Series 5 > Protestant piety in early-modern Scotland

248 PROTESTANT PIETY IN EARLY-MODERN SCOTLAND
the stated dayly duty of a Christian as wel as prayer and reading, &c., if
we consider either the nature of the duty or the practise of scripture and
approven saints. As to the frames in this duty, they are various according
to the variety of the subject matter of meditation. The variety of the
subject raises various and suitable passions and affections in the mind. If I
meditate upon the divine threatnings, curse of God, gospel woes, and
self-guilt incurring all these, this must needs beget bitterness of the soul
and the passion of grief and sorrow and fear. If upon the divine promises,
the freedom and riches of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, this tends to
excite the beget the passions of joy and hope. If upon the evil of sin,
whither in the nature or effects thereof, it excites hatred and aversion. If
upon the beauty, sweetness, and excellency of holiness, it stirrs up desire,
love, delight. If upon the holy precepts of God, it will excite holy fear
and awe of God in the soul against all sin. If upon the nature and
person’s word and various works and properties or attributes of God,
these agreeably excite all the preceeding passions and affections with the
answering passion of admiration. I can define this duty no otherwise than
ane outgoing of the mind and thoughts after God and the things of God
and man’s soul in order to God’s glory and the soul’s good. Neither may
it exclude a respect to the things of a present fife if handled and exercised
in a due and true subordination to God’s glory; for in Isaac’s going forth
to meditate in the evening, Genesis 24:63, doubdes he had in his view
the important matter of being comfortably matched in matrimony for
the glory of God. When the mind and thought goes out after things past,
it may be called reflection; when upon things present, speculation or
contemplation; when upon things farture,72 consideration. When
deepness of thoughtfulness affects the will and extracts direct addresses to
God, it runs into ejaculation or mental prayer. When the soul is carried
forth in a more immediate contemplative way toward God, then I quite
lose myself in the ocean of his infinitness, and being sunk in the deepest
silence I land in the deserts of stupendious admiration. As to mine own
experience in this duty, I am as much and more difficulted to manage it
to any satisfying purpose as any duty, and particularly most intermpted in
it as my set times thereto. Upon this I am ready to conceive that Satan is
a great enemy to this duty, and that therefore tho’ there were no other
reason, that it must be a very heavenly and profitable duty. I have been
many times so intermpted that when I have set time apart for
meditation, and that with reference and as preparation to insueing
prayer, I have been necessitated to put myself immediatly in ane
immediate praying posture to get the frame I was designing by
meditation. My great difficulty is to get my thoughts continued in the
right channel and my mind held to the object. This introduces me to