Doct. That it is the duty of christians to sequester and set apart some time and place for solemn meditation, or the exercising their souls in heavenly and holy things.
My purpose is to speak of meditation, a duty unaccustomed and unpractised ; both the practice and the knowledge of it are become strangers to us. The times are times of action and tumult, and we all think that we have so much to do with others, that few desire to con- verse with God and themselves. Our case is somewhat like theirs in Nehemiah's time, Neh, iv. 17, ' With one hand they wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon.' We are forced to fight and quarrel for our religion, that we may rescue the innocent and holy principles of it from violation and scorn. I observe that many christians use the sword, they spend the heat and strength of their spirits in controversies ; but I doubt they do not use the trowel enough, and are not so serious in private retirements as they are earnest in public defences. Therefore I shall make it my work to press the duty of meditation. My method shall be this : I shall show — (1.) What meditation is ; (2.) The necessity and profit of it ; (3.) The rules that serve to guide us in this holy work and business ; (4.) The lets and hindrances of it, with the helps and remedies against them ; (5.) The object or matters upon which you are to meditate, which I shall handle — first, generally ; secondly, particularly.
I shall give you some hints of meditation on those objects which are most usual and most practical.
I. What meditation is. Before I can define it I must distingush it.
1. There is that which we call occasional meditation, which is an act by which the soul spiritualiseth every object about which it is con- versant. A gracious heart is like an alembic, it can distil useful medita- tions out of all things it meeteth with. Look, as it seeth all things in God, so it seeth God in all things. Our Lord at the well discourseth of 'the water of life,' John xxi. 10. At the supper of the pharisee one discourseth of ' eating bread in the kingdom of God,' Luke xiv. 15. There is a chemistry and holy art that a christian hath to turn water into wine, brass into gold, to make earthly occasions and objects to minister spiritual and heavenly thoughts. God trained up the old
268 SERMONS UPON GENESIS XXIV. 63.
church by types and ceremonies, that upon a common object they might ascend to spiritual thoughts ; and our Lord in the new testament taught by parables and similitudes taken from ordinary functions and offices among men, that in every trade and calling we might be employed in our worldly business with an heavenly mind, that, whether in the shop, or at the loom, or in the field, we might still think of Christ and heaven. There is a parable of merchant-men, a parable of the sower, a parable of a man calling his servants to an account. In all these similitudes Christ would teach us that we should still think of God and heaven. So small a matter as a grain of mustard-seed may yield many spiritual applications.
2. There is set and solemn meditation. Now this is of several sorts, or rather, they are but several parts of the same exercise.
[1.] There is a reflexive meditation, by which we wholly fall upon ourselves. This is nothing else but a solemn parley between a man and his own heart : Ps. iv. 4, ' Commune with your own hearts upon your bed, and be still.' When in a solemn retirement, reason and inward discourse returneth and falleth back upon itself. Of all the jiarts of meditation this is the most difficult, for here a man is to exer- cise dominion over his soul, and to be his own accuser and judge; it is against self-love, and carnal ease. We see all our shifts are to avoid our own company, and to run away from ourselves. Guilty man, like a basilisk dieth, by seeing himself. Hence the worldly man choketh his soul with business, lest his thoughts, for want of work, like a mill should grind upon itself. The voluptuous person melteth away his days in pleasure, and charmeth his soul into a deep sleep with the jiotion of outward delights, lest it should awake and talk with him. Oh ! then, necessary it is that a christian should take some time to discourse with himself, to ask of our own souls, what we ai-e ? Avliat we have been? what we have done? Jer. viii. 6; what straits, what temptations we have passed through, and how we have overcome them ? You would think it strange of two men that conversed every day for forty or fifty years, and all this while they did not know one another ; yet this is the case between us and our souls ; we live a long time in the world, and are strangers to ourselves.
[2.] There is a meditation, which is more direct, and that is of two sorts — (1.) Dogmatical, whose object is the word ; (2.) Practical, whose objects is our own lives. There is more of search and apprehension in the first, there is more of plot and contrivance in the second ; the one is more conversant about doctrines, the other about things ; the latter catcheth hold of the heel of the former, for where dogmatical meditation endeth, there practical meditation beginneth,