The Mount of Holy Meditation, Tract · Chapter 14
Chap. 14. The Motives to Meditation.
I ſhall now proceed to lay down divers Motives to meditation.
Meditation is delightfull to God. Motive 1 It was the ſaying of an Heathen, If God took delight in any felicity, it was in contemplation. God delights in holy meditations, becauſe in them we come neareſt to the purity and ſimplicity of God: in nothing do we more converſe with him, than in our pure and active meditations: by theſe when we are as it were abſent in body, we are preſent with him; for when the body lyes upon its bed, and takes its reſt, the devout ſoul ſolaceth it ſelf with God.
2. This exerciſe of meditation may be done, when other duties cannot. When we want an opportunity to hear the Word, to read, to pray ſolemnly, we may have liberty to confer with God by holy meditations.
3. The Lord heareth the meditations of his people. David prayes to God not only to conſider his words, but alſo to conſider his meditation, Pſal. 5.1. As our ears, ſaith Auſtin, Aug. in Pſal. 48. Hom. 16. Aug. in Pſal. 41.are to our words, ſo are God's ears to our thoughts: and in another place ſaith he, We hear not one another, without the benefit as of our lungs, ſo of our tongues; but Cogitatio tua clamor eſt ad Dominum, thy very thoughts are ſhrill in the ears of God: and elſewhere he ſaith,Aug. Confeſ. …0. c. 2. My confeſſion, O my God is made in thy ſight ſecretly, and yet not in ſecret; Tacet enim ſtrepitu, clamat affectu, it makes no noiſe at all by way of ſound, and yet it is clamorous by reaſon of her love. Gregor. in Iob.They are not our words, but our deſires and thoughts, that yeeld a moſt forcible ſound in the moſt ſecret ears of God. There is, ſaith Peter Martyr, Pet. Mart. in 1 Sam. 1.12.no need at all of voice, when we make our private prayers to God, in regard that God heareth our hearts and minds.
4. Meditation brings the ſoul to reſt it ſelf in God. One ſaith,Struth. Obſerv. 87. Cent. 2. that contemplation is both the labour and the reſt of the devout ſoul: it carries up the ſpirit of man into the boſome of God's love; it exalts a man ſo high, as to make him look down upon theſe ſublunary things with contempt, as Peter, James, and John, Luk. 9.33.following Chriſt to the Mount, where he was transfigured, ſeeing ſome of his glory, cried out, Maſter it is good for us to be here: ſo when a Chriſtian follows Chriſt upon the Mount of meditation, he is where he would be; he cryes out, it is good for me to be here.
5. A man given to meditation, is a growing Chriſtian. As holy meditations do thrive with us, and abide in us; ſo doth the grace of God increaſe in us: holy meditations are good tokens of preſent grace, and do enkindle ſtrong deſires after more grace: the man that is barren in meditation, is barren and unfruitfull in grace.
6. Meditation is a great evidence of ſincerity. As men may know us by our actions, as the tree is known by his fruit: ſo a man may know himſelf by his conſtant thoughts; for as he thinketh in his heart, ſo is he, Prov. 23.7. And God looks not ſo much upon what we do, as upon what our hearts are moſt upon; not ſo much upon what is uttered by the lips, as upon what the heart indites: by this we draw vertue from God himſelf, and are full of the life of God.
7. Meditation is a Chriſtian's Heaven upon earth. This is, as one ſaith, the meaſure that God gives in this life; a beginning that ſhall be finiſhed; an earnest that ſhall be followed with the full ſumme. The ſoul that keeps daily intercourſe with God in holy meditations, is in patriâ, Contemplatio dicitur cibus in hâc vitâ, ubi in ſudore veſcimur pane noſtro; potus in futurâ, ubi liberè & ſine dolore ſumitur; ebrietas in ultimâ, cùm animo recepto corpore congaudebit. Bern. Sent.when he is in viâ, at home when he is in the way: he quits earth to live in Paradiſe; the love and Magnificats he beſtows on God, are his chiefeſt imployment; in this one object he finds all his happineſſe, and his diverſion; his heart is no longer in the earth; he mounts up to Heaven by his deſires, and converſeth more with Angels, than with men, and hath already a large taſt of the ſweetneſſe of heavenly pleaſures▪
FINIS.
End of the text · William Gearing, The Mount of Holy Meditation (1662)