How Long Christians Should Meditate
in my verdict, the morning is to be preferred; as the flower of the sun opens in the morning to take in the sweet beams of the sun, so open your soul in the morning to take in the sweet thoughts of God. So much for the timing of meditation.
XIV.
How LONG Christians should meditate.
Question 2. But how long should I meditate?
Answer. If we consider how long the world has, it is fit that we give God at least one half hour every day. I shall only say this for a general rule—meditate so long until you find your heart grow warm in this duty.
If when a man is cold, you ask how long he should stand by the fire?
Surely, until he be thoroughly warm, and made fit for his work. So, Christian, your heart is cold; never a day, no not the hottest day in summer—but your heart freezes; now stand at the fire of meditation until you find your affections warmed, and you are made fit for spiritual service. David mused until his heart waxed hot within him,
Psalm 39:3. I will conclude this with that excellent saying of Bernard, "Lord, I will never come away from you—without you." Let this be a Christian's resolution—not to leave off his meditations of God until he finds something of God in him—some "moving of affections after God," Cant. 5:4. Some "flamings of love," Cant. 6:8.
XV. 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. It is reported of Thales, that he left the affairs of state to become a contemplating philosopher. O! 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! It is better to meditate on one sermon—than to hear five sermons. Many complain that they do not profit from sermons; this may 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. It is 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 nourishment.
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 large heads—but their lower parts are small and thrive not. Many professors have the spiritual rickets, they have large heads, much knowledge—but yet they thrive not in godliness, their heart is faint, their feet feeble, they don't walk vigorously in the ways of God; and the cause of this disease is, the lack of meditation.
Bible knowledge without meditation, makes us no better than devils! Satan is an angel of light, yet black enough.
2. Meditation makes the heart serious, and then it is ever best. Meditation ballasts 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, Zeph. 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. But meditation makes the heart serious, and God says of a serious
Christian, as David of Goliath's sword, "there is none like that, give it to 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 which brings the heart into this blessed frame.
3. Meditation is the bellows of the affections. Meditation hatches good affections, as the hen hatches 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 on mortality, and see how his heart was affected with it, verse 4, "Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away." The reason our affections are so chill and cold in spiritual things, is, because we do not warm ourselves 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 affections.
What sparkling of love in such a soul! When David had meditated on God's law, he could not choose it, but love it, Psalm 119:97. "O how love I your law! it is my meditation all the day." When the spouse had by meditation viewed those singular beauties in her beloved, white and ruddy, Cant. 5. she grew lovesick, verse 8. Galeatius Caraccialus, that famous Marquis 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 song. Just so, 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 by meditation, now is a fit time for the seed of the Word to be sown.
2. Meditation fits for PRAYER. Prayer is 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 breathes; no more can the soul live—unless it breathes out its desires to God. Prayer ushers in mercy, and prayer sanctifies mercy, it makes mercy to be mercy, 1
Tim. 4:5. Prayer has power over God, Hos. 12:4. Prayer comes with letters of request to heaven. Prayer is the spiritual leech—which sucks the poison of sin out of the soul. What a blessed (shall I say duty or) privilege is prayer! 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 feeds it.
Meditation and prayer are like two turtles-doves—if you separate one, the other dies. A skillful angler observes the time and season when the fish bite best, and then he throws in his hook. Just so, when the heart is warmed by meditation, now is the best season to throw in the hook 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 into prayer. Meditation first furnishes with matter to pray, and then it furnishes with a heart to pray, Psalm
39:3. "I was musing," says 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 your hands, I stretch forth my hands to you;"
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. Just 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—the plumes of pride fall off—and he begins to have self-abasing thoughts, Psalm 8:3, 4. "When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars which you have ordained—What is man that you are mindful of him!"
4. Meditation is a strong antidote against SIN. Most sin is committed for lack of meditation. Men often sin through ignorance.
Would they be so brutishly sensual as they are, if they did seriously meditate upon what sin is? Would they take this viper in their hand
—if they did but consider its sting? Sin puts a worm into conscience, a sting into death, and a fire into hell. Did men meditate on 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—surely 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 can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" Meditation makes the heart like wet tinder—it will not take the devil's fire!
5. Meditation is a cure of COVETOUSNESS. The covetous man is an idolater, Col. 3:5. Though he will not bow down to an idol, yet he worships engraved images in his coins. Now meditation is an excellent means to lessen our esteem of the world. Great things seem little to him who stands high; if he could live among the stars—the earth would seem as nothing. To a Christian who stands high upon
the pinnacle of meditation—how do all worldly things disappear, and seem as nothing to him! He does not see in them, what men of the world see. He is gotten into his tower, and heaven is his prospect.
What is said of God, "He dwells on high, he humbles himself to behold the things done on the earth," Psalm 113:6, I may allude to with reverence. The Christian who dwells on high by meditation, accounts it an abasing of himself, to look down upon the earth, and behold the things done in this lower region. Paul, whose meditations were sublime and seraphic, looked at things which were not seen, 2
Cor. 4 ult. How did he trample upon the world, how did he scorn it?
"I am crucified to the world," Gal. 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 minnows. A Christian who is elevated by holy meditation, will not set his heart where his feet should be—upon the earth.
6. Holy meditation banishes vain and sinful thoughts. It purges the imagination, "How long shall vain thoughts lodge within you," Jer. 4:14. The mind is the shop where sin is first framed. Sin begins at the thoughts. The thoughts are the first plotters and contrivers of evil. The mind and imagination are the stage where sin is first acted. The malicious man acts over sin in his thoughts, he contemplates revenge. The impure person acts over immorality in his thoughts, he contemplates lust. The Lord humbles us for our contemplative wickedness, Proverbs 30:32. "If you have thought evil, lay your hand upon your mouth." How much sin do men commit in the chamber of their imagination?
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 would not have looked on Bathsheba with a lascivious eye, 2 Sam. 2:11. Holy meditation would have quenched that wildfire of lust. The Word of God is pure, Psalm 119:140, not only subjectively—but effectively. It is not only pure in itself—but it makes them pure who 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 allow them to lodge in the mind.