Meditation

All merely speculative thinking is inquisitive , acute , and wholly destitute of affection for the object.  But all practical thinking is affectionate , sympathetic , and in harmony with the object . When I meditate upon God because I love Him, my reflection is practical. When I think upon God because I desire to explore Him , my thinking is speculative. None therefore but the devout and affectionate mind truly meditates upon God ; and all thought upon that Being which is put forth merely to gratify the curiosity and pride of the human understanding forms no part of the Christian habit and practice which we are recommending . Man in every age has endeavoured "by searching to find out God ." He has striven almost convulsively to fathom  the abyss of the Deity, and discover the deep things of the Creator. But because it is from the love of knowledge rather than from the love of God , his efforts have been both unprofitable and futile. He has not sounded the abyss , neither has his heart grown humble, and gentle, and tender , and pure. His intellect has been baffled , and , what is yet worse , his nature has not been renovated. Nat, more, a weariness and a curse has come into his spirit , because he has put the comprehension of an object in the place of the object itself ; because , in his long struggle to understand God , he has not had the first thought of loving and serving him

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