The saints everlasting rest

TO draw the heart nearer the work; the next thing to be discovered, is, What powers of the soul must here be acted, what affections excited, what considerations are necessary thereto, and in what order we must proceed.

1. You must go to the memory, which is the magazine or treasury of the understanding, thence you must take forth those heavenly doctrines which you intend to make the subject of your meditation. For the present purpose, you may look over any promise of eternal life in the gospel; any description of the glory of the saints, of the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting: some one sentence concerning those eternal joys, may afford you matter for many years meditation; yet it will be a point of wisdom here, to have always a stock of matter in your memory, that so when we should use it, we may bring forth out of our treasury things new and old. If we took things in order, and observed some method in respect of the matter, and did meditate first on one truth concerning eternity, and then another, it would not be amiss. And if any should be barren of matter through weakness of memory, they may have notes or books of this subject for their furtherance.

2. When you have fetched from your memory the matter of your meditation, your next work is to present it to your judgment: open there the case as fully as thou canst, set forth the several ornaments of the crown, the several dignities belonging to the kingdom, as they are partly laid open in the beginning of this book: let judgment deliberately view them over, and take as exact a survey as it can; then put the question, and require a determination. Is there happiness in all this, or not? Is not here enough to make me blessed? Can he want any thing, who fully possesseth GOD? Is there any thing higher for a creature to attain? Thus urge thy judgment to pass an upright sentence, and compel it to subscribe to the perfection of thy celestial happiness, and to leae this sentence as under its hand upon record.