A Christian on the Mount - A Treatise Concerning Meditation Part Three

Extract

A Christian on the Mount — Part Three
Thomas Watson

A Treatise Concerning Meditation Concluded
“His delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night” Psalm 1:2.

Chapter VII — Showing the necessity of Meditation It is not enough to carry the book of God’s law about us, but we must meditate in it. The necessity of meditation will appear in three particulars.

I. The end why God hath given us his word written and preached, is not only to know it, but that we should meditate in it. The word is a letter of the great God written to us; now we must not run it over in haste, but meditate upon God’s wisdom in inditing [authoring it], and his love in sending it to us. Why doth the physician give his patient a receipt; is it that he should only read it over and know the receipt, or that he should apply it? the end why God communicates his gospel receipts to us is, that we should apply them by fruitful meditation. Would God, think we, ever have been at the pains of writing his law with his own finger, only that we should have the theory and notion of it? is it not that we should meditate in it? Would he ever have been at the cost to send abroad his ministers into the world, to furnish them with gifts, Eph. 4:11, 12. and must they for the work of Christ be nigh unto death, Phil. 2:30. that Christians should only have an empty knowledge of the truths published? Is it only speculation, or meditation that God aims at?

II. The necessity of meditation appears in this, because without it we can never be good Christians; a Christian without meditation is like a soldier without arms, or a workman without tools.

1. Without meditation the truths of God will not stay with us; the heart is hard, and the memory slippery, and without …