Chapter 16: Setting Forth the Excellency of Meditation

Aristotle places Felicity in the contemplation of the mind. Meditation is highly commended by Augustine, Chrysostom, Cyprian, as the nursery of piety. Jerome calls it his Paradise. With what words shall I set it forth? Other duties have done excellently, but you excel them all. Meditation is a friend to the graces; it helps to water the plantation. I may call it in Basil's expression [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], the treasury where all the graces are locked up. And with Theophylact, the very gate and portal by which we enter into glory. By meditation the spirits are raised, and heightened, to a kind of angelical frame; meditation does sweetly anticipate happiness, it puts us in heaven before our time. Meditation brings God and the Soul together, 1 John 3:2.

Meditation is the Saint's perspective glass, by which they see things invisible. It is the golden ladder by which they ascend Paradise, it is the spy they send abroad to search the land of promise, and it brings a bunch of grapes with it; it is the dove they send out, and it brings an olive branch of peace in its mouth; but who can tell how sweet honey is, save they that taste it? The excellency of meditation I leave to experienced Christians, who will say, the comfort of it may be better felt than expressed.

To excite all to this Pancreston, to this so useful, excellent (I had almost said Angelical) duty, let me lay down some divine motives to meditation; and how glad should I be, if I might revive this duty among Christians.