A31893:65
The art of divine meditation, or, A discourse of the nature, necessity, and excellency…
The art of divine meditation, or, A discourse of the nature, necessity, and excellency thereof with motives to, and rules for the better performance of that most important Christian duty : in several sermons on Gen. 24:63 / by Edmund Calamy ...
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1680
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. This holy meditation is a dwelling and abiding upon things that are holy; it is not only a knowing of God, and a knowing of Christ, but it is a dwelling upon the things we know; as the Bee that dwells and abides upon the flower, to suck out all the sweetness that is in the flower; so to meditate upon God and Christ, and the Sacrament, it is to dwell upon God, and the Sacrament, to suck out all the sweetness we can in the things we meditate upon. As we read of Anna, Luk. 2. 37. She continued in the Temple praying and fasting day and night. To meditate, is to continue and fix our selves and our hearts upon the things we know; this meditation in Scripture is called a holy musing, Psal. 39. 3. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing; to meditate is to muse, or else it is to commune with our own hearts, Psal. 4. Stand in awe and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. It is a communing, a consulting ⟨p. 24⟩with our own hearts; or if you will, it is a bethinking our selves: so it is expressed, 1 King. 8. 47. If they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captive, and repent: The Hebrew word is, if they shall bring back to their hearts, if they shall reflect upon themselves; for meditation is a reflecting act of the soul, whereby the soul is carried back to it self, and considers all the things that it knows. Meditation is an inward act of the soul, a spiritual act, whereby the soul doth recoil upon it self, and looks back upon it self, and considers all the things that concern its everlasting happiness; and if I be not mistaken, it is rarely typified under the Law two manner of ways.
1. By those beasts that did chew the cud; you shall read Lev. 11. of the clean beasts, and the unclean beasts; now the clean beasts were such as did chew the cud, of those they were to eat: now the unclean beasts were those that did not chew the cud: a meditating Christian is one that chews the cud, that chews on the Truths of Jesus Christ, that doth not only hear good things, but when he hath heard them, chews them over, ruminates upon them, that so they may be fitter for digestion and concoction, and spiritual improvement; an unclean Christian is one that doth not chew the cud, that doth not ruminate, and ponder,