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

Extract

A Christian on the Mount — Part Two
Thomas Watson

A Treatise Concerning Meditation

“His delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night” Psalm 1:2.
Having led you through the chamber of delight, I will now bring you into the withdrawing room of meditation. “In his law doth he meditate day and night.”

Chapter I — The Opening of the Words, and the Proposition Asserted

Grace produces delight in God, and delight produces meditation. A duty wherein consists the essentials of religion, and which nourishes the very life-blood of it; and that the psalmist may show how much the godly man is habituated and inured to this blessed work of meditation, he subjoins, “In his law doth he meditate day and night.” Not but that there may be sometimes intermission: God allows time for our calling, he grants some relaxation; but when it is said, the godly man meditates day and night, the meaning is, frequently, he is much conversant in the duty. It is a command of God to pray without ceasing, 1 Thess. 5:17. The meaning is, not that we should be always praying, as the Euchites held, but that we should every day set some time apart for prayer; so Drusius and others interpret it. We read in the old law of the continual sacrifice, Num. 28:24. not that the people of Israel did nothing else but sacrifice, but because they had their stated hours; every morning and evening they offered, therefore it was called the continual sacrifice, thus the godly man is said to meditate day and night, that is, he is often at this work, he is no stranger to meditation. Doctrine. The proposition that results out of the text is this, that a good Christian is a meditating Christian. “I will meditate in thy precepts,” Psa. 119:15. “Meditate upon these things,” …