JM
Puritan Board Doctor
John Ball:
Quest. What ought to be the subject or matters of our meditation?
Answ. Some good or profitable observation gathered out of the Word, or raised from the works of God, as the titles and properties of God, by which he sheweth what He is to His church and people; His power, wisdom, justice and mercy; also the works of the Most High, as His decree, creation, providence, the fall of man, our redemption by Christ, vocation, justification, sanctification, glorification; like our own vileness and sinfulness, both in general and in particular, also our manifold wants and infirmities, and mortality, and daily dangers, with the mutability of all things in the world; the great and sundry privileges which we would enjoy daily through the inestimable kindness of God in Jesus Christ; the sundry afflictions and troubles of this life, and how we may best bear them, and go through with them, to the glory of God, and our own spiritual good.
It is good to observe further, and think upon vanity of all earthly things, the vain confidence of worldly men, the destruction of the wicked, the assaults that are made against the Church, and how the Lord doth still protect her with His right hand. In brief, the Word of God is a rich storehouse of good matter; and the world a stage furnished with great variety, every day bringeth forth manifold occasions of meditation, and a godly mind may make good use of every word or work of God, of everything it seeth or heareth
(whether it be good or evil). A Treatise on Divine Mediation
Quest. What ought to be the subject or matters of our meditation?
Answ. Some good or profitable observation gathered out of the Word, or raised from the works of God, as the titles and properties of God, by which he sheweth what He is to His church and people; His power, wisdom, justice and mercy; also the works of the Most High, as His decree, creation, providence, the fall of man, our redemption by Christ, vocation, justification, sanctification, glorification; like our own vileness and sinfulness, both in general and in particular, also our manifold wants and infirmities, and mortality, and daily dangers, with the mutability of all things in the world; the great and sundry privileges which we would enjoy daily through the inestimable kindness of God in Jesus Christ; the sundry afflictions and troubles of this life, and how we may best bear them, and go through with them, to the glory of God, and our own spiritual good.
It is good to observe further, and think upon vanity of all earthly things, the vain confidence of worldly men, the destruction of the wicked, the assaults that are made against the Church, and how the Lord doth still protect her with His right hand. In brief, the Word of God is a rich storehouse of good matter; and the world a stage furnished with great variety, every day bringeth forth manifold occasions of meditation, and a godly mind may make good use of every word or work of God, of everything it seeth or heareth
(whether it be good or evil). A Treatise on Divine Mediation
