A discourse of the government of the thoughts by George Tullie ...

SECT. 2.

PROCEED we now to such Considerations as may be pro∣per to govern, and fix our Thoughts during our attendance upon religious Duties.

AND here we cannot more profitably commence this important Work, than by the same measure we at first prescribed on the last part of this Subject; that is, by address∣sing to God for his Aid and Assi∣ance in the Matter, that not onely the Words of our Mouth, but the Me∣ditations if our Heart (especially in our immediate approaches to Him) may be always acceptable in the sight of the Lord our God and our Re∣deemer. For Prayer it self will faci∣litate that application of Mind which

is necessary to a due performance of it, in as much as it purifies the Heart, sublimates the Spirit, and exalts it above its natural Pitch and Level: For by often returning to God, and carefully renewing our commerce with Heaven, we shake off our criminal Dispositions; and what was at first irksom and wea∣risomness to the flesh becomes at length an easie and a pleasurable Ex∣ercise. He will never be able to arrive to any tolerable degree of Perfection in any Attainment, whose desires do not first carry him on to∣wards it with some Eagerness and Impatience; and Prayer is nothing but putting our desires into Suit. He is certainly a very temerarious Person, who commences any Un∣dertakeing, without invokeing first the divine Favour and Assistance: The only proper Foundation Stone whereon to build our hopes of Suc∣cess in any of our Enterprises, and judged as such even by the Heathen World it self, who generally com∣menc'd their Works with appreca∣tion

of good Success from the great Author of it. Cesar, being to enter the Senate, sacrificed first, and Prayer among them was a con∣stant Attendance upon that Perfor∣mance, and Appian particularly speaks of that Act, not as of an ex∣traordinary, but as of a customary thing. And if this piece of ho∣mage be so highly our Duty in enterprising things that do not, I may say, so nearly regard him, how much more will it be so in our endeavours to attain that grace which flows directly from him, immediately concerns his Honour and is terminated in him, as its fi∣nal and onely proper Object?

II. ANOTHER proper re∣medy for the government of our Thoughts in religious Duties, is to qualifie and prepare our Hearts be∣fore hand for the performance: To discharge all Thoughts of the World for that time from their attendance, to require them to stand by, to carry here or there, whilst we go and

Pray yonder. 'Tis true indeed that the Loins of a Mind, throughly principled with the Love and Fear of the divine Majesty, are always ready girt about for the Sacrifice, such Persons liveing under a con∣stant sense and practice of it, but we address not here to the whole, who have no need of a spiritual Physi∣tian, but to those who are sick of their Duty; who come to it with ten thousand foreign and im∣proper Ideas; with the Images of an Estate, a Purchase, a Family, a Trade, a Ball, a Consort of Mu∣sick, or perhaps last nights De∣bauch about them: To these one would prescribe some preparatory Physick, some sequestring of the Mind from these ingageing Objects before they enter upon conversing with God, and corresponding with Heaven, least the Thoughts that possess'd them this hour or this day, keep their haunt the next, and mar the performance. We are not wont to rush into the presence of a Prince without premeditation,

and some previous care of our Mien and Deportment, and how comes it then to pass that we dare presume to address the Living God so familiar∣ly, and so rudely. Before thou Pray∣est, says the wise Son of Syrach, pre∣pare thy self and be not as one that tempteth the Lord. i. e. I conceive, to be angry with thee, and to curse rather then to bless thee, Twas one of the good things found in Jehoshaphat, that he had prepared his Heart to seek God: And no Man pretends to good Musick, before he has put his Instrument in tune; when our Hearts are fixed, O God, when our Hearts are fixed, then shall we best sing and give Praise. Now by preparation here I do not mean those succinct Applica∣tions we are wont to make to God upon our entering on his Service in houses set a part to that propose, but the revolving in our Minds such previous reflections as these. are,

1. THE Weight and Impor∣tance

of the duty we are about, which is the onely proper Con∣veyancer of the divine Blessings, and that by divine Appointment, and is of no less consequence to us than the Supply of our wants both Spiritual and Temporal, the pro∣mises of this Life, and of that which is to come; tis, in a word, a transaction whereon depends the concern of Life and Death, and what is more, of Eternal Life, and Eternal Death; and will a Man slubber over such a Business as this, will he plead his Cause so supinely as if he were bribed against himself, when so vast an Estate as the everlasting Inheritance, depends upon the Issue of the Tryal? Moses exhorts the Jews to hearken unto the Words of the Law, because, says he, it is your Life. Prayers and Praises are the spiritual Life of a Christian, and therefore when any forreign Thoughts assail it, either by force or fraud, we must take up Nehemiahs answer to his Ene∣mies, I am doing a great Work so that

I cannot come down, why should the work cease whilst I leave it and come down to you. A

2. PREPARATORY will be best placed upon the dread Majesty of him we address to, and his more immediate Presence in places set apart for his Service; for God himself alledgeth the great∣ness of his Majesty to caution Men against offering him any mean and contemptible Sacrifices: Cursed be the Deceiver, says he, which hath in his flock a Male, and voweth and sa∣crificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: For I am a Great King, says the Lord of Hosts, and my Name is dreadful among the Heathen; and the wise Man urgeth the distance be∣twixt the great Creator and his Creatures, as an argument of that Sobriety and exactness of Utter∣ance and Affection that becomes his Presence: Be not rash with thy mouth, says he, and let not thine heart be ha∣sty to utter any thing before God: for God is in Heaven, and thou upon earth.

AY, 'tis certainly the want of a due consideration of the terrible name of the great and living God, who is infinitely exalted above our most elevated Conceptions of him, that makes us so often present him with the Sacrifice of Fools, that Excors Sa∣crificium, which the Heathen World look'd upon as so prodigious a thing. It requires indeed a genious, wide, and Philosophical, the portion of but a few, to take in a full draught of Contemplation of the Great and In∣visible Being; and tho it must be own'd, that the most refined Capa∣city cannot now behold him as he is, shining in his full Orb of Glory (for the Contemplation of his Essence is an Abyss, which im∣mediately devours and swallows up a dark and broken Understanding, it being a sort of endeavour to look God in the Face, which no Man can do and Live) yet he has not lest us without witnesses of his Ma∣jesty, in the convulsion of the Mountain, and the Agony of Na∣ture at the promulgation of the

Law, in the losty, but yet infinite∣ly inadequate Descriptions that the Prophets give of him: In his works, of spreading out the Heavens, and treading upon the waves of the Sea, &c. In those frightful and amazing Accounts the Scripture give us, of the transactions of the last Day, &c. And certainly did we but en∣deavour to possess our Souls with tolerable Conceptions, of this great and dreadful Being, from these im∣perfect Notices we have of him; we could not but be induced to take some tolerable care, how and what we say, when we are speaking unto God, for the Angels them∣selves, the ten thousand times ten thousand that stand before him, do not more truly minister in his Presence, than we do in our ad∣dresses to Him. And Oh! that we had but a glimps of him that is Invisible, that the God of Heaven would but irradiate our dark ca∣pacity, with some beam of his Ma∣jesty, with what Reverence, what Fear and Trembling, should we come

before him? And this more espe∣cially, in places consecrate and set apart for the payment of our ho∣mage to him, where he vouch∣safes his more immediate and more special Presence. Not indeed after any gross and local manner, as the Gentiles conceiv'd of their fictitious Deities in their Temples, in which sense it is said of the most High that he dwelleth not in Temples made with hands; but by the re∣tinue of his Angels, which give their more immediate Attendance there, as in their Masters house, by his Word and Sacraments, and by his peculiar readiness to hear, and bless those that devoutly call upon his Name there; for which reason, as one well observes, the Tabernacle of the Lord was call'd 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Tabernacle of meet∣ing; not of Mens meeting to∣gether, as is commonly suppos'd, when we translate it, Tabernacle of the Congregation; but of God's meeting there with Men, his poor humble Supplican••s? For so he

himself gives the reason of the Name: And thou shalt lay them up says God to Moses, speaking of the Rods of the Tribes, in the Tabernacle of the Congregation, before the Testimony; where I will meet with you. And there I will meet with thee and com∣mune with thee. And what else can be the true and unstrained meaning of that Passage of our Sa∣viour's in the Gospel, where he promises, that where two or three are gathered together in his Name, he is there in the midst of them? For, whatever may be particularly affir∣med of the Temple, a greater than Solomon is here, even God wonder∣ful in his holy Places; sure these are no other than the Houses of God, these are the Gates of Hea∣ven.

AND therefore we would do well to take care how we make Iniquity, even the solemn Meeting; by affronting God with our lip Services, and that so immediately to his Face; For can any any Man

in his wits but think, that the great God, to whom the profound∣est homage of the Soul is due, is much more affronted than he is ho∣noured, by the dull spiritless mutter∣ing a few Pater nosters, or any other Prayers, by the bare telling over, as the manner of some is, and string∣ing up their Petitions? We durst not thus mock our Prince to his Face, we would hardly do it to our Equals, and whence then is it, but through want of preparing our Hearts with due Conceptions of his Awful and Majestick Presence in his own House, that we make thus bold with our Maker?

3. IT might be a proper pre∣paratory reflection to consider the Fruits and Consequences of ap∣proaching God in so careless and so incogitant a Manner. I shall not go about to shew at large, how severe God has formerly been upon all dis∣orders and irregularities committed about holy Things and Duties, as in the Case of Aarons Sons, of Ʋzzah; of

the Bethshemites; and of the Church of Corinth; nor how he threatn'd that for this very thing; because his People drew near to him with their Lips, but had removed their Heart far from him, he would therefore proceed to do a marvellous Work a∣mong them, even a marvellous Work and a Wonder: Which was no less than to confound the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent Men amongst them; I shall not, I say, insist on these Conside∣rations now, because it has seem'd good to the infinite Wisdom, to alter the nature of his Inflictions, and for neglects of this kind espe∣cially to change them from tem∣poral into spiritual, which, tho they do not so immediately affect the Body as the others did; yet en∣danger the Soul and take away the spiritual Life of a Christian. For tho, he do's not now smite Men with Death, for their unsanctified Approaches to him, yet he smites them with Deadness, with Coldness and Indifferency in the cause of

Religion, suffers them to grow listless, reasty, and awkard at their Devotions, and ten to one to lapse at long run into open Atheism and Prophaneness. For we certainly lose ground by every spiritless Pray∣er we advance, grow from bad to worse, from worse to stark nought, and past feeling. For every such formal performance grieves the Spirit, cloggs the Conscience, har∣dens the Heart, and gives the De∣vil an occasion to draw us off from our Neutrality, and to make us at last declare for his Party; whence it is not improbable, that, when we have once contracted such a vitious habit and crasis of Soul in Devotion, he himself many times sends us to our Prayers, adding that he may add to our Disease, and turn the best Antidote we have against him into so much stronger Poison to our selves. And therefore we would do well to season and prepare our Hearts beforehand, with these, and the like Considerations, that by a just Reslection upon the Im∣portance

of the Duty, the Supream Majesty to whom we pay it, and the fatal Consequences of a per∣functory Performance of it, we may attend upon the Lord without Di∣straction.

III. ANOTHER proper means, to fix our Thoughts in the Service of God, is to Love him with all our Hearts, with all the Powers, and Capacities of our Souls; did we Delight to have our Con∣versation with Him, our Hearts would keep our Minds close to their Work, and not suffer them to loi∣ter or to ramble; for our Affections have an immediate Influence upon our Thoughts, and our Hearts ge∣nerally sets our Mind the Theme of its Contemplations; Love par∣ticularly is a commanding and im∣perial Passion, that bids us go, and and we go; come, and we come; do this, and we do it, a passion that ingrosses all our Powers, binds us fast to, and runs our Thoughts so deep into its Object, that we have

neither Leisure, nor Patience, hard∣ly Power, to attend to any others. O how I love thy Law! says holy David, and then it follows, both in him, and in the nature of the things, it is my Meditation all the Day; and the first part of his Cha∣racter of a good Man is, that his Delight is in the Law of the Lord; and the second is the natural Re∣sult of the first, that in his Law doth he meditate Day and Night. For a Man cannot but pore and muse on the thing he delights in; and therefore were our Hearts ra∣vished with the Love of God, from just and retired Reflections upon the benefits of Creation, Preserva∣tion, Redemption, and the Glory that hereafter shall be Revealed, did we but kindle this holy Flame in us by frequent Considerations of his patience, forgiveness, for∣bearance, the Abyss of his Love, and the great depths of his infinite beneficence: things that must needs render the Deity amiable and lovely to us in our Conceptions of him: all

our motions would tend Heaven wards, when once invigorated with impressions from that celestial Fire, we should not be at leisure to ad∣mit any Rival of God in our Thoughts, and to attend to those little idle Toys and Fancies, that have the impudence to step into our Closets, and distract us.

IV. MEDITATION is a∣nother proper Remedy of the wan∣dring of our Thoughts in Prayer. The Hill of Meditation is indeed of difficult, but yet of noble As∣cent, that lifts us up so far above our natural Level, that we look down upon the World, and all its Enjoyments, which so frequently interrupt our Devotions, as a very little Thing. 'Tis an heroic and abstracted Operation of the Soul, that lets us into the very secrets of the Objects we Contemplate; that makes every day fresh Disco∣veries, and gives us both deep and diffused Prospects of things other∣wise invisible: the Telescope of the

Mind, whereby we descry new Worlds, a new Heaven, and a new Earth, the Terra incognita of Nature and Grace; and see things at an immense distance from us: It opens to us the Scene of Paradise it self, makes a sort of indistance betwixt God and our own Souls, takes us out, or, at least, makes us forget that we are Flesh, fills our head with those elevated Conceptions, and warms our Heart with those Ra∣vishments of Joy, that we can feel indeed but cannot utter or express them. And he who has never yet been experimentally sensible of this Truth, never yet rightly enjoyed either God, or himself, has the most exquisite Pleasure of this Life yet to come, and wants the preparato∣ry Foretaste of the enjoyments of the other. Meditation in a word, I mean where God is the Object, both quickens and fixes our Devo∣tion, which embraces not its Object but in proportion as Meditation gives it Entrance.

V. AND Lastly Solitude gives a mighty fixation of Thought, in private, and Religious Assemblies in publick Devotion; for a Retreat naturally tends to Recollection of the Spirit and Communion with God, it helps to center all the Ema∣nations of our Souls upon him, and gives us more pure and perfect Pro∣spects; and therefore, when thou prayest, says he, who taught us to pray, enter into thy Closet, not on∣ly to avoid that vain Pomp and Parade, which the Pharisaic Vota∣ries so much affected, but no doubt to better the Performance, by with∣drawing, as much as may be, from those Impressions of worldly Ob∣jects, that are wont so fatally to persecute and distract us. Any thing that requires application of Mind carries the necessity of Retirement along with it: How much more that Performance, to the full dis∣charge whereof the utmost Stretch of our humane Capacities is ina∣dequate: All which is by no means to be understood in prejudice to the

Publick Prayers of Religious Assem∣blies; where the regular Gravity and Decorum of the Worship, the united Zeal and Devotion of the Worshippers, the Sacredness of the Word that is read, the Importance of the Duty, the Dreadfulness of the Place, &c. all conspire to wing the Devout Soul with divine Ele∣vations, to fix it upon God, and give it a Solitude in the great Con∣gregation.

AND thus much for those re∣medies that may be proper to cure the Distraction and Flatness of our Thoughts in Gods Service.

Notes

• Ecclesiasticus. 18. 23.
• 2 Chron. 19. 3.
• Deut. 32 40.
• Nebem: 6. 3.
• Malac. 1. 14.
• Acts. 7.
• Exod. 20 24.
• N••mb. 17 4.
• Ezod. 25. 22.
• Isal. 85. 35.
• Lev. 10. 2. 2 Sam. 6. 6.
• 1 Sam. 6. 19. 1 C••r. 11. 30.
• Isa. 29. 13, 14.
• Ps. 119. 97.
• Ps. 1. 2.