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

SECT II.

Rule. 2 2. Read before you meditate, Josh. 1.8. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate in it. The law must be in Joshuas mouth. He was first to read and then meditate. Give attendance to reading. 1. Tim. 4.13. Then it follows, meditate on these things verse. 15. reading doth furnish with matter¹. it is the oil that feeds the lamp of meditation. reading helps to rectify meditation. Austin saith well, that meditation without reading will be erroneous^*. naturally the mind is defiled as well as the conscience. Titus. 1.15. the mind will be minting thoughts, and how many untruths doth it mint? Therefore first read in the book of the law and then meditate; ⟨p. 263⟩be sure your meditations be grounded upon Scripture. There is a strange Utopia in the fancies of some men, they take those for true principles which are false, and if they mistake their principles they must needs be wrong in their meditations. He that is of the Sadducees opinion that there is no resurrection, he mistakes a principle. Now while he is meditating on this he is at last carried to direct atheism. He that is of the Antinomians opinion that there is no law to a justified person, mistakes a principle, and while he is meditating on this he at last falls into scandal. Thus the mind having laid in wrong principles, and taking that for a truth which is not, the meditation must needs be erroneous, and a man at last goes to hell upon a mistake; Therefore be sure you read before