272 CONTEMPLATION PROMOTED 22. (2) Heavenly contemplation is also promoted by speaking to God in prayer, as well as by speaking to ourselves in soliloquy. Ejaculatory prayer may very properly be intermixed with meditation, as a part of the duty. How often do we find David, in the same psalm; sometimes pleading with his soul, and sometimes with God ? The apostle bids us speak to ourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs :(zip and no doubt. eve may also speak to God in them. This keeps the soul sensible of the divine presence, and tends_greatly to quicken and raise it. As God is the highest object of our thoughts, so our viewing of him, speaking to him, and pleading with him, more elevates the soul, and excites the affections, than any other part of meditation. Though we remain unaffected, while we plead the case with ourselves; yet when we turn our speech to God, it may strike us with awe; and the holiness and ma- jesty of him whom we speak to, may cause both the matter and words to pierce the deeper. When we read, that Isaac went out to meditate in the field, the margin says to pray ; for the Hebrew word signifies both. Thus in our meditations, to intermix soliloquy and prayer, (sometimes speaking to our own hearts, and sometimes to God,) is, I apprehend, the highest step we can advance to in this heavenly work. Nor should we imagine it will be as well to take up with prayer alone, and lay aside meditation. For they are distinct duties, and must both of them be performed. We need one, as well as the other, and therefore shall wrong ourselves, by neglecting either. Besides, the mixture of them, like music, will be more engaging; as the one serves to. put life into the other. And our speaking to ourselves in meditation, should go before our speaking to God in prayer. For want of attend- ing to this due order, men speak to God With far less reverence and affection than they would speak to an angel, if he should appear to them ; or to a judge, if they were speaking for their lives. Speaking to the God of heaven in prayer, is a weightier duty than most are aware of. (v) Ephes. v. 19.
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