Chapter 16. Setting forth the Excellence of Meditation
Chapter 16.
Setting forth the Excellence of Meditation Aristotle places felicity 93 in the contemplation of the mind.
Meditation is highly commended by Austin, Chrysostom, and Cyprian, as the nursery of piety. Jerome calls it his paradise. With what words should I present it? Other duties have done excellently, but "you excel them all" (Pro 31.29). Meditation is a friend to the graces; it helps to water the plantation. I may call it, in Basil's expression, 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 angelic frame. Meditation sweetly anticipates happiness; it puts us in heaven before our time. Meditation brings God and the soul together, 1Joh 3.2.94
Meditation is the saints' perspective glass,95 by which they see invisible things. 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 back with it. It is the dove they send out, and it brings back an olive branch of peace in its mouth. But who can tell how sweet honey is, except those who taste it? The excellence of meditation I leave to experienced Christians, who will say its comfort may be better felt than expressed. To excite every believer to this pancreston,96 to this so useful, excellent (I almost said angelic) duty, let me lay down some divine motives to meditation. And how glad I would be if I could revive this duty among Christians.