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VirginiaHuguenot · #4 (**permalink**) 03-02-2008, 11:19 PM

William Cunningham, An Introduction to Theological Studies, pp. 73-74:

Quote:

The necessity of combining reading and meditation, or reflection, is thus happily expressed by a celebrated writer, Gerhard Jan Voss (1577-1649), the father of the equally celebrated Isaac Voss: - "Reading and meditation ought to be very closely and intimately combined; for even reading does not penetrate into the mind, there being a necessity for attention while reading, and for meditation after it, that we may perceive the reasons and grounds of the particular statements made, and be able to apply what we read to other things of a similar kind. Without this what is read is not understood, and the small portion that may be comprehended will produce no fruit, because it has no root. It will also soon be forgotten, just as we see that what is not fixed deep in the earth is generally carried away by the wind. So that it is not be wondered at that men of extensive and multifarious reading are sometimes possessed of little or no judgment. The reason is, that they merely load their memories, and do not sharpen their judgment by exercising it. But as many 'helluones librorum' err on one side, devouring much and digesting nothing, so they err in an opposite extreme who, despising the labours of others, spend their time wholly in meditation, and because they are ignorant of what others have written, though much more true and excellent than anything they could have written, though much more true and excellent than anything they could produce, they often embrace their won dreams and fancies for oracles." - (Gerhard Jan Voss, quoted in Buddaeus' Isagoge historica-theologica ad theologiam universam [1727], p. 89.)

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