216 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. I chatter : I did mourn as a dove : mine eyes failed with looking upwards ; O Lord, I am oppressed, un- dertake for me.' Isa. xxxviii. 14. When the soul la- bors sincerely for communion with God, but sinks into broken confused thoughts under the weight of its own weakness, yet if he looks to God for relief, his chatter- ing and mourning will be accepted with God, and prof- itable to himself. 2. Supply the brokenness of your thoughts with ejaculatory prayers, according as either the matter of them, or your defect in the management of them doth require. So was it with Hezekiah in the instance be- fore mentioned ; where his meditations were weak and broken, he cried out in the midst of them, O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake forme. And meditation is properly a mixture of spiritual apprehension of God and heavenly things, in .the thoughts and conceptions of the mind, with desires and supplications thereon. It is good and profitable to have some special de- signed subject of meditation in our thoughts. I have at large declared before what things are the proper ob- jects of the thoughts of them that are spiritually minded. But they may be more peculiarly considered as the matter of designed meditation. And they may be taken out of some especial spiritual experience that we have lately had, or some warningswe have receiv- ed of God, or something wherewith we have been peculiarly affected in the reading or preaching of the word, or what we find the present posture and frame of our minds and souls to require ; or that which most frequently supplies all the person and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. If any thing of this nature be peculiarly designed antecedently unto this duty, and a season be sought for it with respect thereto, the mind
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