The divine life in three treatises

2. An hypocrite, or a wicked enemy of God, may Think of him speculatively, and perhaps be more frequent in such thoughts than many practical believers. A Learned man may study about God, as he doth about other matters, and names, and notions▪ and propositions and decisions concerning God, may be a principal part of his Learning: A Preacher may study about God and the matters of God, as a Physician or a Lawyer do about the matters of their own profession, either for the pleasure which knowledge as knowledge brings to humane nature, or for the credit of being esteemed wise and learned, or because their gain and maintenance comes in this way. They that fill many Volumes with Controversies concerning God, and fill the Church with contentions and troubles by them, and their own hearts with malice and uncharitableness against those that are not of their opinions, have many and many a thought of God, which yet will do nothing to the saving of their souls, no more than they do to the sanctifying of them. And such learned men may think more Orthodoxly and Methodically concerning God, than many an honest serious Christian, who yet thinks of him more effectually and savingly: Even as they can discourse more orderly and copiously of God, when yet they have no saving knowledge of him.

3. All men must not bestow so much time in Meditation as some must do: It is the Calling of Ministers to study so as to furnish their minds with all those truths concerning God, which are needful to the Edification of the Church; and so to meditate on these things as to give themselves wholly to them, 1 Tim. 4. 15, 16. It is both the work of their common and their special Calling: The study necessary to Christians as such, belongeth as well to others as to them: But other men have another special or particular Calling, which also they must think of, so far as the nature and ends of their daily labours do require. It is a hurtful error to imagine that men must either lay by their Callings to meditate on God, or that they must do them negligently, or to be taken up in the midst of their employments with such studies of God as Ministers are that are separated to that work.