DIRECTIONS FOR PROFITABLE HEARING THE WORD PREACHED.
OMITTING those directions which concern the external modes of worship,
(for the reasons mentioned part. iii. and known to all that know me
and the time and place I live in,) I shall give you such directions
about the personal, internal management of your duty, as I think most
necessary to your edification. And seeing that your duty and benefit
lieth in these four general points: 1. That you hear with
understanding. 2. That you remember what you hear. 3. That you be duly
affected with it. 4. And that you sincerely practise it: I shall more
particularly direct you in order to all these ends and duties.
_Tit. 1. Directions for the Understanding the Word which you hear._
_Direct._ I. Read and meditate on the holy Scriptures much in
private, and then you will be the better able to understand what is
preached on it in public, and to try the doctrine, whether it be of
God. Whereas if you are unacquainted with the Scriptures, all that is
treated of or alleged from them, will be so strange to you, that you
will be but little edified by it, Psal. i. 2; cxix.; Deut. vi. 11, 12.
_Direct._ II. Live under the clearest, distinct, convincing
teaching that possibly you can procure. There is an unspeakable
difference as to the edification of the hearers, between a judicious,
clear, distinct, and skilful preacher, and one that is ignorant,
confused, general, dry, and only scrapeth together a cento or
mingle-mangle of some undigested sayings to fill up the hour with. If
in philosophy, physics, grammar, law, and every art and science, there
be so great a difference between one teacher and another, it must
needs be so in divinity also. Ignorant teachers, that understand not
what they say themselves, are unlike to make you men of understanding;
as erroneous teachers are unlike to make you orthodox and sound.
_Direct._ III. Come not to hear with a careless heart, as if you
were to hear a matter that little concerned you, but come with a sense
of the unspeakable weight, necessity, and consequence of the holy word
which you are to hear: and when you understand how much you are
concerned in it, and truly love it, as the word of life, it will
greatly help your understanding of every particular truth. That which
a man loveth not, and perceiveth no necessity of, he will hear with so
little regard and heed, that it will make no considerable impression
on his mind. But a good understanding of the excellency and necessity,
exciting love and serious attention, would make the particulars easy
to be understood; when else you will be like a stopped or
narrow-mouthed bottle, that keepeth out that which you desire to put
in. I know that understanding must go before affections; but yet the
understanding of the concernments and worth of your own souls, must
first procure such a serious care of your salvation, and a general
regard to the word of God, as is needful to your further understanding
of the particular instructions, which you shall after hear.
_Direct._ IV. Suffer not vain thoughts or drowsy negligence to
hinder your attention. If you mark not what is taught you, how should
you understand and learn? Set yourselves to it, as for your lives: be
as earnest and diligent in attending and learning, as you would have
the preacher be in teaching.[45] If a drowsy, careless preacher be
bad, a drowsy, careless hearer is not good. Saith Moses, Deut. xxxii.
46, 47, "Set your hearts to all the words which I testify among you
this day.--For it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your
life." You would have God attentive to your prayers in your
distresses; and why will you not then be attentive to his words, when
"the prayers of him are abominable to God, that turneth away his ear
from hearing the law?" Luke xix. 48, "All the people were very
attentive to hear Christ." Neh. viii. 3, when Ezra read the law "from
morning till mid-day, the ears of all the people were attentive to
it." When Paul continued his Lord's-day exercise and speech until
midnight, one young man that fell asleep, did fall down dead as a
warning to them that will sleep, when they should hear the message of
Christ, Acts xx. 9. Therefore you are excused that day from worldly
business, "that you may attend on the Lord without distraction,"
1 Cor. vii. 35. Lydia's attending to the words of Paul, accompanied
the opening of her heart and her conversion, Acts xvi. 14.
_Direct._ V. Mark especially the design and drift, and principal
doctrine of the sermon. Both because that is the chief thing that the
preacher would have marked; and because the understanding of that will
much help you to understand all the rest, which dependeth on it, and
relateth to it.
_Direct._ VI. Mark most those things which are of greatest weight
and concernment to your souls. And do not fix upon some little
sayings, and by-discourses, or witty sentences; like children that
bring home some scraps and words which they do but play with.
_Direct._ VII. Learn first your catechisms at home, and the great
essential points of religion, contained in the creed, the Lord's
prayer, and the ten commandments. And in your hearing, first labour to
get a clearer understanding of these; and then the lesser branches
which grow out of these will be the better understood. You can scarce
bestow too much care and pains in learning these great essential
points. It is the fruitfullest of all your studies. Two things further
I here advise you to avoid. 1. The hasty climbing up to smaller points
(which some call higher) before you have well received these; and the
receiving of those higher points, independently, without their due
respect, to these which they depend upon. 2. The feeding upon dry and
barren controversies, and delighting in the chaff of jingling words,
and impertinent, unedifying things, or discourses about formalities
and circumstances.
_Direct._ VIII. Meditate on what you hear when you come home,
till you better understand it, Psal. i. 2.
_Direct._ IX. Inquire, where you doubt, of those that can resolve
and teach you. It showeth a careless mind, and a contempt of the word
of God, in most people and servants, that never come to ask the
resolution of one doubt, from one week's or year's end to another,
though they have pastors or masters that have ability, and leisure,
and willingness to help them. "When Christ was alone, they that were
about him with the twelve, asked him the meaning of his parable,"
Matt. xiii.; Mark iv. 10.
_Direct._ X. Read much those holy books which treat best of the
doctrine which you would understand.
_Direct._ XI. Pray earnestly for wisdom, and the illumination of
the Spirit, Eph. i. 18; Acts xxvi. 18; James i. 5.
_Direct._ XII. Conscionable practising what you know, is an
excellent help to understanding, John xii. 7, 17.
_Tit. 2. Directions for Remembering what you Hear._
That want of memory, which cometh from age and decay of nature, is not
to be cured; nor should any servant of Christ be over-much troubled at
it; seeing Christ will no more cast off his servants for that, than he
will for age or any sickness: but for that want of memory which is
curable, and is a fault, I shall give you these Directions following.
_Direct._ I. It greatly helpeth memory to have a full understanding of
the matter spoken which you would remember. And ignorance is one of
the greatest hinderances to memory. Common experience telleth you
this, how easily you can remember any discourse which you thoroughly
understand (for your very knowledge by invention will revive your
memory); and how hard it is to remember any words which are
insignificant, or which we understand not. Therefore labour most for a
clear understanding according to the last directions.
_Direct._ II. A deep, awakened affection is a very powerful help
to memory. We easily remember any thing which our estates or lives lie
on, when trifles are neglected and soon forgotten. Therefore labour to
get all to your hearts, according to the next following directions.
_Direct._ III. Method is a very great help to memory. Therefore
be acquainted with the preacher's method; and then you are put into a
path or tract, which you cannot easily go out of. And therefore it is,
that ministers must not only be methodical, and avoid prolix,
confused, and involved discourses, and that malicious pride of hiding
their method, but must be as oft in the use of the same method, as the
subject will bear, and choose that method which is most easy to the
hearers to understand and remember, and labour to make them perceive
your tract.
_Direct._ IV. Numbers are a great help to memory. As if the
reasons, the uses, the motives, the signs, the directions, be six, or
seven, or eight; when you know just the number, it helpeth you much to
remember, which was the first, second, third, &c.
_Direct._ V. Names also and signal words are a great help to
memory. He may remember one word, that cannot remember all the
sentence; and that one word may help him to remember much of the rest.
Therefore preachers should contrive the force of every reason, use,
direction, &c. as much as may be, into some one emphatical word. (And
some do very profitably contrive each of those words to begin with the
same letter, which is good for memory, so it be not too much strained,
and put them not upon greater inconveniences.) As if I were to direct
you to the chiefest helps to your salvation, and should name, 1.
Powerful preaching. 2. Prayer. 3. Prudence. 4. Piety. 5. Painfulness.
6. Patience. 7. Perseverance. Though I opened every one of these at
large, the very names would help the hearers' memory. It is this that
maketh ministers, that care more for their people's souls, than the
pleasing of curious ears, to go in the common road of doctrine,
reasons, uses, motives, helps, &c. and to give their uses the same
titles of information, reproof, exhortation, &c. And yet when the
subject shall direct us to some other method, the hearers must not be
offended with us: for one method will not serve exactly for every
subject, and we must be loth to wrong the text or matter.
_Direct._ VI. It is a great help to memory, often in the time of
hearing to call over and repeat to yourselves the names or heads that
have been spoken. The mind of man can do two things at once: you may
both hear what is said, and recall and repeat to yourselves what is
past: not to stand long upon it, but oft and quickly to name over, e.g.
The reasons, uses, motives, &c. To me, this hath been (next to
understanding and affection) the greatest help of any that I have
used; for otherwise to hear a head but once, and think of it no more
till the sermon is done, would never serve my turn to keep it.
_Direct._ VII. Grasp not at more than you are able to hold, lest
thereby you lose all. If there be more particulars than you can
possibly remember, lay hold on some which most concern you, and let go
the rest; perhaps another may rather take up those, which you leave
behind. Yet say not that it is the preacher's fault to name more than
you can carry away: for, 1. Then he must leave out his enlargement
much more, and the most of his sermon; for it is like you leave the
most behind. 2. Another may remember more than you. 3. All is not lost
when the words are forgotten: for it may breed a habit of
understanding, and promote resolution, affection, and practice.
_Direct._ VIII. Writing is an easy help for memory, to those that
can use it. Some question whether they should use it, because it
hindereth their affection. But that must be differently determined
according to the difference of subjects, and of hearers. Some sermons
are all to work upon the affections at present, and the present
advantage is to be preferred before the after perusal: but some must
more profit us in after digestion and review. And some hearers can
write much with ease, and little hinder their affection; and some
write so little and are hindered so much, that it recompenseth not
their loss. Some know so fully all that is said, that they need no
notes; and some that are ignorant need them for perusal.
_Direct._ IX. Peruse what you remember, or write down, when you
come home: and fix it speedily before it is lost; and hear others that
can repeat it better. Pray it over, and confer of it with others.
_Direct._ X. If you forget the very words, yet remember the main
drift of all; and get those resolutions and affections which they
drive at. And then you have not lost the sermon, though you have lost
the words; as he hath not lost his food, that hath digested it, and
turned it into flesh and blood.
_Tit. 3. Directions for holy Resolutions and Affections in
Hearing._
The understanding and memory are but the passage to the heart, and the
practice is but the expression of the heart: therefore how to work
upon the heart is the principal business.
_Direct._ I. Live under the most convincing, lively, serious preacher
that possibly you can. It is a matter of great concernment to all, but
especially to dull and senseless hearts. Hearken not to that earthly
generation, that tell you, because God can bless the weakest, and
because it is your own fault if you profit not by the weakest; that
therefore you should make no difference, but sit down under an
ignorant, dumb, or senseless man. Try first whether they had as
willingly have a bad servant, or a bad physician, as a good one,
because God can bless the labours of the weakest? Try whether they
would not have their children duly reproved or corrected, because it
is their own faults that they need it? and whether they would not take
physic after a surfeit, though it be their own fault that made them
sick? It is true, that all our sin is our own fault; but the question
is, What is the most effectual cure? What man that is alive and awake,
doth not feel a very great difference between a dead and a lively
preacher?
_Direct._ II. Remember that ministers are the messengers of
Christ, and come to you on his business and in his name. Hear them
therefore as his officers, and as men that have more to do with God
himself, than with the speaker.[46] It is the phrase of the Holy
Ghost, Heb. iv. 13, "All things are naked and opened to the eyes of
him with whom we have to do." It is God with whom you have to do, and
therefore accordingly behave yourselves. See Luke x. 16; 1 Thess.
iv. 8; 1 Cor. iv. 1.
_Direct._ III. Remember that this God is instructing you, and
warning you, and treating with you, about no less than the saving of
your souls. Come therefore to hear as for your salvation. Can that
heart be dull that well considereth, that it is heaven and hell that
is the matter that God is treating with him about?
_Direct._ IV. Remember that you have but a little time to hear
in; and you know not whether ever you shall hear again. Hear therefore
as if it were your last. Think when you hear the calls of God, and the
offers of grace, I know not but this may be my last: how would I hear
if I were sure to die tomorrow? I am sure it will be ere long, and may
be to-day for aught I know.
_Direct._ V. Remember that all these days and sermons must be
reviewed, and you must answer for all that you have heard, whether you
heard it with love, or with unwillingness and weariness, with diligent
attention or with carelessness; and the word which you hear shall
judge you at the last day. Hear therefore as those that are going to
judgment to give account of their hearing and obeying, John xii. 48.
_Direct._ VI. Make it your work with diligence to apply the word
as you are hearing it, and to work your own hearts to those suitable
resolutions and affections which it bespeaketh. Cast not all upon the
minister, as those that will go no further than they are carried as by
force: this is fitter for the dead than for the living. You have work
to do as well as the preacher, and should all the while be as busy as
he: as helpless as the infant is, he must suck when the mother
offereth him the breast; if you must be fed, yet you must open your
mouths, and digest it, for another cannot digest it for you; nor can
the holiest, wisest, powerful minister, convert or save you without
yourselves, nor deliver a people from sin and hell, that will not stir
for their own deliverance. Therefore be all the while at work, and
abhor an idle heart in hearing, as well as an idle minister.
_Direct._ VII. Chew the cud, and call up all when you come home
in secret, and by meditation preach it over to yourselves. If it were
coldly delivered by the preacher, do you consider of the great weight
of the matter, and preach it more earnestly over to your own hearts.
You should love yourselves best, and best be acquainted with your own
condition and necessities.
_Direct._ VIII. Pray it over all to God, and there lament a stupid
heart, and put up your complaints to Heaven against it. The name and
presence of God hath a quickening and awaking power.
_Direct._ IX. Go to Christ by faith, for the quickening of his
Spirit. Your life is hid in him, your Root and Head; and from him all
must be conveyed: he that hath the Son hath life; and because he
liveth, we shall live also. Entreat him to glorify the power of his
resurrection, by raising the dead; and to open your hearts, and speak
to you by his Spirit, that you may be taught of God, and your hearts
may be his epistles, and the tables where the everlasting law is
written, Col. iii. 3, 4; John xv. 1-5; xi. 25; xiv. 19; Phil. iii. 7, 8;
Acts xvi. 14; John vi. 45; 2 Cor. iii. 3, 6, 17, 18; Heb. viii. 10;
x. 16; Jer. xxxi. 33.
_Direct._ X. Make conscience of teaching and provoking others.
Pity the souls of the ignorant about you. God often blesseth the grace
that is most improved in doing him service; and our stock is like the
woman's oil, which increased as long as she poured out, and was gone
when she stopped, 1 Kings xvii. 12, 14, 16. Doing good is the best way
for receiving good: he that in pity to a poor man that is almost
starved, will but fall to rubbing him, shall get himself heat, and
both be gainers.
_Tit. 4. Directions to bring what we hear into Practice._
Without this the rest is vain or counterfeit, and therefore somewhat
must be said to this.
_Direct._ I. Be acquainted with the failings of your hearts and
lives, and come on purpose to get directions and help against those
particular failings. You will not know what medicine you need, much
less how to use it, if you know not what aileth you. Know what duties
you omit or carelessly perform, and know what sins you are most guilty
of, and say when you go out of doors, I go to Christ for physic for my
own disease. I hope to hear something before I come back, which may
help me more against this sin, and fit me better for my duty, or
provoke me more effectually. Are those men like to practise Christ's
directions, that either know not their disease, or love it and would
not have it cured?
_Direct._ II. The three forementioned are still presupposed, viz.
That the word have first done its part upon your understandings,
memory, and hearts. For that word cannot be practised, which is not
understood, nor at all remembered, nor hath procured resolutions and
affections. It is the due work upon the heart that must prevail for
the reformation of the life.
_Direct._ III. When you understand what it is in point of
practice that the preacher driveth at, observe especially the uses and
the moving reasons, and plead them with your own hearts; and let
conscience be preaching over all that the minister preacheth to you.
You take them to be soul-murderers, that silence able, faithful
preachers, and also those preachers that silence themselves, and feed
not the flock committed to their care; and do you think it a small
matter to silence your own conscience, which must be the preacher that
must set home all, before it can come to resolution or practice? Keep
conscience all the while at work, preaching over all that to your
hearts, which you hear with your ears; and urge yourselves to a speedy
resolution. Remember that the whole body of divinity is practical in
its end and tendency, and therefore be not a mere notional hearer; but
consider of every word you hear, what practice it is that it tendeth
to, and place that deepest in your memory. If you forget all the words
of the reasons and motives which you hear, be sure to remember what
practice they were brought to urge you to. As if you heard a sermon
against uncharitableness, censoriousness, or hurting others, though
you should forget all the reasons and motives in particular, yet still
remember that you were convinced in the hearing, that censorious and
hurtful uncharitableness is a great sin, and that you heard reason
enough to make you resolve it. And let conscience preach out the
sermon to the end, and not let it die in bare conviction; but resolve,
and be past wavering, before you stir: and above all the sermon,
remember the directions and helps for practice, with which the truest
method usually shuts up the sermon.
_Direct._ IV. When you come home, let conscience in secret also
repeat the sermon to you. Between God and yourselves, consider what
there was delivered to you in the Lord's message, that your souls were
most concerned in? what sin reproved which you are guilty of? what
duty pressed which you omit? And there meditate seriously on the
weight and reasons of the thing; and resist not the light, but yet
bring all to a fixed resolution, if till then you were unresolved: not
insnaring yourselves with dangerous vows about things doubtful, or
peremptory vows without dependence on Christ for strength; but firmly
resolving and cautelously engaging yourselves to duty; not with carnal
evasions and reserves, but with humble dependence upon grace, without
which of yourselves you are able to do nothing.
_Direct._ V. Hear the most practical preachers you can well get.
Not those that have the finest notions, or the cleanest style, or
neatest words; but those that are still urging you to holiness of
heart and life, and driving home every truth to practice: not that
false doctrine will at all bear up a holy life, but true doctrine must
not be left in the porch, or at the doors, but be brought home and
used to its proper end, and seated in the heart, and placed as the
poise upon the clock, where it may set all the wheels in motion.
_Direct._ VI. Take heed especially of two sorts of false
teachers; antinomian libertines, and autonomian Pharisees. The first
would build their sins on Christ; not pleading for sin itself, but
taking down many of the chief helps against it, and disarming us of
the weapons by which it should be destroyed, and reproaching the true
preachers of obedience as legalists, that preach up works and call men
to doing, when they preach up obedience to Christ their King, upon the
terms and by the motives which are used by Christ himself, and his
apostles. Not understanding aright the true doctrine of faith in
Christ, and justification, and free grace, (which they think none else
understand but they,) they pervert it and make it an enemy to the
kingly office of Christ, and to sanctification, and the necessary
duties of obedience.
The other sort do make void the commandments of God by their
traditions, and instead of the holy practice of the laws of Christ,
they would drive the world with fire and sword to practise all their
superstitious fopperies; so that the few plain and necessary precepts
of the law of the universal King, are drowned in the greater body of
their canon law; and the ceremonies of the pope's imposing are so many
in comparison of the institutions of Christ, that the worship of God,
and work of christianity, is corrupted by it, and made as another
thing. The wheat is lost in a heap of chaff, by them that will be
lawgivers to themselves, and all the church of Christ.
_Direct._ VII. Associate yourselves with the most holy, serious,
practical christians. Not with the ungodly, nor with barren
opinionists, that talk of nothing but their controversies, and the way
or interest of their sects, (which they call the church,) nor with
outside, formal, ceremonious Pharisees, that are pleading for the
washing of cups, and tithing of mint, and the tradition of their
fathers, while they hate and persecute Christ and his disciples: but
walk with the most holy, and blameless, and charitable, that live upon
that truth which others talk of, and are seeking to please God by the
"wisdom which is first pure, and then peaceable and gentle," James
iii. 17, 18, when others are contending for their several sects, or
seeking to please Christ, by killing him, or censuring him, or
slandering him in his servants, John xvi. 2, 3; Matt. xxv. 40, 45.
_Direct._ VIII. Keep a just account of your practice; examine
yourselves in the end of every day and week, how you have spent your
time, and practised what you were taught; and judge yourselves before
God according as you find it. Yea, you must call yourselves to account
every hour, what you are doing, and how you do it; whether you are
upon God's work, or not: and your hearts must be watched and followed
like unfaithful servants, and like loitering scholars, and driven on
to every duty, like a dull or tired horse.
_Direct._ IX. Above all set your hearts to the deepest contemplations
of the wonderful love of God in Christ, and the sweetness and
excellency of a holy life, and the certain incomprehensible glory
which it tendeth to, that your souls may be in love with your dear
Redeemer, and all that is holy, and love and obedience may be as
natural to you. And then the practice of holy doctrine will be easy to
you, when it is your delight.
_Direct._ X. Take heed that you receive not ungrounded or
unnecessary prejudices against the person of the preacher. For that
will turn away your heart, and lock it up against his doctrine. And
therefore abhor the spirit of uncharitableness, cruelty, and faction,
which always bendeth to the suppressing, or vilifying and disgracing
all those, that are not of their way and for their interest; and be
not so blind as not to observe, that the very design of the devil, in
raising up divisions among christians, is, that he may use the tongues
or hands of one another to vilify them all, and make them odious to
one another, and to disable one another from hindering his kingdom and
doing any considerable service to Christ. So that when a minister of
Christ should be winning souls, either he is forbidden, or he is
despised, and the hearers are saying, O, he is such or such a one,
according to the names of reproach which the enemy of Christ and love
hath taught them.
[45] Prov. iv. 1, 20; v. 1; vii. 24; Neh. i. 6, 11; Psal. cxxx. 2;
Prov. xxviii. 9.
[46] 2 Cor. vi. 1.