As those who are in the sun for work or play find themselves lightened and warmed, so let us set ourselves about holy meditations, and we shall find a secret, imperceptible change; our souls will be altered, we do not know how. There is a virtue that goes with holy mediation, a changing, transforming virtue. And indeed we can think of nothing in Christ without having it change us to the likeness of itself, because we have all from Christ.
– Richard Sibbes, Glorious Freedom, p. 120
Meditation produces, as it were, holy sunburn. But the burning comes from the Son, Jesus Christ. As constant exposure to the sun alters our bodies, constant exposure to Christ in the soul through mediation produces change. The burning of Christ-centered meditation in the soul produces a hot (not lukewarm) Christian.
