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on, and what should make God thus folicitous and careful to procure Man's Happinefs; and how dreadful it must be to neglect fo great Salvation; what God defigns by all this; and what the intent of thefe unufual Endeavours must be; whether things are fo, or no; and if they be fo, what monftrous ftupidity it must be to lie ftill, and fleep under fuch strong and powerful Invitations; to lay all this Labour and Industry, and indefatigable Pains of God before the Eyes of Men, when they will not fix their Contemplations on the remedies intended for their recovery; what is it but to make a Learned Oration to a Flock of Sheep; and, with the Popish St. Francis, to addrefs our felves to Falcons and Pheasants, and other Birds; or, with him in Sulpitius Severus, to speak to Wolves, to talk to a blind Man of Colours, to difcourfe Mathematicks to one in a Fever, and to prepare Elixirs and Cordials for Men deprived of Life and Senfe? Without Confideration, we have little but Shape and Speech left to us to diftinguish us from Beafts; and God clearly lofes the Vertue of his Exhortations and Entreaties, except Confideration fets them home, digests and applies them to the Soul, and the inward Thoughts, like Sun-beams in a Burning-Glafs, unite and continue fo long upon thefe Spiritual Objects, till they fet the Heart on fire.

CHAP.

CHA P. II.

Confideration no tranfitory view of Spiritual Things; imports laying the Heart and Mind clofely unto Spiritual Concerns; resembles Magnifying Glaffes, which discover Things Imperceptible by the naked Eye. The great Ingredients of a Self-Examination, Expoftulation, and ftrong Refolution.

H

OW Confideration, Thinking, Pondering, Meditation, Contemplation, do differ, is not Material to enquire. Confideration includes all these, and is nothing but exercifing and improving that Rational Faculty the great Architect hath bestowed on us, to the Glory of God, and the Felicity of our immortal Souls. The CharaAer St. Bernard gives of it, may help to illuftrate this Description: It diftinguisheth (faith he) things confused, collecteth fuch as lie diperfed fearches and dives into fuch as are concealed and bid, examines probabilities, reflects upon what is done, refolves what to do, and preffes towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Chrift Jefus.

The School-men are in the right, when they call it, Employing the whole Understanding a bout a thing; for indeed, a flash of Thinking is no more Confideration than a few wandring fparks can be faid to warm a fpacious Room: As well may a Man hope to fet a Mill a going,

by

by fprinkling fome drops upon the Wheels, as imagine that a few tranfient Thoughts will reform the Soul: And as in cold Weather Men do not get themselves a heat by a step or two, but by fuch exercifes as put the Body into violent Motion; fo neither will a carelefs Thought now and then heat the Heart within: but Confideration, which puts the Soul into a strong and vigorous motion or agitation, is that which must kindle the Holy Fire, and shed abroad Life in all the Faculties of the inward Man.

Not to mention here that the Word was originally used to express the industry of Aftronomers, who, by diligent Contemplation, and Obfervation of the Stars, their Motion, Pofition, Conjunction, Influences, &c. gave a Judgment of the feveral Phenomena, or appearances they met withal, from whence it was afterwards ap plied to Men, who seriously and attentively ponder things of moment, whether Civil or Sacred; The Scripture ufually expreffes it by laying our Hearts clofe to our Ways, as if it were with Confideration, as it is with Men's liftning to a confufed noise, and laying their Ear close to a Wall, with defign to get a more distinct knowledge of it.

שימי לבבכם ער דר כרכס

Haggai 1.5, 7.

And indeed, without Confideration, Eternal Life, and our Duties in order to it, appear no very great Attractive. Confideration clears up thofe Notions, difpels the Clouds and Mifts thar dwell upon our Reafon, wipes away the Duft, discovers unknown Worlds, and makes even fuch things as were Vulgar and obvious before,

look

book with a new Face, they being found, upon Confideration, things of greater Confequence, of greater Comfort, of greater Neceffity, of greater Virtue and Efficacy, than before they were believed to be. So have I feen an old Picture thrown by, and buried amongst Rubbish, which afterwards being washed, hath proved to be a costly Original, done by a curious Hand; and that which at first, while fullied with Dirt and Duft, was worth nothing, hath appeared to be of extraordinary Value. Confideration is that Spunge that washes the beautiful Picture of Grace and Glory, and now the curious Lines. appear, the lively ftroaks of our Great Master's Hand are feen, the fweeter Lineaments discover themselves, and make the Soul enamour'd with the Spectacle.

It is much with Confideration, as it is with Microscopes and Magnifying-Glaffes. What contemptible Creatures do fome little Animals, and smaller forts of Plants appear, while beheld with our naked Eye, but viewed through Dioptrical-Glaffes, what curious Fabricks do we fpy? How inconfiderable an Infect is a Gnat? How defpicable a Creature is a Mite? Yet he that through fuch Glaffes beholds in them all the Perfections of the largest Animals, the multiplicity of their Parts, the variety of their Motions, and how curiously every Limb is wrought, how Mathematically all their little Members are framed and fet together, cannot but like the great Physician, wonder at the Spe&tacle, and break forth into admiration of the immenfe Wisdom of their Maker. Who would believe

C

Galen.

believe there should be plumes of Feathers in the painted Wings of a Butterfly? Who would fufpect fuch things as Needles, or sharp tranfparent Pikes in a Nettle leaf, or think that any glittering drawn Swords and Daggers fhould be found there? Who would take an Atom of Quickfilver to be a Globular Looking-Glafs? Or the Sand we throw upon Paper to be like Fragments of Chryftal, or lumps of Allum? Yet through fuch Glaffes, thefe Objects appear with a different fhape from what they did before.

Confideration is that Glafs which reprefents Spiritual Objects in other colours, than before were observed and detected in them. Sin that looked but with a faint Red before, through this Glafs, appears all Scarlet and Crimson. God's Laws which before were hardly regarded fo much as humane Injunctions, through this Glafs appear fo beautiful, fo rational, fo wife, fo wonderful, fo fuiting to an intelligent Nature, that a Man with David cannot hold, but muft cry out, O how I love thy Law! it is my Meditation all the Day! I have feen an end of all perfection, but thy Commandment is exceeding broad. The New Jerufalem which looked but like an ordinary Building before; when viewed thro' this Glafs, the Towers and Bulwarks of it are feen glittering afar off, the Pearls and Precious Stones it's paved withal fhine with more than ordinary Luftre; and that which looked but dull and weak before, now dazles the Speclators Eyes with its oriental brightness. Till Confideration came in, the Prodigal faw little. He heard Men talk of the Beauty of God's ways;

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