Chapter 4. Showing how Meditation differs from Memory
Chapter 4.
Showing how Meditation differs from Memory The memory, a glorious faculty, which Aristotle calls the soul's scribe, sits and pens all things that are done. Whatever we read or hear, the memory registers. Therefore, God does all his works of wonder so that they may be held in remembrance.39 There seems to be some analogy and resemblance between meditation and memory.
But I conceive there is a double difference.
1. Meditation about a thing has more sweetness in it than the bare remembrance of it. The memory is the chest or cupboard to lock up a truth, while meditation is the palate to feed on it. The memory is like the ark in which the manna was laid up, (Exo 16.33) while meditation is like Israel's eating the manna (Exo 16.35). When David began to meditate on God, it was "sweet to him as marrow," Psa 63.5,
6. There is as much difference between a truth remembered, and a truth meditated on, as between a cordial in a glass, and a cordial that has been drunk down.
2. Remembrance of a truth without serious meditation on it, will only create a matter of sorrow another day. What comfort can it be to a man when he comes to die, to think that he remembered many excellent notions about Christ, but never had the grace to meditate on them so as to be transformed into them? A sermon remembered, but not meditated on, will only serve to increase our condemnation.