V. Hath not God vanquished Satan for you? When the devil hath tempted to infidelity, to selfmurder, when he would make you believe either that your graces were but a fiction, or God's promise but a counterfeit bond; now that you have not been foiled by the tempter, it is God who hath kept the garrison of your heart, else his fiery darts would have entered. Here is an experience to meditate upon.

VI. Have you not had many signal deliverances? When you have been even at the gates of death, God hath miraculously restored you, and renewed your strength as the eagle; may not you write that writing which Hezekiah did? 66 The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick and was recovered of his sickness," Isa. xxxviii. 9. You thought the sun of your life was quite setting; but God made this sun return back many degrees. Here is an experience for meditation to feed upon. When you have

been imprisoned, your foot taken in the snare, and the Lord hath broken the snare, nay, hath made those to break it who were the instruments of laying it: behold an experience; O let us often revolve in mind our experiences! If a man had medicinal receipts by him, he would be often looking over them. You that have rare receipts of mercy by you, be often, by meditation, looking over your receipts.

Meditation on our experiences would,

1. Raise us to thankfulness. Considering that God hath set a hedge of providence about us, he hath strewed our way with roses, this would make us take the harp and viol, and praise the Lord, and not only praise, but record, 1 Chron. xvi. 4. The meditating christian keeps a register or chronicle of God's mercies, that the memory of them doth not decay. God would have the manna kept in the ark many hundred years, that

the remembrance of that miracle might be preserved; a meditating soul takes care that the spiritual manna of an experience be kept safe.

2. Meditation on our experiences would engage our hearts to God in obedience. Mercy would be a needle to sew us to him. We would cry out as Bernard, " I have, Lord, two mites, a soul and a body, and I give them both to thee."

3. Meditation on our experiences would serve to convince us that God is no hard master; we might bring in our experiences as a sufficient confutation of that slander. When we have been falling, hath not God taken us by the hand?" When I said my foot slippeth, thy goodness, O Lord, held me up." Psal. xciv. 18. How often hath God held our head and heart when we have been fainting! and is he a hard master? Is there any master besides God who will wait upon his servants? Christians, summon in your experiences. What vails* have you had! Psal. xix. 11. what inward serenity and peace, which neither the world can give, nor death take away! A christian's own experiences may plead for God against such as desire rather to censure his ways, than to try them, and to cavil at them, than to walk in them.

4. Meditation on our experiences would make us communicative to others. We should be willing to tell our children and acquaintance "what God hath done for our souls," Psal. xliv. 1. At such a time we were brought low, and God raised us; at such a time in desertion, and God brought a promise to remembrance which dropt in comfort. Meditation on God's gracious dealing with us would make us transmit and propagate our experience to others, that the

* Perquisites and presents given to servants.

mercies of God shown to us may bear a plentiful crop of praise, when we are dead and gone.

CH. VII. Showing the necessity of Meditation. Ir is not enough to carry the book of God's law about us, but we must meditate in it. The necessity of meditation will appear in three particulars.

1. The end why God hath given us his word written and preached, is not only to know it, but that we should meditate in it. The word is a letter of the great God written to us; now we must not run it over in haste, but meditate upon God's wisdom in inditing, and his love in sending it to us. Why doth the physician give his patient a receipt; is it that he should only read it over and know the receipt, or that he should apply it? the end why God communicates his gospel receipts to us is, that we should apply them by fruitful meditation. Would God, think we, ever have been at the pains of writing his law with his own finger, only that we should have the theory and notion of it? is it not that we should meditate in it? Would he ever have been at the cost to send abroad his ministers into the world, to furnish them with gifts, Eph. iv. 11, 12. and must they for the work of Christ be nigh unto death, Phil. ii. 30. that christians should only have an empty knowledge of the truths published? Is it only speculation, or meditation that God aims at?

II. The necessity of meditation appears in this, because without it we can never be good christians; a christian without meditation is like a soldier without arms, or a workman without tools.

1. Without meditation the truths of God will not stay with us; the heart is hard, and the memory slippery, and without meditation all is lost; meditation imprints and fastens a truth in the mind, it is like the

selvedge which keeps the cloth from raveling. Serious meditation is like the engraving of letters in gold or marble, which endure: without this all our preaching to you is but like writing in sand, like pouring water into a sieve, like throwing a bur upon a crystal, which glides off and doth not stay. Reading and hearing without meditation is like weak physic which will not work; want of meditation hath made so many sermons in this age to miscarry.

2. Without meditation the truths which we know will never affect our hearts; "These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart." Deut. vi. 6. How can the word be in the heart, unless it be wrought in by meditation? as a hammer drives a nail to the head, so meditation drives a truth to the heart. It is not the taking in of food, but the stomach's concocting it, which makes it turn to blood and spirits; so it is not the taking in of a truth at the ear, but the meditating on it, which is the concoction of it in the mind, makes it nourish. Without meditation the word preached may increase notion, not affection. There is as much difference between the knowledge of a truth and the meditation on a truth, as there is between the light of a torch, and the light of the sun. lamp or torch in the garden, and it hath no influence: the sun hath a sweet influence, it makes the plants grow, and the herbs flourish: so knowledge is but like a torch lighted in the understanding, which hath little or no influence, it makes not a man the better; but meditation is like the shining of the sun, it operates upon the affections, it warms the heart and makes it more holy. Meditation gives life to a truth. There are many truths that lie, as it were, in the heart dead, which when we meditate upon, they begin to have life and heat in them. Meditation on a truth

Set up a

is like rubbing a man in a swoon; it fetcheth life. It is meditation makes a christian.

III. Without meditation we make ourselves guilty of slighting God and his word. If a man lets a thing lie by, and never minds it, it is a sign he slights it: God's word is the book of life; not to meditate in it, is to undervalue it. If a king puts forth an edict or proclamation, and the subjects never mind it, it is a slighting of the king's authority. God puts forth his law as a royal edict; if we do not meditate in it, it is a slighting his authority, and what doth this amount to less than a contempt done to the Divine majesty. CH. VIII. Showing the reason why there are so few good Christians.

Use 1. Information. It gives us a true account why there are so few good christians in the world; namely, because there are so few meditating christians: we have many that have bible ears, they are swift to hear, but slow to meditate. This duty is grown almost out of fashion: people are so much in the shop, that they are seldom on the mount with God. Where is the meditating christian? Diogenes, in a full market, was seeking up and down, and being asked what he sought for, saith, I seek for a man, that was to say, a wise man, a philosopher: among the crowd of professors, I might search for a christian, namely, a meditating christian. Where is he that meditates on sin, hell, eternity, the recompense of reward; that takes a prospect of heaven every day? where is the meditating christian? It is to be lamented in our times, that so many who go under the name of professors, have banished good discourse from their tables, and meditation from their closets. Surely the hand of Joab is in this!