Instructions for Meditation, or Mental Prayer.
PROPER TO BE MADE EVERY MORNING.
I will meditate on thee in the morning.- Ps. lxii. 7. The wise man will give his heart to resort early to the Lord that made him, and he will pray in the sight of the Most High.- Eccles. xxxix. 6.
MEDITATION, consisting of considerations on the great truths of Christianity, pious affections, and manifold elevations of the soul to God, and serious resolutions of devoting one's self to him, is allowed to be one of the most important exercises of a Christian life, and such as ought to be performed daily by as many as would serve God in good earnest. The time most proper for it is the morning. The most proper place one's closet, or any place where one can be most recollected. The chief subjects to be meditated on, especially for beginners, are, the end for which we came into this world, the benefits of God, and the many motives which we have to love and serve him; the vanity of the honours, riches, and pleasures of this life; and how very suddenly all these things vanish away; the enormity of sin, and the multitude of our own sins in particular; the certainty and uncertainty of death, and the necessity of preparing for it; the account which we must one day give to an all- seeing Judge; the eternal joys of heaven, and the eternal torments of hell; the presence and majesty of God; the life and death of Jesus Christ; the examples of his saints: the state of our own interior, in order to gain the knowledge of ourselves, our passions and vices,& c. The following method of meditation is prescribed by that great master in spirituality, St Francis de Sales, in his Introduction, part I.: