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

CHAP. IV. Showing how meditation differs from memory.

CHAP. IV. Shewing how meditation differs from memory.

The memory (a glorious faculty) which Aristotle calls the souls scribe, sits and pens all things that are done. Whatsoever we read, or hear, the memory doth register; therefore God doth all his works of wonder that they may be had in remembrance. There seems to be some Analogy and Resemblance between Meditation and Memory. But I conceive there is a double difference.

THe memory (a glorious faculty) which Aristotle calls the souls scribe, sits and pens all things that are done. Whatsoever we read, or hear, the memory doth register; therefore God doth all his works of wonder that they may be had in remembrance. There seemes to be some Analogy and Resemblance between Meditation and Memory. But I conceive there is a double difference.

1. The meditation of a thing hath more sweetness in it than the bare remembrance. The memory is the chest or cupboard to lock up a truth, meditation is the palate to feed on it; the memory is like the Ark in which the Manna was laid up, meditation is like Israels ⟨p. 70⟩eating of Manna. When David began to meditate on God, it was sweet to him as marrow, Psal. 63.5, 6. There's as much difference between a truth remembered, and a truth meditated on, as between a cordial in a glass, and a cordial drunk down.

1. The meditation of a thing hath more sweetnesse in it than the bare remembrance. The memory is the chest or cupboard to lock up a truth, meditation is the pallate to feed on it; the memory is like the Ark in which the Manna was laid up, meditation is like Israels