Christian Meditation: More Metaphors

The whole quote below is taken from A Christian on the Mount by Thomas Watson, who wrote with such an impassioned eloquence!

Without meditation the truths which we know will never affect our hearts.
Deut. 6:6, "These words which I command this day shall be in your heart."
How can the Word be in the heart—unless it be wrought in by meditation?

As an 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, which makes it turn into nourishment.
Just so, it is not the taking in of a truth at the ear—but the meditating on it,
which is the digestion of it in the mind, which 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,
which has little or no influence—it does not make not 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 which lie, as it were, in the heart dead—
which when we meditate upon, they begin to have life and heat in them.
Meditation on a truth is like rubbing a man in a swoon—it fetches life.

It is meditation, which makes a Christian!