RESOLUTION I.

I am resolved by the grace of God, always to make my affections subservient to the dictates of my understanding, that my reason may not follow, but guide my affections.

THE affections, being of themselves blind and inordinate, unless they are directed by reason and judgment, they either move towards a wrong object, or pursue the right a wrong way. And this judgment must be mature and deliberate, such as arises from a clear apprehension of the nature of the object that affects me, and a thorough consideration of the several circumstances that attend it. And great care must be taken, that I do not impose upon myself by fancy and imagination, that I do not mistake fancy for judgment, or the capricious humours of my roving imagination, for the solid dictates of a well-guided reason. For, my fancy is as wild as my affections: and, ‘if the blind lead the blind, they will both fall into the ditch.’

And, alas! how oft am I deceived in this manner! If I do but fancy a thing good and lovely, how eager are my affections in the pursuit of it? If I do but fancy any thing evil and hurtful to me, how doth my heart presently rise up against it, or grieve or sorrow for it? and this, I believe hath been the occasion of all the enormities and extravagancies I have been guilty of, through the whole course of my past life, divesting me of my reasonable faculties, as to the acts and exercises of them, and subjecting my soul to the powers of sense, that I could not raise my affections above them. Thus, 140for instance, I have not loved grace, because my fancy could not see its beauty; I have not loathed sin, because my fancy could not comprehend its misery; and I have not truly desired heaven, because my fancy could not reach its glory: whereas, if the transient beauty and lustre of this world’s vanities was but presented to my view, how has my fancy mounted up to the highest pitch of pleasure and ambition, and inflamed my heart with the desire of them!

And thus, poor wretch, have I been carried about with the powerful charms of sense, without having any other guide of my affections, but what is common to the very brutes that perish; fancy supplying that place in the sensitive, which reason does in the rational, soul. And, alas! what is this, but, with Nebuchadnezzar, to leave communion with men, and herd myself with the flocks of the beasts of the field? And what a shame and reproach is this to the image of God, in which I was created!

Oh! Thou, that art the author of my nature, help me, I beseech thee, to act more conformably to it, for the time to come; that I may no longer be bewildered or misled by the blind conduct of my straggling fancy; this ignis fatuus, that hurries me over bogs, and precipices to the pit of destruction, but that I may bring all my affections and actions to the standard of a sound and clear judgment; and let that judgment be guided by the unerring light of thy divine word: that so I may neither love, desire, fear, nor detest any thing, but what my judgment thus formed, tells me I ought to do.

I know it will be very hard thus to subdue my affections to the dictates and commands of my 141judgment: but howsoever, it is my resolution, this morning, in the presence of almighty God, to endeavour it, and never to suffer my heart to settle its affections upon any object, till my judgment hath passed its sentence upon it. And, as I will not suffer my affections to run before my judgment; so whenever that is determined, I steadfastly resolve to follow it: that so, my apprehensions and affections always going together, I may be sure to walk in the direct path of God’s commandments, and enter the gate that leads to everlasting life. And, the better to facilitate the performance of this general resolution, it being necessary to descend to particulars: