272 SERMONS UPON GENESIS XXIV. 03.
Eccles. vli. 4. We usually complain we want temper and we want matter ; but the truth is we want an heart. David saith, Ps. cxix. 97, ' Oh ! how love I thy law ; it is my meditation all the day.' Delight- some objects will engross the thoughts. Therefore see if it be not a moral distemper.
(2.) Suppose it be a natural unfitness, yet while you have reason it is not total and universal, and therefore cannot excuse. We see in other duties, some have the gift of utterance, and have a great savouri- ness and readiness of expression for prayer ; others are more bound up and restrained ; but this can be no plea for them wholly to neglect prayer. Duty must be done as we are able ; God will hear the breath- ing, panting soul as well as the rolling tongue. So it is in meditation ; some are more for musing, and can better melt out their souls in devout retirements, others can show their love better in zealous actions and public engagements for the glory of Christ ; yet still, though there be a diversity of gifts, we are all bound to the same duties, and though w^e be fitter for some rather than others, yet none must be neglected in their order and course.
(3.) The rank and place that meditation hath among the duties. Meditation is a middle sort of duty between the word and prayer, and hath respect to both. The word feedcth meditation, and meditation feedeth prayer ; we must hear that we be not erroneous, and meditate that we be not barren. These duties must always go hand in hand ; meditation must follow hearing and precede prayer.
{1st.) To hear and not to meditate is unfruitful. We may hear and hear, but it is like putting a thing into a bag with holes : Hag. i. 6, ' He that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes ; ' James i. 23, 24, ' He is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass ; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.' Bare hearing begets but transient thoughts, and they leave but a weak impression, which is rather like the glance of a sunbeam upon a wall ; there is a glaring for the present, but a man never discerneth the beauty, the lustre, and the order of the truths delivered till he cometh to meditate upon them ; then we come clearly to see into the truth, and how it concerneth us, and how it falleth upon our hearts. David saith, Ps. cxix. 99, ' I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation.' The preacher can but deliver general theorems, and draw them down to practical inferences ; by meditation we come to see more clearly and practically than he that preacheth. We see, in outward learning, they thrive best that meditate most ; knowledge floateth, till by deliberate thoughts it be compressed upon the afi'ections.
(2d) It is dangerous to meditate and not to hear because of errors. Man will soon impose a deceit upon himself by his own thoughts. Fanatic spirits that neglect hearing pretend to dreams and revelations. We have a sophister and an heretic in our own bosoms, ' which soon deceiveth without a stock and treasure of some knowledge ; ' for men would be vain in their imaginations were not their thouglits corrected by an external light and instruction. Jude calleth those fanatic persons ewTTuia^ofjuevot,, ' filthy dreamers,' Jude 8. All practical errors are men's natural imaginations gotten up into a valuable opinion.
SERMONS UPON GENESIS XXIV. Go. 273
(3d) It is rashness to pray aud not to meditate. What we take in by the word we digest by meditation and let out by prayer. These three duties must be so ordered that one may not jostle out the other. Men are barren, dry, and sapless in their prayers for want of exercising themselves in holy thoughts : Ps. xlv. 1, ' My heart is inditing a good matter ; ' and then it follows, ' I will speak of the things which I have made touching the King ; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.' The heart yieldeth matter to the tongue ; the word signifieth, boileth and frieth ; a word from mincha, their meat-offering ; the oil and the flour was to be kneaded together, and then fried in a pan, and then offered to the Lord ; implying we must not come with raw dough- baked offerings, till we have concocted and prepared them by mature deliberation. It is notable that often in scripture prayer is called by the name of meditation, because it is the product and issue of it ; as Ps. V. 1, 'Give ear to my words, 0 Lord: consider my meditation. Implying that his prayer was but the expression of his deliberate and premeditated thoughts. So Ps. xix. 14, ' Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, 0 Lord, my strength and my redeemer.' It is the vent of the thoughts.
2. Whereby the mind is applied to the serious and solemn consi- deration. I add this to distinguish it from occasional meditation, and those good thoughts that accidentally rush into our minds, and to note the care and intenseness of the soul in such an exercise : Prov. xviii. 1, ' Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and inter- meddleth with all wisdom ; ' then is a man fit for these solemn and holy thoughts, and for intermeddling with all wise and divine matters, when he hath divorced himself from other cares, and is able to keep his understanding under a prudent confinement.