The saints delight. To which is annexed a treatise of meditation

IF it be enquired what meditation is, I answer, ¹meditation is the souls retiring of it self, that by a serious and solemn thinking upon God, the heart may be raised up to heavenly affections. This description hath three branches.

IF it be enquired what meditation is, I answer, ¹meditation is the souls retiring of it selfe, that by a serious and solemne thinking upon God, the heart may be raised up to heavenly affections. This description hath three branches.

1. 1What meditation is.

1. Meditation is the souls retiring of it self; a Christian, when he goes to meditate, must lock up himself from the world. The world spoils meditation; Christ went apart into the Mount to pray, Mat. 14.23. So, go apart when you are to meditate. Isaac went out to meditate in the field, Gen. 24.63. he sequestered and retired himself that he might ⟨p. 62⟩take a walk with God by meditation. Zacheus had a mind to see Christ, and he got out of the crowd, He ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore-tree to see him, Luke 19.3, 4. So when we would see God, we must get out of the crowd of worldly business, we must climb up into the tree by retiredness of meditation, and there we shall have the best prospect of heaven. The worlds music will either play us asleep, or distract us in our meditations. When a more is gotten into the eye, it hinders the sight; when worldly thoughts, as motes, are gotten into the mind (which is the eye of the soul) it cannot look up so steadfastly to heaven by contemplation. Therefore, as when Abraham went to sacrifice, he left his servant and the Ass at the bottom of the hill,