CHAP. III.

UPON THE CONSIDERATION OF DIVINE PRO

VIDENCE.

A MEDITATION FOR THE MORNING.

BLESSED GOD,

WITHOUT thy holy providence, no creature can fubfift, by thine Almighty power they were created out of nothing, and if thou fhouldst not sustain them, they must needs return to nothing; how wifely, how wonderfully doft thou guide and govern these inferior creatures? All things are at once difpofed of by thee, and move fucceffively to their appointed ends? but above all, how graciously haft thou provided for the good of man? what varieties of food, how fecretly, how fweetly difpofed it to suftentation? No creature can be nourishing without thee, and with thee I enjoy not only nutriment, but delectation; how sweet is this thy goodness to my body! how much more fweet thy mercy to my foul! and if thy temporal refreshments are so good, how ravishing is that celeftial food, with which thy faints and angels are delighted!

Lord, how undeferving am I of these thy many favours? Thou giveft rain to the earth, and it becometh fruitful; thou loadeft me daily with thy bleffings, and to I am unthankful; even those creatures that are infenfible, are daily nourished into augmentation, and man alone, whom thou haft made to live for ever, contents himself with daily diminution.

This woefully appears by my deadness and dulness in my chriftian calling, by my backwardness to holy duties, by my carelessnefs and coldness in prayer, wearinefs in reading, irksomeness in meditation, by my faint hope, fick faith, lukewarm love, frozen charity, lame patience, languishing zeal, and all those other visible decays. of goodness, which are none other than the very symptoms of a dying foul.

Ah now, Lord! how miferably deformed muft I needs appear in thy fight, that am thus ugly in mine own? Thou that hadft compaffion on me, when I 'was in my blood, and then faideft unto me, live ; that haft washed me clean from fin and pollution, and espoused me into thine own bofom; wilt thou also love me in death? wilt thou court me in the grave? how juftly mighteft thou for ever leave me to mine own ruin, that can so easily, so willingly forfake thee, for the pleasures of fin; and yet, how fweetly, how affectionately doft thou order all things

for me?

Even my very fins invite me to a more happy, to a nearer union with thee.

To thee, therefore, O my God, the life of my life, the very being, and affured comfort of my finful foul, and wretched body, do I address myself for mercy and forgiveness.

I confess myself unworthy of thy gracious providence in fuftaining this frail and infirm body, much more unworthy (O Lord) of thine unspeakable love, in reviving, relieving, embracing my deformed foul.

Bleffed Lord, who am I, of whom thou art thus tenderly compaffionate? when I was in the womb I was defiled with fin, when I came out of it, I was covered with flame; the world bewitched me, the flesh befotted me, the devil beguiled me.

Lord, when no eye pitied me, then thou hadst mercy on me; and now at laft when I am run from thee, when I have adulterated my first love, when I am become poor and wretched, and miferable, and blind, and naked, thou freely forgiveft me, thou calleft me thy fair one, and givest me thy love.

O my God, I admire thy goodnefs, I deplore and abhor mine own wretchednefs: O let the sweetness of thy love in Chrift, inflame the dying fparks of of my benummed foul to praise thee without ceafing.

Expatiate my narrow thoughts, with daily contemplation of my heavenly home, with joyful expectation of the fweet fruition of eternity; O give me fuch a blessed raptafy of foul, that I may live above the reach of human misery, and reign with thee hereafter in immortal glory,

WHEN I call to mind how many days have past me without bending of a knee, how many nights I have gone prayerlefs to bed, I may well wonder that I am this hour alive to speak unto thee: I have been too unmindful of thy holy providence, and am therefore utterly unworthy of thy merciful protection: few and full of evil have my days been in the house of my pilgrimage, I know not how foon I may go hence, and yet I ftill live as if I knew not why I came hither.

I am many ways invited to my heavenly home; how sweetly doft thou wean from the miseries of life, by the bleffedness of death. By this evening's reft of my body, I am put in mind of that eternal rest of my soul; this day's ending, tells me, that the end of all things is at hand, that the fashion of this world paffeth, and that all things fhall become new: