On Meditation

Thomas Watson:

Without meditation the truths that we know will never affect our hearts. Deuteronomy 6:6: "These words which I command this day shall be in thine heart." How can the Word be in the heart unless it is wrought in by meditation? As a hammer drives a nail to the head, so meditation drives a truth to the heart. It is not the taking in of food, but the stomach's digesting it that turns it into nourishment. Just so, it is not the taking in of a truth at the ear, but the meditating on it, that is the digestion of it in the mind, that makes it nourish. Without meditation, the word preached may increase notion, but not affection. There is as much difference between the knowledge of a truth and the meditation on a truth as there is between the light of a torch and the light of the sun. Set up a lamp or torch in the garden and it has no influence. But the sun has a sweet influence: it makes the plants to grow and the herbs to flourish. Just so, knowledge is like a torch lighted in the understanding that has little or no influence; it does not make a man the better. But meditation is like the shining of the sun. It operates upon the affections; it warms the heart and makes it more holy. Meditation fetches life in a truth. There are many truths that lie, as it were, in the heart dead. But these truths, when we meditate upon them, begin to have life and heat in them. It is meditation that makes a Christian.