Section 4

To Meditation join Examination. Rule 4. When you have been meditating on any spiritual subject, put a query to your soul, and though it be short let it be serious. O my soul, is it thus with you or no? When you have been meditating about the fear of God, that it is the beginning of Wisdom, put a query, O my soul, is this fear planted in your heart? You are almost come to the end of your days. Are you yet come to the beginning of Wisdom? When you have been meditating on Christ, his Virtues, his Privileges; put a query, O my soul, do you love him who is so Lovely, and are you grafted into him? Are you a living branch of this living vine? When you have been meditating upon the Graces of the Spirit; put a query, O my soul, are you adorned, as the Bride of Christ with this chain of Pearl? Have you your certificate for heaven ready? Will not your Graces be to seek when you should have them to show? Thus should a Christian, in his retirements, parley often with his heart.

For want of this Examination, Meditation does evaporate, and come to nothing. For want of Examination joined with Meditation, many are strangers to their own hearts; though they live known to others, they die unknown to themselves. Meditation is like a perspective glass by which we contemplate heavenly objects, but Self-examination is like a looking glass, by which we see into our own souls and can judge how it is with us. Meditation joined with Examination is like the Sun on the Dial, which shows how the day goes, it shows us how our hearts stand affected to Spiritual Things.