One Hundred and Ninety Sermons on Psalm 119

and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee; or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee; and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. They speak by our thoughts.

2. There is Set and Solemn Meditation. Now this is of several sorts, or rather they are several parts of the same exercise.

1. There is a Reflexive Meditation, which is nothing but a solemn parley between a man and his own heart. Psal. 4. 4. Commune with your own heart and be still. When we have withdrawn our selves from company, that the mind may return upon it self, to consider what we are, what we have been, what straits and temptations we have passed through, how we overcame them, how we passed from death to life; this is a necessary part of meditation, but very difficult. What can be more against self-love, and carnal ease, than for a man to be his own accuser and judg? All our shifts are to avoid our own company, and to run away from our selves. The Basilisk dyeth by seeing himself in a Mirror; and a guilty man cannot endure to see his own natural face in the glass of the word. The worldly man choketh his soul with business, lest for want of work the mind like a Mill should fall upon it self. The Voluptuous person melteth away his days in pleasure, and charmeth his soul into a deep sleep with the potion of outward delights, lest it should awake and talk with him. Well then, it is necessary that you should take some time to discourse with your selves, to ask of your souls what you have been, what you are, what you have done, what shall become of you to all eternity. Jer. 8. 6. No man asketh of himself, What have I done? You would think it strange of two men that conversed every day for forty or fifty years, and yet all this while they did not know one another. Now this is the case between us and our own souls; we live a long time in the World, and yet are strangers to our selves.