Chapter 4: How the Treasure of Holy Thoughts Is to Be Laid Out

How the treasure of holy thoughts thus laid in, is to be laid out.

Hitherto of the laying up of a treasure of good thoughts by the accession of truths, graces, experiences and comforts, the third head proposed, is how this treasure is expended, brought forth, and improved, for that treasure is (in a sort) useless, that is not made use of. Now this treasure is exerted four ways, namely, by the 1. Heart in Meditating, 2. Lips in Speaking, 3. Hands in Doing, 4. Back in Enduring.

1. By the heart in divine soliloquies, and heavenly meditations, in warming notions and elevating motions, these keep the Christian good company, so that he is never less alone than when alone; as a very heathen could say: Scripture truths are sweet and satisfying companions in all conditions, places, stations. When you go, it shall lead you; when you sleep, it shall keep you; and when you awake, it shall talk with you (Proverbs 6:22). And what can we desire more than a guide in our way, a guard in our beds, and a sweet companion in our solitudes, and serious retirements? Such are divine truths. A Christian may live upon this treasure in a wilderness, in prison, [etiam in Inferne] even in hell itself (says Luther). God's statutes were David's songs in the house of his pilgrimage; Isaac went out into the fields for recreation, and took his treasure along with him, getting a solitary and savory repast, of meditation (Genesis 24:63). When a man is shut out from ordinances, his soul may be satisfied with marrow and fatness, when it meditates of God in the night-watches. Indeed, when dull or discouraging thoughts discompose the spirit: this treasure helps to a holy spell to raise the spirit of the believer, and drive away the evil spirit of deadness, and distraction. Meditation is a kind of deliberate ecstasy; the harmonious melody of the soul's faculties within itself by a mutual and musical consort; it is the soul's self-conference heard only by itself. It is a fetching up meat formerly taken down, and diffusing it into the several veins and arteries of the soul; meditation (in a word) is a holy concoction and digestion of divine truths, which fattens and ripens the soul for Heaven. O the ravishing nature of a close and fixed meditation. 'Tis a God-enjoying, and self-profiting exercise; the devout soul, that's thus furnished with a treasure, can expatiate upon all things, and like the laborious bee, fetch the honey of some comfort out of every object and subject. When grace is in the heart, knowledge in the head, and truths in the memory; the Christian through divine assistance will make good work of every condition and dispensation. 'Tis both the character and the honor of a Christian to meditate of God's law day and night; he that talks much with his own heart by meditation, and takes frequent turns in paradise by contemplation; does far transcend the rate and pace of ordinary Christians. For (says a great divine) commonly we are transformed into the dispositions and manners of those, whose company we frequent. And if we keep company with a holy God, by meditation, we shall be more exactly holy in all manner of conversation.

2. This treasure of the heart vents itself by the lips in heavenly communications; and that two ways,

1. Conferences, discoursing with men.

2. Performances, discoursing with God.

1. A treasured soul does discourse profitably with men: this, I think, is the chief design of this text; a bringing forth good things in talking to men's edification. A gracious heart freely pours out holy expressions; Solomon says, the heart of the wise teaches his mouth: that inward spring feeds these sweet streams; and tips the tongue with divine rhetoric. So (Song of Solomon 4:11): Your lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb, honey and milk are under your tongue; not like vain-glorious empty scholars, or conceited formal professors, that have got some scraps of confused notions, then [reconstructed: set] open the pack, and expose all to open view, but are quickly drawn dry. No, no, these well-furnished souls have an overflowing treasure of holy matter, to produce upon occasion, and can speak a word in season upon any subject, to any soul. 'Tis said of Plato and Ambrose, that bees swarmed in their cradles, as presages of their future eloquence: so the honeycomb of Scripture truths drops at the Christian's tongue's end; his speech is seasoned with salt, because his heart is seasoned with grace; his discourses (like honey) at once both purge and please the sanctified auditor. When the well-guided tongue is an interpreter of a cleansed heart, 'tis food and physic to him that improves it: for the tongue of the wise is health (Proverbs 12:18). The same word in the Hebrew that signifies tongue, is also used (joined with another word) for a wedge of gold: the truth is, a treasured heart finds a precious golden tongue; and nothing more cordial to the fainting heart, than the fruit of those choice lips.

2. This treasure is exercised in religious duties, and holy performances: The root of grace in the heart, brings forth these fruits of the lips in prayer and praise. The spirit of prayer fumes up to Heaven this divine incense: Such a soul needs not to be prompted by men, that has this lively liturgy in his heart; the Spirit can help both to affections and expressions. A treasured soul has a stock of prayers, as an able minister has a stock for sermons (though he may be without a stock of written notes;) I mean, the body of divinity in his head; which makes a ready scribe: The more treasure a soul has within, the more ready will it be to every good work; indeed, and the more raised to God in the work: Such a one is helped very much against distractions, the great complaint of good souls. It is a notable expression of a good author; (says he) He that has store of gold and silver in his pocket, and but a few brass farthings, will more readily upon every draught, come out with gold and silver, than with brass farthings. So he whose heart is stocked with holy thoughts, will not find carnal cogitations so rife and frequent. If the heart have indited a good matter, the tongue will be as the pen of a ready writer; If the heart be filled with grace, it will make melody to the Lord, and music to good men. A treasured soul is ready to trade with God in duty. Yet take this caution: A true Christian having a large measure of habitual grace, is not always in an equal actual capacity for duty: David's heart may need tuning as well as his harp. The key of this treasure may be lost or rusted: So that the treasure of that man after God's own heart, was locked up in great measure, for the space of nine months, till God sent the key by Nathan to open the sluice of repentance, and draw out the seeds of grace.

3. The treasure in the heart is also drawn out with the hands, in the works of piety towards God, charity to men, and sobriety with respect to ourselves: So the Apostle distributes good works (Titus 2:12). It is not enough for the soul to have the axe laid to the root of the tree, in sound conviction and gospel humiliation, but he is to bring forth fruits meet for such repentance, in a gospel conversation; we must not only believe with the heart, and confess with the mouth; but faith must work by love; upwards to God, by the obedience of faith; inwards to the heart, by purifying it; and downwards to men, by doing good to all: But especially to the household of faith. Here is a large field of matter for my pen, and the Christian's hand; but the furnished Christian is universal in obedience, avoids not the hardest and most hazardous duties; will not serve God with that which costs him nothing: And this is a grand discriminating note between a treasured saint, and a treasureless hypocrite: The carnal person loves a cheap religion, and is loath to be at any cost or pains for God, in a way of commanded duty; but to a child of God the more spiritual a duty is, and the more opposite it is to carnal ease and profit, the more freely does the soul close with it: He is willing to cut off a right hand of a beloved lust, pray for enemies, forgive wrongs, give to the poor; as knowing that all these (indeed, even the last) are essential parts of our religion; therefore when the heart is full of grace the hands, Dorcas-like, will be full of good works; which are called fruits of righteousness. It is the Christian's duty and dignity to be fruitful in every good work; which cannot proceed from any other root than this heart treasure. A willing heart will find a liberal hand to relieve the poor; the merchandise of penitent Tyre is treasured up in the bellies, and upon the backs of God's holy ones: This liberal soul devises liberal things, and will not make use of carnal reasonings; as danger of poverty, unworthiness of the [illegible] times, and the [illegible] the instruments [illegible], but the hugeness of a [illegible] treasure will make [illegible] carefully to [illegible], and objects and occasions of charity [illegible] cases, [illegible] power, [illegible] by the freeness of his heart, enhances the mite into a pound in true worth, and God's account: Thus the readiness of the heart compensates the weakness of the hand.

But I must fix bounds to this discourse; Yet a treasured saint has no limit of desires and endeavors to be acting for God, and the good will of his heart adds new vigor to his fainting hand. Naturalists observe, that when the heart more inclines to the right side, the spirits are more lively and apt for contemplation and action; hence that of Solomon's, A wise man's heart is at his right hand: I am sure when a Christian's heart bows Godward, his hand is full of activity in the ways of God, and works of godliness; When the soul is filled with grace, the hand is fitted for acts of religion.

4. This inward heart-treasure helps the back and shoulders to bear the Christian's burdens: the time of affliction is a spending time; if there be any grace within, tribulation will draw it out. Hence it is said to work patience; not that it creates what was not in the soul before; but draws out and evidences that which before lay hid in the heart: the fiery furnace will prove and improve the soul's spiritual strength; for if it faint in the day of adversity, its strength is small, and treasure poor. Now, shall it be clearly known, whether the conscience be sound or foundered, if it will pace well in rough ways: twice is it repeated in Revelation, when mention is made of Antichrist's tyranny and ruin; here is the patience, here is the patience and faith of saints: that is to say, here's the trial of it, here's room for it, here's the root and fruit of it, even Antichrist's desolation, which they have been so long waiting and praying for; surely a glorious sight worth beholding; Rome flaming, saints triumphing, yet in the mean time, they have need of faith and patience: For immediately before both these passages, we have a description of Rome's rage; the Devil will come down with the greater wrath, when he has a shorter time, and the last bitings of this dying beast will be the fiercest, which may bring forth all the saints' graces, and all little enough in times of trial; we have great need of patience after we have done God's will, that we may also endure his will, till promises be performed. We must buckle on the armor of God, that we may be able to withstand in an evil day; and having done and endured all, to stand on the field as conquerors. In personal conflicts all our stock of suffering graces may be put to it; poverty will try our faith; disgrace our self-denial; sickness our patience; delay of return of prayers in a long expected mercy will try our hope — and all these graces must have their perfect work, that the Christian also may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing (James 1:4). He should have the whole heritage of a Christian, the complete accomplishment of a saint; every grace in its height and due proportion. Job, David, Eli, and Hezekiah had laid in a large stock of bearing graces, and they found enough to do with them in affliction; they had no more than they needed. Love bears and breaks through all things; faith holds up the head and heart above discouragements: nature has furnished the camel with a bunched back, to bear huge burdens, and a tractable bowing of his knees to the ground, that he may be the better loaded: so will the well-taught and accomplished saint meekly stoop to take up, and cheerfully carry Christ's cross, during his pleasure. That's a sound-hearted Christian indeed, that like the nightingale can sing most sweetly when the thorn is at his breast; that like spices, the more they are bruised, the better is the savor of their graces. But a carnal man wanting this treasure of grace, kicks at, indeed, kicks off his burden; yet though it be possible that the spirit of a man (as a man of a masculine temper naturally, or by acquired magnanimity) may possibly sustain his infirmity, and not succumb under outward burdens of sorrow, yet there's a vast difference between a gracious and graceless heart in enduring afflictions, both as to their carriage under it, and advantage thereby: Hear Augustine elegantly discovering the difference; there is (says he) a dissimilitude of sufferers in a similitude of sufferings, and though they be under the same torment, yet is there not the same virtue and vice, as under one fire, gold brightens, chaff smokes; and under the same flail stubble is crushed, corn purged; hence also the lees mingle not with the oil, though pressed together; so one and the same onset proves, purifies, and sweetly melts the good, condemns, wastes, roots out the bad: hence in the same affliction the wicked hate and blaspheme God, the godly pray and praise: So great is the consequence, not what things a man suffers, but of what a spirit is the sufferer? For with the same motion may the channel stink abominably, and the ointment smell most sweetly: thus he, with which I shall conclude this head: what are the ways of laying out this treasure.