The Benefit of Meditation

From Virginia Hugenot

Joseph Hall, The Art of Divine Meditation in Works, Vol. 7, p. 44:

It is not, I suppose, a more bold than profitable labour, after the endeavours of so many contemplative men, to teach the Art of Meditation: a heavenly business, as any that belongeth either to man or Christian; and such as, whereby the soul doth unspeakably benefit itself. For, by this, do we ransack our deep and false hearts; find out our secret enemies; buckle with them, expel them; arm ourselves against their re-entrance: by this, we make use of all good means; fit ourselves to all good duties: by this, we descry our weakness; obtain redress; prevent temptations; cheer up our solitariness; temper our occasions of delight; get more light into our knowledge, more heat to our affections, more life to our devotion: by this, we grow to be, as we are, strangers upon the earth; and, our of a right estimation of all earthly things, into a sweet fruition of invisible comforts: by this, we see our Saviour, with Stephen; we talk with God, as Moses: and, by this, we are ravished, with blessed Paul, into paradise; and see that heaven, which we are loth to leave, which we cannot utter. This alone is the remedy of security and worldliness, the pastime of saints, the ladder of heaven; and, in short, the best improvement of Christianity. Lean it who can, and neglect it who list: he shall never find joy, neither in God nor in himself, which doth not both know and practise it.

meditation and prayer

The Puritans wrote much on both meditation and prayer separately, but they always emphasised that both are mutually indispensible.

What is meditation?
Meditation is “a holy exercise of the mind whereby we bring the truths of God to remembrance, and do seriously ponder upon them and apply them to ourselves.” - Thomas Watson

How are meditation and prayer joined to each other?"There is a meditation that is holy and godly, and that is when we meditate upon things that are holy and heavenly; and of this nature was the meditation of Isaac, he went out into the field to meditate on the works of God, and of the blessings and mercies of God; to meditate upon the Heavenly Canaan, and upon his sins; and this appears, because the Hebrew word that is here used for meditation, that is here translated meditation, doth also signifie to pray; and therefore it is in your margent, And Isaac went out to pray at eventide. It was a Religious work that Isaac went out about; and you must know that Prayer and Meditation are very well joined together; Meditation is a preparation to Prayer, and Prayer is a fit close for Meditation; and Isaac went out to meditate, to pray and to meditate, and to meditate and pray." - Edmund Calamy

How are they mutually indispensible?
“Meditation is the best beginning of prayer, and prayer is the best conclusion of meditation,” - George Swinnock.

"For as Mr. Greenham saith well, Reading without Meditation, is unfruitful; Meditation without Reading, is hurtful; To meditate and to read without prayer upon both, is without blessing.

If you do read and not meditate, then you will want good affections. If you meditate, and not read or hear, you will want good Judgement, and be apt to fall into some ill Opinions.

If you do read, or hear, or meditate, and not pray, you will want the blessing of the Lord upon both: Read, or hear first; then meditate; and then pray upon both. I speak of settled meditation, and let one be proportioned unto another. There must be a proportion between the one and the other, in a settled meditation; and therefore if that you would meditate rightly, I say in all your meditations, begin with reading, go on with meditation, and end with prayer". - William Bridge

How does meditation relate to both prayer and reading?
“Meditation is a middle sort of duty between the word and prayer, and hath respect to
both. The word feedeth meditation , and meditation feedeth prayer; we must hear that we be not erroneous, and meditate that we be not barren. These duties must always go hand in hand; meditation must follow hearing and precede prayer.” - Thomas Manton

How do prayer and meditation differ?
"They are often confounded in name, but inseparably linked in nature going hand and hand together; and can no more be severed, than two twins, who live and die together; only in prayer we confer and commune more directly with God by petition and thanksgiving; in meditation we talk and confer more directly and properly with ourselves and our own souls". - John Ball

What happens if we neglect meditation?
"Take away Meditation, and the duties of religion lose their life and vigor; prayer
is cold, reading unprofitable; think daily with thy self what great honor it is to be the son of God, what unspeakable joy to possess assurance that our sins are pardoned, how unvaluable a prerogative to lay open thy cares into the bosom of the Lord; persuade thyself of his readiness to hear, mercies to forgive, and compassions to relieve them that ask in his Son’s name. These things will stir up intention fervency in prayer; with what sighs and groans will he confess and bewail his iniquity who with a single eye doth behold the filthiness of sin and look into his own estate? But lay aside Meditation, and all is turned into form, comes to be of little use. For the appetite will decay if it be not sharpened; desire will cool if it be not quickened." - John Ball

Can meditation and prayer help us against temptation?
"we cannot be ignorant of this, that the old subtle fowler lets his snares and nets so thick in our way, that we have no shift but to fall into them, and light upon them, except with wings of meditation and prayer we mount up on high above them, and fly over them" - John Ball

How does meditation become the subject of prayer?
“Pray over your meditations. Prayer sanctifies every thing; without prayer they are but unhallowed meditations; prayer fastens meditation upon the soul; prayer is a tying a knot at the end of meditation that it doth not slip; pray that God will keep those holy meditations in your mind for ever, that the savour of them may abide
upon your hearts.” - Thomas Watson

"Never pray but let Meditation track thy prayer: this passage was right,that passage was amiss". - William Fenner

What sort of petitions can we use to help meditation by prayer?
"The matter or form of our prayer must be this, or such like, Oh Lord, it hath pleased thee to give me a mind ready, and desirous to perform this holy duty (for which I humbly thank thy heavenly majesty) I beseech thee by thy Holy Spirit to assist me therein, that I may bring the same to a profit and comfortable issue. Thou hast charged me, Oh Lord, to seek thy face, that is, thy blessed and holy presence.
Let my soul answer and say with thy faithful servant, Lord, I will seek thy face; Oh cause the light of thy face to shine upon me, enlighten my understanding, strengthen my memory, and sanctify my will and affections; withhold my ranging and truant-like heart, from all trifling fantasties, deceitful dreams, vain hopes, carnal fears, and worldly cares, wherewith it is naturally and customarily entangled, keep it unto thyself, and unto thy laws, that it may wholly delight and solace itself in thee, and grant that this point that I now go about to think upon, may be so settled in my memory, and rooted in my heart, that I may reap the fruit thereof all my life long, to thy glory, and upon my own comfort, and salvation, through Jesus Christ". - John Ball

Heavenly contemplation

At one point in The Pilgrim's Progress the pilgrims reach the Delectable
Mountains where they were able to view the Celestial City through a glass or
telescope. It is a picture of meditating upon heaven and experiencing
something of a foretaste of that future joy. The Puritans often stressed the
importance of focussing upon heaven, pointing to the doctrine that we have
been made to 'sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus' (Ephesians
2:6). In Colossians chapter 3 Paul develops and applies the doctrine: 'If ye
then be risen wih Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ
sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on
things on the earth'. Puritan ministers also sought to remind their readers
and hearers that as Christians they ought to make much of the fact that
their 'conversation [life] is in heaven' (Philippians 3:20) and that we are
to be changed from 'glory to glory' (2 Corinthians 3:18). The benefit of
this was unfolded by Richard Sibbes who spoke of it as necessary
to holiness, strength and devotion in the Christian life: "If we walk aright
in God's ways, let us have heaven daily in our eye, and the day of
judgement, and times to come, and this will stern the course of our lives,
and breed love in the use of the means, and patience to undergo all
conditions".

Richard Baxter wrote a whole book on this particular subject entitled The
Saints Everlasting Rest. Baxter wrote the book during illness and against
the backdrop of the Civil War raging through England. The Saints Rest opens
up the themeby urging believers to 'meditate on the joys above' expressly
seeking to imagine what it will be like to experience them. We need concrete
thoughts concerning glory suggests Baxter or else they are not particularly
fixed: 'get the liveliest picture of them in thy mind that possibly thou
canst', he says, 'meditate of them as if thou wert all the while beholding
them, and as if thou wert even hearing hallelujahs, while thou are thinking
of them; til thou canst say,"Methinks I see a glimpse of glory"'. It is
important to focus closely upon what the Bible teaches and to see by the
means of Scripture, "without these spectacles we are lost, and have nothing
to fix our thoughts upon". John Bunyan held the same point, speaking of the
throne in Heaven as described in the book of Revelation: "We must labour for
more clear Scripture-Knowledge of this Throne; for the Holy Word of God
is...the Magnifying-glass that will cause us to behold with open face the
glory of this Lord".

How are we to have our 'conversation' (life) in heaven? The answer is
perhaps best given in a little Puritan book that was one of the first godly
books that John Bunyan ever read: his first wife brought it with her amongst
her belongings after their marriage: Arthur Dent's Plain Man's Pathway to
Heaven. Here life in heaven is explained as an 'inward conversation with
God' that may only be maintained 'by much prayer, reading, meditation, and
heavenly affections'.

Meditating often on the Word

In the plainest text there is a world of holiness and spirituality; and if we in prayer and dependence upon God did sit down and study it, we should behold much more than appears to us. It may be, at one reading or looking, we see little or nothing; as Elijah's servant went once and saw nothing; therefore, he was commanded to look seven times. "What now?", says the prophet. "I see a cloud rising like a man's hand", and by and by the whole surface of the heavens was covered with clouds. So you may look lightly upon a scripture and see nothing; meditate often upon it, and there you shall see a light like the light of the sun.

Rev. Joseph Caryl (Member of Westminster Assembly)