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Deity, not mixed with it; before I had three perfons in one effence, here I have two natures in one perfon, God and man, one Chrift, in whom, and by whom, I have a joyful intereft and undoubted union in the Godhead. Here is the Father promifing, the Son performing, the Holy Spirit comfirming. This is alone that bleffed fight of God, that bringeth rest and quietness to my weary foul: to know him to be my God, to have suffered for my fin, and risen again for my juftification. To find him fupporting, fuftaining me in my infirmities, relieving my wants, chaftifing my errors, revenging my wrongs, repairing my breaches, directing my ways, protecting my perfon; wounding, rending, breaking my obdurate heart; creating in me a clean heart, and renewing a right spirit within me; bemoaning, bewailing mine iniquities; inviting, nay compelling me to mercy and forgiveness..

Seeing now, O my foul, that God's being in himself is incomprehenfible, and his love in Chrift unutterable, with what filial fear fhould'st thou think of him, with what awfulness name him, with what reverence and preparedness pray unto him, with what heat of affection love him, with what carefulness and confcience fear to offend him, with what chearfulness and holy diligence devote thy fervice to him..

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Blessed Lord,

SEEING that I am utterly unable of myself to comprehend thee, O let me be graciously comprehended of thee, that corruption may be swallowed up of immortality, and humane frailty of eternal glory.

As thou haft given me an understanding in part to know thee, fo give me alfo affections intirely to love thee, and fixed refolutions to adhere unto thee; that as thou art truly and eternally one in thine effence, and yet diftin&tly three in thy persons, fo I may be truly and entirely one in my obedience, although diftinctly three in my faculties; that all may be but one, and that a pleafing facrifice of praises unto thee, of profit unto others, of comfort to myfelf.

Forgive my mifconceivings of thy facred effence, my rath approaches to thy heavenly prefence, my cold, carelefs, irreligious thoughts, diftracted words, undecent actions. Lord I am failing on the ftormy fea of ignorance and misery, O be thou my fure pilot to direct me, my sweet calm to refresh me, my fafe harbour to receive me; for of thee, and through thee, and to thee, are all things: to thee be glory for -AMEN.

ever.

CHAP. II

UPON THE CONSIDERATION OF GOD'S LOVE,

AND MAN'S UNTHANKFULNESS.

A MEDITATION FOR THE MORNING.

BLESSED GOD,

WHEN I confider of the richness, of the largenefs, of the conftancy of thy love to man, of man's vileness and untowardness unto thee his God, I ftand amazed at thy goodness, and mine own unthankfulness. How great and invaluable a blessing do I enjoy in being made partaker of the glorious light of this present day? how vile and unworthy, am I that receive it? how great and glorious art thou that givest it? Thou, O Lord, art light inacceffable, unto which no mortal eye can approach; before whofe glorious majefty the bleffed angels ftand amazed; and I am duft and afhes, yea worse, Lord, (for duft was thy creation, and therefore in its entity was good) before I was duft I was not at all: this not being, by thee became a being, this being beautiful, this beauty immortal; and without thee this happy being is again become far worse than not to be.

What can be more vain, more empty than no

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thing; ah whe is me, I am now become far worse than nothing; thou madest me all goodness, and that goodness might have made me all bleffedness ; made but I have myself all fin, and this fin hath made me all mifery; there was darkness in not being, but that darkness was incapable; there is greater derknefs in being ill; for this darkness is moft capable of the privation of all light of comfort in this life, of the fruition of the blacknefs of darkness in hell for ever.

This, Lord, was my condition in nature, and without thy gracious help muft have been so for ever. Let me now see what my condition is by grace, by which I enjoy not only the light of nature (without which my life would prove uncomfortable) but also a fweet and fafe affurance, that thou wilt by this happy light conduct me fafely to the bleffed light of glory.

Bleffed Lord, I can now look no way but to happiness, I now find a true sweetness and composedness of foul, a conftant and courageous fettledness of heart, even in the very height of all the disturbances of nature, of all the inundation of fin, of all the fluctuations of forrow, of all the machinations of fatan: from the sweet fountain of thy mercy, arise those precious ftreams of confolation, which abund-. antly relieve me in this barren wilderness.

I find indeed a law in my members continually rebelling against the law of my mind, but I find also thy grace to be fufficient for me, by which I am victorious here, and fhall be triumphant hereafter: fatan may ftrive to winnow me like wheat, but this fhall make me the purer for thy granary. I now find a total and a blessed change of the whole man; mine affections which formerly were captivated unto fin, intirely devoted to thy fervice; my love with holy David wonderful to thy law, my hatred perfect against fin, my defire eager for thy prefence, my fear astonishing in thine absence, my delight in thy promises ravishing, my joy in thy performances triumphing.

"By thefe rich endowments of thine, I am wrapt up above the reach of human mifery; all vain and empty defires of the befotting pleasures of this life, appear truly as they are, but thorns and briars, to disturb the growth of my felicity; how sweet is their lofs for thy gain! how eafily, how willingly, how joyfully, how thankfully are all these foggy mifts of ignorance and error happily difperfed, by the bright rays of my enfuing glory.

Befide these fawning enemies of peace, which flatter to unquietnefs, I am now able to encounter with those other which affright the foul even in their first appearances, and are able to deject the carnal man even to aftonifhment, and utterly to expose

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