It is greatly instrumental for corroboration, and for strengthening the lesser roots of derivative purposes, that spring from the grand purpose, that are the particular abettors and helpers of the main and general forementioned purpose.

In every holy heart there is planted at first conversion, that fundamental and noble purpose of pleasing and glorifying God in all things without exception: this purpose also must be often renewed, have its reiterations for corroboration. There must be also derivative and subservient purposes, particular purposes, in reference to advancing the main purpose, and the soul's chief end and intendment, purposes for particular soul concerns, particular duties either respecting mortification of particular corruptions, and particular self-denials, or that respect particular graces and duties, in the seasons required for them. Every particular duty and soul concern, must have the hand of a peculiar purpose lent it to assist it. Right undertaking, as it must have the mind acted in wisdom to direct it, so it must have the will acted in purpose, deliberate purpose, to effect or endeavor it. Grace in the will must work it into a due purposing for the particular occasion of every particular incumbent duty, purpose of heart to ground performance.

The Scriptures give frequent instances of both general and particular purposes this way practiced. First of the general and grand purpose; thus David very often in the Psalms declares, "I will keep thy statutes," Psa. cxix. 8; there is a general purpose superadded to the first purpose that he did when he first gave up his heart in conversion to his God. Thus in the 69th verse of this psalm, "I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart;" there is another general purpose. And Psa. cxvi. 9, "I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living;" there is another of his added general purposes for serving God. "Thou art my portion, O Lord: I have said I will keep thy words,” Psa. cxix. 57. There he tells you what he had done in the time past; he had said, as in the former he saith, what he would do for the future. So in the 106th verse, he tells you what a purpose he had taken, such as had a confirmation of an oath, or, as some express it, had, as it were, the strength or force of an oath; yea, here tells you what he did in time past, and what he will do for the future: "I have sworn," there is the time past; "and will perform," there is purpose for the future: a recalling of his old purpose, and a renewing of a fresh purpose to back the old. So others of the saints in Scripture are to be observed, to accustom themselves frequently to strengthen the first general purpose, with the additions of frequent following purposes.

Also for particular purposes, for particular coming occasions, we have frequent instances of holy men's practices. In reference to avoiding sin, "I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes," Psa. ci. 3. In reference to taking heed to our ways and words, "I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue," Psa. xxxix. 1. In reference to trusting on God in difficulties, waiting upon God, worshipping God, praying, praising, and all sorts of duties and graces, love, joy, hope, courage, constancy, and the like.

Purposes and resolutions, general and particular, and the frequent use of them. Linking purpose to purpose: strong purposes are still necessary for every Christian that will work out salvation; yet all must be done in the strength of Christ, else they will not hold, but wear out and snap asunder.

Now meditation is greatly instrumental herein.

1. Instrumental to make our purposes wise: we must ponder and consider before we purpose; rash purposes and more sudden, without due bottoming in a previous meditating, will prove but miscarryings and abortions. They are like foolish building on the sand, they soon fail: a purpose the more deliberate, the more durable.

2. Meditation helps to make purposes strong and firm: we have need of strong purposes for the great things of eternal life: we have strong opposition from corruption within, and temptation without. Meditation helps mightily to strengthen resolution. It repairs to your spiritual magazine, and thence fetches forth strong spiritual arguments to raise strong resolutions and purposes. Arguments out of the rich stores of Scripture, of all sorts and natures, to relieve the weakness of the will in purposing. Meditation acts a divine reasoning, disputes you into a purposing, when it shows you have so much for it, and nothing at all against it. Also meditation selects and sharpens arguments, sets home, and improves them upon the conscience, that you must yield, must resolve, and firmly, strongly, in such matters as none can be higher.

Oh how many strong and unanswerable arguments can meditation come furnished with, to dispute against carnal unresolvedness, to plead for your acting strong resolutions for any part of an enjoined duty! What weight can it put into the balance to cast the scale for God's and your soul's interest! I need not name the heads of arguments, such as the indispensable necessity of the precept and means, the great sinfulness of unwillingness, the excellency of the thing, with the sweetness, comfort, confidence, and advantages attending it: but this I shall add, the excellency of a Christian lies chiefly in his will; and the excellency of that will is in the height of its purpose and resolution, freest purpose and choice, firmest resolution and determination for the work he came into the world to do. And the great assistant, on our part, of holy resolution, is holy meditation, applying fit reasons to stir up resolution, and instigating to all those ways that produce and cherish it. And this latter is another particular whereby meditation is a relief and fortifier of good resolutions and purposes.

Meditation, I say, is a great strengthener and establisher of holy purposes, both as it is a directive, and instigative; as teaching us what are the ways to help us in purposing, and as instigating and provoking to the ordinances and means, that will water the plants of holy purposes, make them root deep, and shoot up high, flourish and bear fruit. If our purposes are weak; if our hearts in purposings are apt to slip out of joint; no sooner set, but as soon slipt, or ready to dislocate and be out of joint; what remedy then have we but consideration or falling to meditate, to make a true inquiry first of the right and proportionate ways of healing this will malady, this heart infirmity? And then meditation instigates to a due use of discovered helps, of infirm and inconstant resolutions, draws you to and through the whole circle of means, provokes you to try every remedy to cure these abortive purposes. It directs and leads you to all the ordinances of help, to the promises that make over help, to a Christ and all his fullness of help, to the Holy Spirit for his applying effectually of help, to stirring up faith, to acting recumbencies and restings on Christ in the promises, to stirring up ourselves, to humble ourselves for our failings in our purposes, and to strive against them, watch our heart's slipperiness, and to labor keeping our resolutions and purposes better. In nature's order, doing is upon resolving, resolving upon considering; so in grace, performing is upon purposing, purposing arises from pondering and meditating. The saints in Scripture that acted the highest resolutions, exercised the deepest meditations, as we see in the man after God's own heart. Fits and f lashes of fancy never produce firm purposings; but such resolutions that lie longest asteep in due preceding meditation, have the deepest tincture and holding color. Longer I have been upon this particular, as a point more material, because the art of raising and fixing, heightening and improving, holy resolutions, is such a happy fruit of divine meditation ordered to that blessed end.

CHAP. XXIV. - Of Meditation as a grand Supporter of the Christian Course.

MEDITATION is for a constant keeper-up and supporter of the Christian course, as to the evenness of this golden thread, without decays, sinkings, stands, and interruptions. Also as to improvements and goings-on to perfection. And as to conflictings with enemies and oppositions.

This was holy Paul's practice, by still taking in the highest provoking considerations, minding and due pondering of them; it made him to labor so abundantly, to press so hard to the mark, forgetting the things behind, and looking to the things before, Phil. iii. 13, 14. He meditated on the prize of the high calling, kept his eye on the crown of righteousness; he kept his eye always on the stores and varieties of gospel encouragements.

A Christian of the greatest consideration will ever keep up best his evenness and constancy. New, fresh meditations are new soul feedings, new meals, which add new strength and vigor; they make a Christian like Elijah, when he had eaten, to travel with new strength to Horeb, the Mount of God.

We should not move like the sloth, but contrarily, like the bird of paradise, that is seen generally flying, and in a very expedite motion. Divers for running the blessed race of godliness, go creeping slowly, making little haste or progress; certainly they meditate little. The swiftest of foot in Christ's way are the frequent. serious meditators: meditating makes the birds of paradise, the Christians of the perpetual motion.

CHAP. XXV. - Of the End or Use of Meditation in reference to Others.

THE third and last end or use of meditation named, was in respect of others. As the former ends were in reference first to God, then towards ourselves; so this we come now unto, is in respect of others.

Meditation in reference to others, to persons of all sorts, is to fill the treasure of the heart with good things, and to fit the good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, to bring them forth to furnish others, and be serviceable to their spiritual condition. "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good," Luke vi. 45. He first lays in a good treasure, stores himself with the riches of heavenly treasure, and then brings it out: it is not a work merely of fancy and imagination, but chiefly of meditation and consideration. Imagination takes in varieties of things in a promiscuous manner, without differencing or distinguishing them. Imagination makes a collection, meditation makes a selection and adjudication. Meditation observes what precious things are offered us, and lays them up, and discerns what are not precious, and lays them by; yea, by meditation there is not only an old store laid in, but there will be also an adding of new. It is this rare art of meditation that both founds and fills the treasury with old and new. Fancy and imagination, as it is in divers, may fill the mind with trash, but not with treasure; with things that glister, but are not gold.

It is this meditation that makes discerning betwixt the precious and the vile, that takes up on searching the treasure found and discerned, and lays it up in the treasury of a good heart. And this is first for the good man's own store and supply; but then it is also to enable him to bring forth, for others' use and help, to bring forth in first discourse, what is spiritual and savory for the nature, and that likewise is seasonable and suitable for the occasion offered; to bring and show forth the apples of gold in their pictures of silver, as Solomon saith of a word spoken in season, Prov. xxv. 11. Likewise, to hold forth things that are exemplary as to a fruitfulness in walking, to bring forth the good things of light to shine out, light of precious edifying truths, and light of rich and rare experiences, and to bring out the good things of a heavenly, quickening, comforting, and encouraging nature. Meditation, as it is the great way of gathering up things that are useful, and filling the heart treasury; so it is to be the way of direction to open it, and bringing forth in discourse the good things stored up. And by this imparting them to others, we ourselves have a double advantage often following. 1. A clearer and more distinct apprehension; as silver and gold brighten by use, not by laying up. 2. A warmer and livelier affection; any when they come forth warmer by discoursing, they are the apter to warm others and make their hearts bum within them.

This then is one end, one great and excellent end of this so excellent way of meditation: that as face answereth to face in water, so heart may answer heart in warmth. When things have been well warmed in the forge and furnace first of meditation, and then in our communication, fire may kindle fire, and one warm heart may occasion another. Discourse that is the mere product and fruit of fancy and memory, and hath not some rise and tincture of warm meditation, some discovery of heart heat, is like flashes of lightning, or the shining of the moon; they make a show, but warm not; nobody is warmer by the one, no heart is warmer by the other.

Preface to Martin Luthers Commentary of Romans

2007-08-16T15:56:00.000-07:00

Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans

by Martin Luther, 1483-1546

Translated by Bro. Andrew Thornton, OSB

"Vorrede auff die Epistel S. Paul: an die Romer" in D. Martin Luther: Die gantze Heilige Schrifft Deudsch 1545 aufs new zurericht, ed. Hans Volz and Heinz Blanke. Munich: Roger & Bernhard. 1972, vol. 2, pp. 2254-2268.

Translator's Note: The material between square brackets is explanatory in nature and is not part of Luther's preface. The terms "just, justice, justify" in this piece are synonymous with the terms "righteous, righteousness, make righteous." Both sets of English words are common translations of German "gerecht" and related words. A similar situation exists with the word "faith"; it is synonymous with "belief." Both words can be used to translate German "Glaube." Thus, "We are justified by faith" translates the same original German sentence as does "We are made righteous by belief."

This letter is truly the most important piece in the New Testament. It is purest Gospel. It is well worth a Christian's while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy himself with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes. Therefore I want to carry out my service and, with this preface, provide an introduction to the letter, insofar as God gives me the ability, so that every one can gain the fullest possible understanding of it. Up to now it has been darkened by glosses [explanatory notes and comments which accompany a text] and by many a useless comment, but it is in itself a bright light, almost bright enough to illumine the entire Scripture.

To begin with, we have to become familiar with the vocabulary of the letter and know what St. Paul means by the words law, sin, grace, faith, justice, flesh, spirit, etc. Otherwise there is no use in reading it.

You must not understand the word law here in human fashion, i.e., a regulation about what sort of works must be done or must not be done. That's the way it is with human laws: you satisfy the demands of the law with works, whether your heart is in it or not. God judges what is in the depths of the heart. Therefore his law also makes demands on the depths of the heart and doesn't let the heart rest content in works; rather it punishes as hypocrisy and lies all works done apart from the depths of the heart. All human beings are called liars (Psalm 116), since none of them keeps or can keep God's law from the depths of the heart. Everyone finds inside himself an aversion to good and a craving for evil. Where there is no free desire for good, there the heart has not set itself on God's law. There also sin is surely to be found and the deserved wrath of God, whether a lot of good works and an honorable life appear outwardly or not.

Therefore in chapter 2, St. Paul adds that the Jews are all sinners and says that only the doers of the law are justified in the sight of God. What he is saying is that no one is a doer of the law by works. On the contrary, he says to them, "You teach that one should not commit adultery, and you commit adultery. You judge another in a certain matter and condemn yourselves in that same matter, because you do the very same thing that you judged in another." It is as if he were saying, "Outwardly you live quite properly in the works of the law and judge those who do not live the same way; you know how to teach everybody. You see the speck in another's eye but do not notice the beam in your own."

Outwardly you keep the law with works out of fear of punishment or love of gain. Likewise you do everything without free desire and love of the law; you act out of aversion and force. You'd rather act otherwise if the law didn't exist. It follows, then, that you, in the depths of your heart, are an enemy of the law. What do you mean, therefore, by teaching another not to steal, when you, in the depths of your heart, are a thief and would be one outwardly too, if you dared. (Of course, outward work doesn't last long with such hypocrites.) So then, you teach others but not yourself; you don't even know what you are teaching. You've never understood the law rightly. Furthermore, the law increases sin, as St. Paul says in chapter 5. That is because a person becomes more and more an enemy of the law the more it demands of him what he can't possibly do.

In chapter 7, St. Paul says, "The law is spiritual." What does that mean? If the law were physical, then it could be satisfied by works, but since it is spiritual, no one can satisfy it unless everything he does springs from the depths of the heart. But no one can give such a heart except the Spirit of God, who makes the person be like the law, so that he actually conceives a heartfelt longing for the law and henceforward does everything, not through fear or coercion, but from a free heart. Such a law is spiritual since it can only be loved and fulfilled by such a heart and such a spirit. If the Spirit is not in the heart, then there remain sin, aversion and enmity against the law, which in itself is good, just and holy.

You must get used to the idea that it is one thing to do the works of the law and quite another to fulfill it. The works of the law are every thing that a person does or can do of his own free will and by his own powers to obey the law. But because in doing such works the heart abhors the law and yet is forced to obey it, the works are a total loss and are completely useless. That is what St. Paul means in chapter 3 when he says, "No human being is justified before God through the works of the law." From this you can see that the schoolmasters [i.e., the scholastic theologians] and sophists are seducers when they teach that you can prepare yourself for grace by means of works. How can anybody prepare himself for good by means of works if he does no good work except with aversion and constraint in his heart? How can such a work please God, if it proceeds from an averse and unwilling heart?

But to fulfill the law means to do its work eagerly, lovingly and freely, without the constraint of the law; it means to live well and in a manner pleasing to God, as though there were no law or punishment. It is the Holy Spirit, however, who puts such eagerness of unconstained love into the heart, as Paul says in chapter 5. But the Spirit is given only in, with, and through faith in Jesus Christ, as Paul says in his introduction. So, too, faith comes only through the word of God, the Gospel, that preaches Christ: how he is both Son of God and man, how he died and rose for our sake. Paul says all this in chapters 3, 4 and 10.

That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law; faith it is that brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ. The Spirit, in turn, renders the heart glad and free, as the law demands. Then good works proceed from faith itself. That is what Paul means in chapter 3 when, after he has thrown out the works of the law, he sounds as though the wants to abolish the law by faith. No, he says, we uphold the law through faith, i.e. we fulfill it through faith.

Sin in the Scriptures means not only external works of the body but also all those movements within us which bestir themselves and move us to do the external works, namely, the depth of the heart with all its powers. Therefore the word do should refer to a person's completely falling into sin. No external work of sin happens, after all, unless a person commit himself to it completely, body and soul. In particular, the Scriptures see into the heart, to the root and main source of all sin: unbelief in the depth of the heart. Thus, even as faith alone makes just and brings the Spirit and the desire to do good external works, so it is only unbelief which sins and exalts the flesh and brings desire to do evil external works. That's what happened to Adam and Eve in Paradise (cf. Genesis 3).

That is why only unbelief is called sin by Christ, as he says in John, chapter 16, "The Spirit will punish the world because of sin, because it does not believe in me." Furthermore, before good or bad works happen, which are the good or bad fruits of the heart, there has to be present in the heart either faith or unbelief, the root, sap and chief power of all sin. That is why, in the Scriptures, unbelief is called the head of the serpent and of the ancient dragon which the offspring of the woman, i.e. Christ, must crush, as was promised to Adam (cf. Genesis 3). Grace and gift differ in that grace actually denotes God's kindness or favor which he has toward us and by which he is disposed to pour Christ and the Spirit with his gifts into us, as becomes clear from chapter 5, where Paul says, "Grace and gift are in Christ, etc." The gifts and the Spirit increase daily in us, yet they are not complete, since evil desires and sins remain in us which war against the Spirit, as Paul says in chapter 7, and in Galations, chapter 5. And Genesis, chapter 3, proclaims the enmity between the offspring of the woman and that of the serpent. But grace does do this much: that we are accounted completely just before God. God's grace is not divided into bits and pieces, as are the gifts, but grace takes us up completely into God's favor for the sake of Christ, our intercessor and mediator, so that the gifts may begin their work in us.

In this way, then, you should understand chapter 7, where St. Paul portrays himself as still a sinner, while in chapter 8 he says that, because of the incomplete gifts and because of the Spirit, there is nothing damnable in those who are in Christ. Because our flesh has not been killed, we are still sinners, but because we believe in Christ and have the beginnings of the Spirit, God so shows us his favor and mercy, that he neither notices nor judges such sins. Rather he deals with us according to our belief in Christ until sin is killed.

Faith is not that human illusion and dream that some people think it is. When they hear and talk a lot about faith and yet see that no moral improvement and no good works result from it, they fall into error and say, "Faith is not enough. You must do works if you want to be virtuous and get to heaven." The result is that, when they hear the Gospel, they stumble and make for themselves with their own powers a concept in their hearts which says, "I believe." This concept they hold to be true faith. But since it is a human fabrication and thought and not an experience of the heart, it accomplishes nothing, and there follows no improvement.

Faith is a work of God in us, which changes us and brings us to birth anew from God (cf. John 1). It kills the old Adam, makes us completely different people in heart, mind, senses, and all our powers, and brings the Holy Spirit with it. What a living, creative, active powerful thing is faith! It is impossible that faith ever stop doing good. Faith doesn't ask whether good works are to be done, but, before it is asked, it has done them. It is always active. Whoever doesn't do such works is without faith; he gropes and searches about him for faith and good works but doesn't know what faith or good works are. Even so, he chatters on with a great many words about faith and good works.

Faith is a living, unshakeable confidence in God's grace; it is so certain, that someone would die a thousand times for it. This kind of trust in and knowledge of God's grace makes a person joyful, confident, and happy with regard to God and all creatures. This is what the Holy Spirit does by faith. Through faith, a person will do good to everyone without coercion, willingly and happily; he will serve everyone, suffer everything for the love and praise of God, who has shown him such grace. It is as impossible to separate works from faith as burning and shining from fire. Therefore be on guard against your own false ideas and against the chatterers who think they are clever enough to make judgements about faith and good works but who are in reality the biggest fools. Ask God to work faith in you; otherwise you will remain eternally without faith, no matter what you try to do or fabricate.

Now justice is just such a faith. It is called God's justice or that justice which is valid in God's sight, because it is God who gives it and reckons it as justice for the sake of Christ our Mediator. It influences a person to give to everyone what he owes him. Through faith a person becomes sinless and eager for God's commands. Thus he gives God the honor due him and pays him what he owes him. He serves people willingly with the means available to him. In this way he pays everyone his due. Neither nature nor free will nor our own powers can bring about such a justice, for even as no one can give himself faith, so too he cannot remove unbelief. How can he then take away even the smallest sin? Therefore everything which takes place outside faith or in unbelief is lie, hypocrisy and sin (Romans 14), no matter how smoothly it may seem to go.

You must not understand flesh here as denoting only unchastity or spirit as denoting only the inner heart. Here St. Paul calls flesh (as does Christ in John 3) everything born of flesh, i.e. the whole human being with body and soul, reason and senses, since everything in him tends toward the flesh. That is why you should know enough to call that person "fleshly" who, without grace, fabricates, teaches and chatters about high spiritual matters. You can learn the same thing from Galatians, chapter 5, where St. Paul calls heresy and hatred works of the flesh. And in Romans, chapter 8, he says that, through the flesh, the law is weakened. He says this, not of unchastity, but of all sins, most of all of unbelief, which is the most spiritual of vices.

On the other hand, you should know enough to call that person "spiritual" who is occupied with the most outward of works as was Christ, when he washed the feet of the disciples, and Peter, when he steered his boat and fished. So then, a person is "flesh" who, inwardly and outwardly, lives only to do those things which are of use to the flesh and to temporal existence. A person is "spirit" who, inwardly and outwardly, lives only to do those things which are of use to the spirit and to the life to come.

Unless you understand these words in this way, you will never understand either this letter of St. Paul or any book of the Scriptures. Be on guard, therefore against any teacher who uses these words differently, no matter who he be, whether Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Origen or anyone else as great as or greater than they. Now let us turn to the letter itself.

The first duty of a preacher of the Gospel is, through his revealing of the law and of sin, to rebuke and to turn into sin everything in life that does not have the Spirit and faith in Christ as its base. [Here and elsewhere in Luther's preface, as indeed in Romans itself, it is not clear whether "spirit" has the meaning "Holy Spirit" or "spiritual person," as Luther has previously defined it.] Thereby he will lead people to a recognition of their miserable condition, and thus they will become humble and yearn for help. This is what St Paul does. He begins in chapter 1 by rebuking the gross sins and unbelief which are in plain view, as were (and still are) the sins of the pagans, who live without God's grace. He says that, through the Gospel, God is revealing his wrath from heaven upon all mankind because of the godless and unjust lives they live. For, although they know and recognize day by day that there is a God, yet human nature in itself, without grace, is so evil that it neither thanks nor honors God. This nature blinds itself and continually falls into wickedness, even going so far as to commit idolatry and other horrible sins and vices. It is unashamed of itself and leaves such things unpunished in others.

In chapter 2, St. Paul extends his rebuke to those who appear outwardly pious or who sin secretly. Such were the Jews, and such are all hypocrites still, who live virtuous lives but without eagerness and love; in their heart they are enemies of God's law and like to judge other people. That's the way with hypocrites: they think that they are pure but are actually full of greed, hate, pride and all sorts of filth (cf. Matthew 23). These are they who despise God's goodness and, by their hardness of heart, heap wrath upon themselves. Thus Paul explains the law rightly when he lets no one remain without sin but proclaims the wrath of God to all who want to live virtuously by nature or by free will. He makes them out to be no better than public sinners; he says they are hard of heart and unrepentant.

In chapter 3, Paul lumps both secret and public sinners together: the one, he says, is like the other; all are sinners in the sight of God. Besides, the Jews had God's word, even though many did not believe in it. But still God's truth and faith in him are not thereby rendered useless. St. Paul introduces, as an aside, the saying from Psalm 51, that God remains true to his words. Then he returns to his topic and proves from Scripture that they are all sinners and that no one becomes just through the works of the law but that God gave the law only so that sin might be perceived.

Next St. Paul teaches the right way to be virtuous and to be saved; he says that they are all sinners, unable to glory in God. They must, however, be justified through faith in Christ, who has merited this for us by his blood and has become for us a mercy seat [cf. Exodus 25:17, Leviticus 16:14ff, and John 2:2] in the presence of God, who forgives us all our previous sins. In so doing, God proves that it is his justice alone, which he gives through faith, that helps us, the justice which was at the appointed time revealed through the Gospel and, previous to that, was witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets. Therefore the law is set up by faith, but the works of the law, along with the glory taken in them, are knocked down by faith. [As with the term "spirit," the word "law" seems to have for Luther, and for St. Paul, two meanings. Sometimes it means "regulation about what must be done or not done," as in the third paragraph of this preface; sometimes it means "the Torah," as in the previous sentence. And sometimes it seems to have both meanings, as in what follows.]

In chapters 1 to 3, St. Paul has revealed sin for what it is and has taught the way of faith which leads to justice. Now in chapter 4 he deals with some objections and criticisms. He takes up first the one that people raise who, on hearing that faith make just without works, say, "What? Shouldn't we do any good works?" Here St. Paul holds up Abraham as an example. He says, "What did Abraham accomplish with his good works? Were they all good for nothing and useless?" He concludes that Abraham was made righteous apart from all his works by faith alone. Even before the "work" of his circumcision, Scripture praises him as being just on account of faith alone (cf. Genesis 15). Now if the work of his circumcision did nothing to make him just, a work that God had commanded him to do and hence a work of obedience, then surely no other good work can do anything to make a person just. Even as Abraham's circumcision was an outward sign with which he proved his justice based on faith, so too all good works are only outward signs which flow from faith and are the fruits of faith; they prove that the person is already inwardly just in the sight of God.

St. Paul verifies his teaching on faith in chapter 3 with a powerful example from Scripture. He calls as witness David, who says in Psalm 32 that a person becomes just without works but doesn't remain without works once he has become just. Then Paul extends this example and applies it against all other works of the law. He concludes that the Jews cannot be Abraham's heirs just because of their blood relationship to him and still less because of the works of the law. Rather, they have to inherit Abrahams's faith if they want to be his real heirs, since it was prior to the Law of Moses and the law of circumcision that Abraham became just through faith and was called a father of all believers. St. Paul adds that the law brings about more wrath than grace, because no one obeys it with love and eagerness. More disgrace than grace come from the works of the law. Therefore faith alone can obtain the grace promised to Abraham. Examples like these are written for our sake, that we also should have faith.

In chapter 5, St. Paul comes to the fruits and works of faith, namely: joy, peace, love for God and for all people; in addition: assurance, steadfastness, confidence, courage, and hope in sorrow and suffering. All of these follow where faith is genuine, because of the overflowing good will that God has shown in Christ: he had him die for us before we could ask him for it, yes, even while we were still his enemies. Thus we have established that faith, without any good works, makes just. It does not follow from that, however, that we should not do good works; rather it means that morally upright works do not remain lacking. About such works the "works-holy" people know nothing; they invent for themselves their own works in which are neither peace nor joy nor assurance nor love nor hope nor steadfastness nor any kind of genuine Christian works or faith.

Next St. Paul makes a digression, a pleasant little side-trip, and relates where both sin and justice, death and life come from. He opposes these two: Adam and Christ. What he wants to say is that Christ, a second Adam, had to come in order to make us heirs of his justice through a new spiritual birth in faith, just as the old Adam made us heirs of sin through the old fleshy birth.

St. Paul proves, by this reasoning, that a person cannot help himself by his works to get from sin to justice any more than he can prevent his own physical birth. St. Paul also proves that the divine law, which should have been well-suited, if anything was, for helping people to obtain justice, not only was no help at all when it did come, but it even increased sin. Evil human nature, consequently, becomes more hostile to it; the more the law forbids it to indulge its own desires, the more it wants to. Thus the law makes Christ all the more necessary and demands more grace to help human nature.

In chapter 6, St. Paul takes up the special work of faith, the struggle which the spirit wages against the flesh to kill off those sins and desires that remain after a person has been made just. He teaches us that faith doesn't so free us from sin that we can be idle, lazy and self-assured, as though there were no more sin in us. Sin is there, but, because of faith that struggles against it, God does not reckon sin as deserving damnation. Therefore we have in our own selves a lifetime of work cut out for us; we have to tame our body, kill its lusts, force its members to obey the spirit and not the lusts. We must do this so that we may conform to the death and resurrection of Christ and complete our Baptism, which signifies a death to sin and a new life of grace. Our aim is to be completely clean from sin and then to rise bodily with Christ and live forever.

St. Paul says that we can accomplish all this because we are in grace and not in the law. He explains that to be "outside the law" is not the same as having no law and being able to do what you please. No, being "under the law" means living without grace, surrounded by the works of the law. Then surely sin reigns by means of the law, since no one is naturally well-disposed toward the law. That very condition, however, is the greatest sin. But grace makes the law lovable to us, so there is then no sin any more, and the law is no longer against us but one with us.

This is true freedom from sin and from the law; St. Paul writes about this for the rest of the chapter. He says it is a freedom only to do good with eagerness and to live a good life without the coercion of the law. This freedom is, therefore, a spiritual freedom which does not suspend the law but which supplies what the law demands, namely eagerness and love. These silence the law so that it has no further cause to drive people on and make demands of them. It's as though you owed something to a moneylender and couldn't pay him. You could be rid of him in one of two ways: either he would take nothing from you and would tear up his account book, or a pious man would pay for you and give you what you needed to satisfy your debt. That's exactly how Christ freed us from the law. Therefore our freedom is not a wild, fleshy freedom that has no obligation to do anything. On the contrary, it is a freedom that does a great deal, indeed everything, yet is free of the law's demands and debts.

In chapter 7, St. Paul confirms the foregoing by an analogy drawn from married life. When a man dies, the wife is free; the one is free and clear of the other. It is not the case that the woman may not or should not marry another man; rather she is now for the first time free to marry someone else. She could not do this before she was free of her first husband. In the same way, our conscience is bound to the law so long as our condition is that of the sinful old man. But when the old man is killed by the spirit, then the conscience is free, and conscience and law are quit of each other. Not that conscience should now do nothing; rather, it should now for the first time truly cling to its second husband, Christ, and bring forth the fruit of life.

Next St. Paul sketches further the nature of sin and the law. It is the law that makes sin really active and powerful, because the old man gets more and more hostile to the law since he can't pay the debt demanded by the law. Sin is his very nature; of himself he can't do otherwise. And so the law is his death and torture. Now the law is not itself evil; it is our evil nature that cannot tolerate that the good law should demand good from it. It's like the case of a sick person, who cannot tolerate that you demand that he run and jump around and do other things that a healthy person does.

St. Paul concludes here that, if we understand the law properly and comprehend it in the best possible way, then we will see that its sole function is to remind us of our sins, to kill us by our sins, and to make us deserving of eternal wrath. Conscience learns and experiences all this in detail when it comes face to face with the law. It follows, then, that we must have something else, over and above the law, which can make a person virtuous and cause him to be saved. Those, however, who do not understand the law rightly are blind; they go their way boldly and think they are satisfying the law with works. They don't know how much the law demands, namely, a free, willing, eager heart. That is the reason that they don't see Moses rightly before their eyes. [In both Jewish and Christian teaching, Moses was commonly held to be the author of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the bible. Cf. the involved imagery of Moses' face and the veil over it in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18.] For them he is covered and concealed by the veil.

Then St. Paul shows how spirit and flesh struggle with each other in one person. He gives himself as an example, so that we may learn how to kill sin in ourselves. He gives both spirit and flesh the name "law," so that, just as it is in the nature of divine law to drive a person on and make demands of him, so too the flesh drives and demands and rages against the spirit and wants to have its own way. Likewise the spirit drives and demands against the flesh and wants to have its own way. This feud lasts in us for as long as we live, in one person more, in another less, depending on whether spirit or flesh is stronger. Yet the whole human being is both: spirit and flesh. The human being fights with himself until he becomes completely spiritual.

In chapter 8, St. Paul comforts fighters such as these and tells them that this flesh will not bring them condemnation. He goes on to show what the nature of flesh and spirit are. Spirit, he says, comes from Christ, who has given us his Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit makes us spiritual and restrains the flesh. The Holy Spirit assures us that we are God's children no matter how furiously sin may rage within us, so long as we follow the Spirit and struggle against sin in order to kill it. Because nothing is so effective in deadening the flesh as the cross and suffering, Paul comforts us in our suffering. He says that the Spirit, [cf. previous note about the meaning of "spirit."] love and all creatures will stand by us; the Spirit in us groans and all creatures long with us that we be freed from the flesh and from sin. Thus we see that these three chapters, 6, 7 and 8, all deal with the one work of faith, which is to kill the old Adam and to constrain the flesh.

In chapters 9, 10 and 11, St. Paul teaches us about the eternal providence of God. It is the original source which determines who would believe and who wouldn't, who can be set free from sin and who cannot. Such matters have been taken out of our hands and are put into God's hands so that we might become virtuous. It is absolutely necessary that it be so, for we are so weak and unsure of ourselves that, if it depended on us, no human being would be saved. The devil would overpower all of us. But God is steadfast; his providence will not fail, and no one can prevent its realization. Therefore we have hope against sin.

But here we must shut the mouths of those sacriligeous and arrogant spirits who, mere beginners that they are, bring their reason to bear on this matter and commence, from their exalted position, to probe the abyss of divine providence and uselessly trouble themselves about whether they are predestined or not. These people must surely plunge to their ruin, since they will either despair or abandon themselves to a life of chance.

You, however, follow the reasoning of this letter in the order in which it is presented. Fix your attention first of all on Christ and the Gospel, so that you may recognize your sin and his grace. Then struggle against sin, as chapters 1-8 have taught you to. Finally, when you have come, in chapter 8, under the shadow of the cross and suffering, they will teach you, in chapters 9-11, about providence and what a comfort it is. [The context here and in St. Paul's letter makes it clear that this is the cross and passion, not only of Christ, but of each Christian.] Apart from suffering, the cross and the pangs of death, you cannot come to grips with providence without harm to yourself and secret anger against God. The old Adam must be quite dead before you can endure this matter and drink this strong wine. Therefore make sure you don't drink wine while you are still a babe at the breast. There is a proper measure, time and age for understanding every doctrine.

In chapter 12, St. Paul teaches the true liturgy and makes all Christians priests, so that they may offer, not money or cattle, as priests do in the Law, but their own bodies, by putting their desires to death. Next he describes the outward conduct of Christians whose lives are governed by the Spirit; he tells how they teach, preach, rule, serve, give, suffer, love, live and act toward friend, foe and everyone. These are the works that a Christian does, for, as I have said, faith is not idle.

In chapter 13, St. Paul teaches that one should honor and obey the secular authorities. He includes this, not because it makes people virtuous in the sight of God, but because it does insure that the virtuous have outward peace and protection and that the wicked cannot do evil without fear and in undisturbed peace. Therefore it is the duty of virtuous people to honor secular authority, even though they do not, strictly speaking, need it. Finally, St. Paul sums up everything in love and gathers it all into the example of Christ: what he has done for us, we must also do and follow after him.

In chapter 14, St. Paul teaches that one should carefully guide those with weak conscience and spare them. One shouldn't use Christian freedom to harm but rather to help the weak. Where that isn't done, there follow dissention and despising of the Gospel, on which everything else depends. It is better to give way a little to the weak in faith until they become stronger than to have the teaching of the Gospel perish completely. This work is a particularly necessary work of love especially now when people, by eating meat and by other freedoms, are brashly, boldly and unnecessarily shaking weak consciences which have not yet come to know the truth.

In chapter 15, St. Paul cites Christ as an example to show that we must also have patience with the weak, even those who fail by sinning publicly or by their disgusting morals. We must not cast them aside but must bear with them until they become better. That is the way Christ treated us and still treats us every day; he puts up with our vices, our wicked morals and all our imperfection, and he helps us ceaselessly. Finally Paul prays for the Christians at Rome; he praises them and commends them to God. He points out his own office and the message that he preaches. He makes an unobtrusive plea for a contribution for the poor in Jerusalem. Unalloyed love is the basis of all he says and does.

The last chapter consists of greetings. But Paul also includes a salutary warning against human doctrines which are preached alongside the Gospel and which do a great deal of harm. It's as though he had clearly seen that out of Rome and through the Romans would come the deceitful, harmful Canons and Decretals along with the entire brood and swarm of human laws and commands that is now drowning the whole world and has blotted out this letter and the whole of the Scriptures, along with the Spirit and faith. Nothing remains but the idol Belly, and St. Paul depicts those people here as its servants. God deliver us from them. Amen.

We find in this letter, then, the richest possible teaching about what a Christian should know: the meaning of law, Gospel, sin, punishment, grace, faith, justice, Christ, God, good works, love, hope and the cross. We learn how we are to act toward everyone, toward the virtuous and sinful, toward the strong and the weak, friend and foe, and toward ourselves. Paul bases everything firmly on Scripture and proves his points with examples from his own experience and from the Prophets, so that nothing more could be desired. Therefore it seems that St. Paul, in writing this letter, wanted to compose a summary of the whole of Christian and evangelical teaching which would also be an introduction to the whole Old Testament. Without doubt, whoever takes this letter to heart possesses the light and power of the Old Testament. Therefore each and every Christian should make this letter the habitual and constant object of his study. God grant us his grace to do so. Amen.