Chapter 15: Concerning the Usefulness of Meditation
Having answered these questions, I shall next show the benefit and usefulness of Meditation.
I know not any duty that brings in greater income and revenue than this. 'Tis reported of Thales, that he left the affairs of State to become a contemplating Philosopher. Oh did we know the advantage which comes by this duty, we would often retire from the noise and hurry of the World, that we might give ourselves to Meditation.
The benefit of Meditation appears in seven particulars.
1. Meditation is an excellent means to profit by the word: reading may bring a truth into the head, meditation brings it into the heart. Better meditate on one Sermon than hear five. I observe many put up their Bills in our Congregations, and complain that they cannot profit; may not this be the chief reason, because they chew not the cud, they do not meditate on what they have heard? If an Angel should come from heaven, and preach to men, nay if Jesus Christ himself were their Preacher, they would never profit without meditation. 'Tis the settling of the milk that makes it turn to cream; and it is the settling of a truth in the mind, that makes it turn to spiritual aliment: the Bee sucks the flower, and then works it in the Hive, and makes honey of it. The hearing of a truth preached is the sucking of a flower, there must be a working it in the Hive of the heart by meditation, then it turns to Honey. There is a disease in children called the Rickets, when they have great heads, but their lower parts are small, and thrive not. I wish many of the Professors in London, have not the spiritual Rickets, they have great heads, much knowledge, but yet they thrive not in godliness, their heart is faint, their feet feeble, they walk not vigorously in the ways of God, and the cause of this disease is, the want of meditation. Illumination without meditation makes us no better than Devils. Satan is an Angel of light yet black enough.
2. Meditation doth make the heart serious and then it is ever best, Meditation doth ballast the heart; when the ship is ballasted it is not so soon overturned by the wind, and when the heart is ballasted with Meditation it is not so soon overturned with vanity. Some Christians have light hearts, Zephaniah 3:4: his Prophets are light. A light Christian will be blown into any opinion or vice, you may blow a feather any way: there are many feathery Christians, the devil no sooner comes with a temptation but they are ready to take fire. Now meditation makes the heart serious, and God saith of a serious Christian as David of Goliath's sword, there is none like that, give it me. Meditation consolidates a Christian; solid gold is best; the solid Christian is the only metal that will pass current with God. The more serious the heart grows, the more spiritual, and the more spiritual the more it resembles the Father of Spirits. When a man is serious he is fittest for employment. The serious Christian is fittest for service, and it is meditation brings the heart into this blessed frame.
3. Meditation is the bellows of the affections, meditation hatches good affections, as the hen her young ones by sitting on them; we light affection at this fire of meditation, while I was musing the fire burned, Psalm 39:3. David was meditating of mortality, and see how his heart was affected with it verse 4: Lord make me to know mine end and the measure of my days, what it is, that I may know how frail I am. The reason our affections are so chill and cold in spiritual things is, because we do warm ourselves no more at the fire of meditation. Illumination makes us shining lamps, meditation makes us burning lamps. What is it to know Christ by speculation and not by affection? It is the proper work of meditation to excite and blow up holy passions. What sparklings of love in such a soul! When David had meditated on God's law, he could not choose but love it, Psalm 119:97: O how love I thy law it is my meditation all the day. When the spouse had by meditation viewed those singular beauties in her beloved, white and ruddy, Canticles 5, she grew sick of love verse 8. Galeatius Caraccialus, that famous Marquess of Vico, who had been much in the contemplation of Christ, breaks out into a holy Pathos: let their money perish with them who esteem all the gold in the world worth one hour's communion with Jesus Christ!
4. Meditation fits for holy duties. The musician first puts his instrument in tune and then he plays a lesson; meditation tunes the heart, and then it is fit for any holy service: as the sails to the Ship, so is meditation to duty, it carries on the soul more swiftly.
1. Meditation fits for Hearing; when the ground is softened then it is fit for the plough and the seed: when the heart is softened by meditation, now is a fit time for the seed of the word to be sown.
2. Meditation fits for Prayer. Prayer is Spiritualis pulsus, the spiritual pulse of the soul, by which it beats strongly after God. There is no living without prayer; a man cannot live unless he takes breath, no more can the Soul unless it breathes out its desires to God. Prayer Ushers in mercy, and prayer sanctifies mercy; it makes mercy to be mercy: prayer has power over God, vincit invincibilem, Hosea 12:4. Prayer comes with Letters of mandamus to heaven, Isaiah 45:11. Prayer is the spiritual Leech, that sucks the poison of sin out of the soul. What a blessed (shall I say duty or) privilege, is prayer! Now meditation is a help to prayer: Gerson calls it the nurse of Prayer. Meditation is like oil to the lamp; the lamp of prayer will soon go out unless meditation cherish and support it: meditation and prayer are like two turtledoves, if you separate one, the other dies. A cunning angler observes the time and season when the fish bite best, and then he throws in his angle. When the heart is warmed by meditation, now is the best season to throw in the angle of prayer, and fish for mercy. After Isaac had been in the field meditating, he was fit for prayer when he came home. When the Gun is full of powder, it is fittest to discharge. So when the mind is full of good thoughts, a Christian is fittest by prayer to discharge, now he sends up whole volleys of sighs and groans to heaven. Meditation has a double benefit in it, it pours in, and pours out; first it pours good thoughts into the mind, and then it pours out those thoughts again in prayer; meditation first furnishes with matter to pray, and then it furnishes with a heart to pray, Psalm 39:3. I was musing (saith David,) and the very next words are a prayer, Lord make me to know my end; and Psalm 143:5, 6: I muse on the works of thy hands, I stretch forth my hands to thee; the musing of his head, made way for the stretching forth of his hands in prayer. When Christ was upon the mount then he prayed: So when the Soul is upon the mount of meditation, now it is in tune for Prayer. Prayer is the Child of meditation: meditation leads the van, and prayer brings up the Rear.
3. Meditation fits for Humiliation. When David had been contemplating the Works of Creation, their splendor, harmony, motion, influence, he let the plumes of pride fall, and begins to have Self-abasing thoughts, Psalm 8:3, 4. When I consider the Heavens, the Work of thy fingers, the moon and Stars which thou hast ordained, What is man that thou art mindful of him?
5. Meditation is a strong antidote against sin; most sin is committed for want of meditation: men sin through incogitancy, and passion. Would they be so brutishly sensual as they are, if they did seriously meditate what sin is? Would they take this viper in their hand, if they did but consider before of the sting? Sin puts a worm into conscience, a sting into death, a fire into hell. Did men meditate of this, that after all their dainty dishes, death will bring in the Reckoning, and they must pay the Reckoning in Hell, they would say as David in another sense, Let me not eat of their dainties, Psalm 141:4. The Devil's apple has a bitter core in it. Did men think of this, sure it would put them into a cold sweat, and be as the Angel's drawn sword to affright them. Meditation is a golden Shield to beat back sin. When Joseph's mistress tempted him to wickedness, meditation did preserve him: How shall I do this Evil, and sin against God? Meditation makes the heart like wet tinder, it will not take the Devil's fire.
6. Meditation is a cure of Covetousness. The covetous man is called an Idolater, Colossians 3:5. Though he will not bow down to an Idol, yet he worships graven images in his coin. Now meditation is an excellent means to lessen our esteem of the World. Great things seem little to him that stands high; if we could live among the stars, the earth would seem as nothing. A Christian that stands high upon the pinnacle of meditation, how do all worldly things disappear, and seem as nothing to him; he sees not that in them which men of the world do. He is gotten into his Tower, and Heaven is his Prospect. What is said of God, He dwells on high, he humbleth himself to behold the things done on the earth, Psalm 113:6, I may allude to with reverence: The Christian that dwells on high by meditation accounts it an humbling and abasing of himself to look down upon the earth, and behold the things done in this lower Region. Saint Paul, whose meditations were sublime and seraphical, looked at things, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], which were not seen, 2 Corinthians 4:18. How did he trample upon the World, how did he scorn it? I am crucified to the world, Galatians 6:14. As if he had said it is too much below me to mind it. He who is catching at a crown will not fish for gudgeons, as Cleopatra once said to Mark Antony. A Christian that is elevated by holy meditation, will not set his heart there where his feet should be, upon the earth.
7. Holy meditation banishes vain and sinful thoughts it purges the Fancy. How long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee? Jeremiah 4:14. The mind is the shop or workhouse where sin is first framed. Sin begins at the thoughts. The thoughts are the first plotters and contrivers of evil. The mind and fancy is a stage where sin is first acted; the malicious man acts over sin in his thoughts, he contemplates revenge. The impure person acts over concupiscence in his thoughts, he contemplates lust. The Lord humble us for our contemplative wickedness. Proverbs 30:32: If thou hast thought evil lay thy hand upon thy mouth. How much sin do men commit in the chamber of their imagination? Now meditating in God's law would be a good means to banish these sinful thoughts. If David had carried the book of the law about him and meditated in it, he had not looked on Bathsheba with a lascivious eye, 2 Samuel 11:2. Holy meditation would have quenched that wild-fire of lust. The word of God is pure, Psalm 119:140, not only subjective but effective. 'Tis not only pure in itself, but it makes them pure that meditate in it. Christ whipped the buyers and sellers out of the temple, John 2:15. Holy meditation would whip out idle and vagrant thoughts and not suffer them to lodge in the mind. What is the reason the Angels in heaven have not a vain thought? They have a sight of God, their eye is never off him. If the eye of the soul were fixed on God by meditation, how would vain impure thoughts vanish? As when that woman, Judges 9:52, was in the tower and Abimelech came near to the tower to have entered, she threw a millstone out of the tower upon him and killed him: so when we are gotten into the high tower of meditation, and sinful thoughts would come near to enter, we may from this tower throw a millstone upon them and destroy them. And thus you have seen the benefit of meditation.
