little worth, for the total want of this,
and therefore, their lips and tongues are void of edification, full of
corruption. But where this spring floweth within, it maketh the mouth of a
man like a well of life, it maketh his lips like choice silver. O the
scantiness and neglect of this amongst Christians makes all to wither and
decay! There is little searching after the Almighty, little employing and
entertaining our spirits about him, how slender and single thoughts and
apprehensions of him, which cannot but cause a _deliqium_(241) and decay
in all the parts of Christianity, when the very sun is eclipsed from us by
our ignorance and inconsideration of him and that so long it must have
dreadful effects upon us. Therefore, let us be exhorted to this study to
give our spirits to this employment--to think more on God. But, as I was
saying, there is need of a rule to measure us in it, and of some caution
about it, that is that we have our end rightly established, what we aim at
in inquiring after, or meditating upon God. If it be only to give
entertainment to the curiosity of our minds, as in the contemplation of
natural things, if it be only to pry into secrets and mysteries, and to
labour to comprehend that which is incomprehensible, then we lose our
labour, and we are in danger to meet with a consuming fire, instead of
instructing and refreshing light. I would therefore have this guarded
against,--the insatiable desire and greediness of our minds after the
knowledge of secret mysteries. We may set bounds here, and not overstretch
or strain our understandings, to compass his infinite Being, as it is in
itself. Let us rather take him up as he is revealed in the scriptures, and
so meditate on him as manifested in his word and works, his grace, mercy,
power, wisdom, &c. and read his name with delight in those large volumes
spread before our eyes, &c.

Now the just measuring and regulating of all knowledge of God is to direct
it to a further end to have nothing before us but this, that we may
reverence, adore, fear, and love him so much the more. And this is the
thing that maketh access to him most easy and sweet when the design a soul
hath, in all its searchings about him, is for this purpose, to the end it
may love him and worship him more suitably, and be more conformed to him,
when he is looked upon as a pattern of our conformity, that is, the right
apprehension and up taking of him to know that God is light, and so to