by Isaac Ambrose
Isaac writes on the nature of meditation in The First, Middle, and Last Things (215-216):
MEDITATION is a deep and earnest musing upon some point of Christian instruction to strengthen us against the flesh, the world, and the devil, and to lead us forward toward the Kingdom of Heaven; or, meditation is a steadfast bending of the mind to some spiritual matter, discoursing of it with ourselves until we bring the same to some profitable issue.
Now this meditation is either sudden or set; occasional or solemn and deliberate.
1. Sudden, occasional, or external meditation ariseth from such things as God by His providence offers to our eyes, ears, and senses. “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psa 8:3-4). This meditation of David’s was occasional.
2. Deliberate, set, or solemn meditation ariseth out of our own hearts, when purposely we separate ourselves from all company and go apart to perform this exercise more thoroughly, making choice of such matter, time, and place as are most requisite1 thereunto. Now, this meditation is double, for it is either conversant about matters of knowledge for finding out some hidden truth, or about matters of affection for kindling our love unto God. The former of these two we leave to the schools and prophets; the latter we shall search after, which is both of large use and such as no Christian can reject as unnecessary or over-difficult.
The Circumstances of Meditation: The circumstances of our meditation are time and place. I shall add to these (though I cannot call it a circumstance) the subject matter, which by way of preparation to the duty, we may take notice of.
1. For the time: No time can be prescribed to all men; for neither is God bound to hours, [nor] doth the contrary disposition of men agree in one choice of opportunities. Some find their hearts most in frame in the morning; others learn wisdom from their [hearts] in the night season; others find Isaac’s time the fitter time, who went out in the evening to meditate (Gen 24:63). No practice of others can prescribe to us in this circumstance; it is enough that we set apart that time wherein we are [most suited] for that service.
2. For place: We judge solitariness and solitary places fittest for meditation, especially for set and solitary meditation. Thus, we found Jesus meditating alone in the mount, John [the] Baptist in the desert, David on his bed, Daniel in his house, Isaac in the field. The Bridegroom of our soul, the Lord Jesus Christ, is bashful, saith Bernard, and never comes to His meditating Bride in the presence of a multitude. Hence was the spouse’s invitation, “Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves” (Song 7:11-12). We must in this case abandon worldly society, both outward and inward. Many sequester themselves from the visible company of men, which yet carry a world within them. Both these societies are enemies to this meditation.
3. For the matter of our meditation: It must be divine and spiritual, that is, God’s Word or some part thereof. It is woeful to think how some meditate on sin, contrary to God’s Word, studying to go to hell with the least noise in the world. Others bend their thoughts only with the search of natural things, such as the motion of the heavens, the reason of the ebbing and flowing of the seas, the kinds of [plants or herbs] that grow out of the earth and the creatures upon it, with all their qualities and operations; but in the meanwhile, the God that made them, the vileness of their nature and the danger of their sin, the multitude of their imperfections, the Savior that bought them, the heaven that He bought for them, etc., are as unregarded as if they were not. The matter of our meditation must be something divine: “I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee…I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings” (Psa 63:6; 77:12).
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