VI. NOw that these mutuall respects may bee sure not to cool with intermission the devout heart takes all occasions both to think of God and to speak to him There is nothing that he sees which doth not bring God to his thoughts Indeed there is no creature wherin there are not manifest footsteps of omnipotence Yea which hath not a tongue to tell us of its Maker The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy-work One day telleth another and one night certifieth another Yea O Lord how manifold are thy works in wisedome hast thou made them all The earth is full of thy riches so is the great and wide sea where are things creeping innumerable both small and great beasts Every herbe flower spire of grasse every twigge and leafe every worm and flye every scale and feather every billow and meteor speaks the power and wisdome of their infinite Creator Solomon sends the sluggard to the Ant Esay sends the Jews to the Oxe and the Asse Our Saviour sends his Disciples to the Ravens and to the Lillies of the field There is no creature of whom we may not learn something we shall have spent our time ill in this great school of the world if in such store of Lessons we be non-proficients in devotion Vain Idolaters make to themselves images of God wherby they sinfully represent him to their thoughts and adoration could they have the wit and grace to see it God hath taken order to spare them this labour in that he hath stamped in every creature such impressions of his infinite power wisdome goodnes as may give us just occasion to worship and praise him with a safe and holy advantage to our souls For the invisible things of God from the Creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternall power and Godhead And indeed wherefore serve all the volumes of Naturall history but to be so many Commentaries upon the severall creatures wherein we may reade God and even those men who have not the skill or leisure to peruse them may yet out of their own thoughts and observation raise from the sight of all the works of God sufficient matter to glorifie him Who can be so stupide as not to take notice of the industry of the Bee the providence of the Ant the cunning of the Spider the reviving of the Flye the worms indeavour of revenge the subtilty of the Fox the sagacity of the hedge-hog the innocence and profitablenesse of the sheep the laboriousnesse of the Oxe the obsequiousnesse of the Dog the timerous shifts of the Hare the nimblenesse of the Dear the generosity of the Lion the courage of the Horse the fiercenesse of the Tiger the cheerfull musick of Birds the harmlesnesse of the Dove the true love of the Turtle the Cocks observation of time the Swallows architecture shortly for it were easie here to be endlesse of the severall qualities and dispositions of every of those our fellow-creatures with whom we converse on the face of the earth and who that takes notice of them cannot fetch from every act and motion of theirs some monition of duty and occasion of devout thoughts Surely I fear many of us Christians may justly accuse our selves as too neglective of our duty this way that having thus long spent our time in this great Academy of the world we have not by so many silent documents learned to ascribe more glory to our Creator I doubt those creatures if they could exchangetheir brutality with our reason being now so docible as to learn of us so far as their sense can reach would approve themselves better scholars to us then we have been unto them Withall I must adde that the devout soul stands not always in need of such outward monitors but finds within it self sufficient incitements to raise up it self to a continuall minding of God and makes use of them accordingly and if at any time being taken up with importunate occasions of the world it finds God missing but an hour it chides it self for such neglect and sets it self to recover him with so much more eager affection as the faithfull Spouse in the Canticles when she finds him whom her soul loved withdrawn from her for a season puts her self into a speedy search after him and gives not over till she have attained his presence SECT VII NOw as these many monitors both outward and inward must elevate our hearts very frequently to God so those raised hearts must not entertain him with a dumb contemplation but must speak to him in the language of spirits All occasions therefore must be taken of sending forth pious and heavenly ejaculations to God The devout soul may doe this more then an hundred times a day without any hinderance to his speciall vocation The Huswife at her Wheel the Weaver at his Loom the Husbandman at his Plough the Artificer in his Shop the Traveller in his way the Merchant in his Warehouse may thus enjoy God in his bufiest imployment For the soul of man is a nimble spirit and the language of thoughts needs not take up time and though we now for examples sake cloath them in words yet in our practice we need not Now these Ejaculations may be either at large or Occasionall At large such as those of old Jacob O Lord I have waited for thy salvation or that of David O save me for thy mercies sake And these either in matter of Humiliation or of Imploration or of Thanksgiving In all which we cannot follow a better pattern then the sweet singer of Israel whose heavenly conceptions we may either borrow or imitate In way of Humiliation such as these Heal my soul O Lord for I have sinned against thee Oh remēber not my old sins but have mercy upon me If thou wilt be extream to mark what is done amisse O Lord who may abide it Lord thou knowest the thoughts of man that they are but vain O God why abhorrest thou my soul and hidest thy face from me In way of Imploration Vp Lord and help me O God Oh let my heart be sound in thy statutes that I be not ashamed Lord where are thy old loving mercies Oh deliver me for I am helplesse and my heart is wounded within me Comfort the soul of thy servant for unto thee O Lord due I lift up my soul Goe not far from me O God O knit my heart unto thee that I may fear thy Name Thou art my helper and redeemer O Lord make no long tarrying Oh be thou my help in trouble for vain is the help of man Oh guide me with thy counsell and after that receive me to thy glory My time is in thy hand deliver me from the hands of mine enemies Oh withdraw not thy mercy from me O Lord. Lead me O Lord in thy righteousnesse because of mine enemies
look't inward into ourselves and taken an impartiall view of our own vilenesse it will be requisite to cast our eyes upward unto heaven and there to see against whom we have offended even against an infinite Majesty and power an infinite mercy an infinite justice That power and Majesty which hath spread out the heavens as a Curtain and hath laid the foundations of the earth so sure that it cannot be moved who hath shut up the sea with bars and doors and said Hitherto shalt thou come and no further and here shalt thou stay thy proud waves who doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth who commandeth the Devils to their chains able therefore to take infinite vengeance on sinners That mercy of God the Father who gave his own Son out of his bosome for our redemption That mercy of God the Son who thinking it no robbery to be equall unto God for our sakes made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and being found in fashion as a man humbled himself and became obedient to the death even the accursed death of the crosse That mercy of God the holy Ghost who hath made that Christ mine and hath sealed to my soul the benefit of that blessed redemption Lastly that justice of God which as it is infinitely displeased with every sin so will be sure to take infinite vengeance on every impenitent sinner And from hence it will be fit and seasonable for the devout soul to look downward into that horrible pit of eternal confusion there to see the dreadfull unspeakable unimaginable torments of the damned to represent unto it self the terrors of those everlasting burnings the fire and brimstone of that infernal Tophet the merciless and unweariable tyranny of those hellish executioners the shrieks and howlings and gnashings of the tormented the unpitiable interminable unmitigable tortures of those ever-dying and yet never-dying souls By all which we shall justly affright our selves into a deep sense of the dangerous and wofull condition wherein we lye in the state of nature and impenitence and shall be driven with an holy eagernesse to seek for Christ the Son of the ever-living God our blessed Mediatour in and by whom onely we can look for the remission of all these our sins a reconcilement with this most powerfull mercifull just God and a deliverance of our souls from the hand of the nethermost hell SECT XIII IT shall not now need or boot to bid the soul which is truly apprehensive of all these to sue importunately to the Lord of life for a freedome and rescue from these infinite pains of eternall death to which our sins have forfaited it and for a present happy recovery of that favour which is better then life Have we heard or can we imagine some hainous Malefactor that hath received the sentence of death and is now bound hand and foot ready to be cast into a den of Lyons or a burning furnace with what strong cryes and passionate obsecrations he plies the Judge for mercy we may then conceive some little image of the vehement suit and strong cryes of a soul truly sensible of the danger of Gods wrath deserved by his sin and the dreadfuâ— consequents of deserved imminent damnation Although whaâ— proportion is there betwixt â— weak creature and the Almighty betwixt a moment and eternity Hereupon therefore followeâ— a vehement longing uncapablâ— of a denyall after Christ anâ— fervent aspirations to that Saviour by whom only we receive a full and gracious deliverance from death and hell and a full pardon and remission of all ouâ— sins and if this come not the sooner strong knocking 's at the gates of heaven even so louâ— that the Father of mercies cannot but heare and open Neveâ— did any contrite soul beg of God that was not prevented by his mercy much more doth he condescend when he is strongly intreated our very intreaties are from him he puts into us those desires which he graciously answers now therefore doth the devout soul see the God of all comfort to bow the heavens and come down with healing in his wings and heare him speak peace unto the heart thus thoroughly humbled Feare not thou shalt not dye but live Be of good cheer thy sins are forgiven thee Here therefore comes in that divine grace of Faith effectually apprehending Christ the Saviour and his infinite satisfaction and merits comfortably applying all the sweet promises of the Gospell clinging close to that all-sufficient Redeemer and in his most perfect obedience emboldning it self to challenge a freedome of accesse to God and confidence of appearance before the Tribunall of heaven and now the soul clad with Christs righteousnesse dares look God in the face and can both challenge and triumph over all the powers of darknesse For being justified by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. SECT XIV BY how much deeper the sense of our misery and danger is so much more welcome and joyfull is the apprehension of our deliverance and so much more thankfull is our acknowledgement of that unspeakable mercy The soul therefore that is truly sensible of this wonderfull goodnesse of it's God as it feeles a marvellous joy in it self so it cannot but break forth into cheerfull and holy though secret gratulations The Lord is full of compassion and mercy long suffering and of great goodnesse he keepeth not his anger for ever he hath not dealt with me after my sins nor rewarded me after mine iniquities What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. I will thank thee for thou hast heard me and hast not given me over to death but art become my salvation O speak good of the Lord all ye works of his Praise thou the Lord O my soul SECT XV. THe more feelingly the soul apprehends and the more thankfully it digests the favours of God in it's pardon and deliverance the more freely doth the God of mercy impart himself to it and the more God imparts himself to it the more it loves him and the more heavenly acquaintance and entirenesse grows betwixt God and it and now that love which was but a spark at first grows into a flame and wholly takes up the soul This fire of heavenly love in the devout soul is and must be heightned more and more by the addition of the holy incentives of divine thoughts concerning the means of our freedome deliverance And here offers it self to us that bottomlesse abysse of mercy in our Redemption wrought by the eternall Son of God Jesus Christ the just by whose stripes we are healed by whose bloud we are ransomed where none will befit us but admiring and adoring notions We shall not disparage you O ye blessed Angels and Archangels of heaven if we shall say ye are not able to look into the
who is infinitly mercifull yet will not have his favours otherwise conveighed to us then by our supplications the style of his dear ones is His people that prayeth and his own style is The God that heareth prayers To him therfore doth the devout heart pour out all his requests with all true humility with all fervour of spirit as knowing that God will hear neither proud prayers nor heartlesse wherein his holy desires are regulated by a just method First suing for spirituall favours as most worthy then for temporall as the appendences of better and in both ayming at the glory of our good God more then our own advantage And in the order of spirituall things first and most for those that are most necessary and essentiall for our souls health then for secondary graces that concern the prosperity and comfort of our spirituall life Absolutely craving those graces that accompany salvation all others conditionally and with reference to the good pleasure of the munificent Giver Wherein heed must be taken that our thoughts be not so much taken up with our expressions as with our desires and that we doe not suffer our selves to languish into an unfeeling length and repetition of our suits Even the hands of a Moses may in time grow heavy so therefore must we husband our spirituall strength that our devotion may not flagge with overtyring but may be most vigorous at the last And as we must enter into our prayers not without preparatory elevations so must we be carefull to take a meet leave of God at their shutting up following our supplications with the pause of a faithfull and most lowly adoration and as it were sending up our hearts into heaven to see how our prayers are taken and raising them to a joyfull expectation of a gracious and successefull answer frō the father of mercies SECT XX. VPon the comfortable feeling of a gracious condescent follows an happy fruition of God in all his favours so as we have not them so much as God in them which advanceth their worth a thousand fold and as it were brings down heaven unto us whereas therefore the sensuall man rests onely in the meer use of any blessing as health peace prosperity knowledge and reacheth no higher the devout soul in and through all these sees and feels a God that sanctifies them to him and enjoys therein his favour that is better then life Even we men are wont out of our good nature to esteem a benefit not so much for its own worth as for the love and respect of the giver Small legacies for this cause finde dear acceptation how much more is it so betwixt God and the devout soul It is the sweet apprehension of this love that makes all his gifts blessings Doe we not see some vain churl though cryed down by the multitude herein secretly applauding himself that he hath bags at home how much more shall the godly man finde comfort against all the crosses of the world that he is possessed of him that possesseth all things even God Al-sufficient the pledges of whose infinite love he feels in all the whole course of Gods dealing with him SECT XXI OUt of the true sense of this inward fruition of God the devout soul breaks forth into cheerfull thanksgivings to the God of all comfort praising him for every evill that it is free from for every good thing it enjoyeth For as it keeps a just Inventory of all Gods favours so it often spreads them thankfully before him and layes them forth so near as it may in the full dimensions that so God may be no loser by him in any act of his beneficence Here therefore every of Gods benefits must come into account whether eternall or temporall spirituall or bodily outward or inward publique or private positive or privative past or present upon our selves or others In all which he shall humbly acknowledge both Gods free mercy and his own shamefull unworthinesse setting off the favours of his good God the more with the foyle of his own confessed wretchednesse and unanswerablenesse to the least of his mercies Now as there is infinite variety of blessings from the liberall hand of the Almighty so there is great difference in their degrees For whereas there are three subjects of all the good we are capable of The Estate Body Soul and each of these doe far surpasse other in value the soul being infinitely more worth then the body and the body far more precious then the outward estate so the blessings that appertain to them in severall differ in their true estimation accordingly If either we doe not highly magnifie Gods mercy for the least or shall set as high a price upon the blessings that concern our estate as those that pertain to the body or upon bodily favours as upon those that belong to the soul we shall shew our selves very unworthy and unequall partakers of the Divine bounty But it will savour too much of earth if we be more affected with temporall blessings then with spirituall and eternall By how much nearer relation then any favour hath to the Fountain of goodness and by how much more it conduceth to the glory of God and ours in him so much higher place should it possesse in our affection and gratitude No marvell therefore if the Devout Heart be raised above it self and transported with heavenly raptures when with Stephens eyes it beholds the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of God fixing it self upon the consideration of the infinite Merits of his Life Death Resurrection Ascension Intercession and finding it self swallowed up in the depth of that Divine Love from whence all mercies flow into the Soul so as that it runs over with passionate thankfulnesse and is therefore deeply affected with all other his mercies because they are derived from that boundlesse Ocean of Divine goodnesse Unspeakable is the advantage that the soul raises to it self by this continuall exercise of thanksgiving for the gratefull acknowledgement of favours is the way to more even amongst men whose hands are short and strait this is the means to pull on further beneficence how much more from the God of all Consolation whose largest bounty diminisheth nothing of his store And herein the Devout Soul enters into its Heavenly Task beginning upon earth those Hallelujahs which it shall perfect above in the blessed Chore of Saints and Angels ever praising God and saying Blessing and Glory and Wisdome and Thankesgiving and Honour and Power and Might be unto our God for ever and ever Amen SECT XXII NOne of all the services of God can be acceptably no not unsinfully performed without due devotion as therefore in our prayers thanksgivings so in the other exercises of Divine Worship especially in the reading and hearing of Gods Word and in our receipt of the blessed Sacrament it is so necessary that without it we offer to God a meer carcass of religious duty and profane that Sacred Name we would
Devotion search all the close windings of it with the torches of the law of God and if there be any iniquity found lurking in the secret corners thereof drag it out and abandon it and when thou hast done that thy fingers may retain no pollution say with the holy Psalmist I will wash my hands in innocence so will I goe to thine Altar Presume not to approach the Altar of God there to offer the sacrifice of thy Devotion with unclean hands Else thine offering shall be so far from winning an acceptance for thee from the hands of God as that thou shalt make thine offering abominable And if a beast touch the Mount it shall die SECT X. AS the soul must bee clean from sin so it must be clear and free from distractions The intent of our devotion is to welcome God to our hearts now where shall we entertain him if the rooms be full thronged with cares and turbulent passions The Spirit of God will not endure to be crowded up together with the vvorld in our strait lodgings An holy vacuity must make way for him in our bosomes The divine pattern of Devotion in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily retires into the Mount to pray he that carried heaven with him would even thus leave the world below him Alas how can we hope to mount up to heaven in our thoughts if we have the clogges of earthly cares hanging at our heels Yea not onely must there be a shutting out of all distractive cares and passions which are professed enemies to our quiet conversing with God in our Devotion but there must be also a denudation of the minde from all those images of our phantasie how pleasing soever that may carry our thoughts aside from those better objects We are like to foolish children who when they should be stedfastly looking on their books are apt to gaze after every butterfly that passeth by them here must be therefore a carefull intention of our thoughts a restraint from all vain and idle rovings and an holding our selves close to our divine task Whiles Martha is troubled about many things her devouter sister having chosen the better part plies the one thing necessary which shall never be taken from her and whiles Martha would feast Christ with bodily fare she is feasted of Christ with heavenly delicacies SECT XI AFter the heart is thus cleansed and thus cleared it must be in the next place decked with true humility the cheapest yet best ornament of the soul If the wise man tel us that pride is the beginning of sin surely all gracious dispositions must begin in humility The foundation of all high and stately buildings must be laid low They are the lowly valleys that soak in the showers of heaven which the steep hils shelve off and prove dry and fruitlesse To that man will I look saith God that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my Word Hence it is that the more eminent any man is in grace the more he is dejected in the sight of God The father of the faithfull comes to God under the style of dust and ashes David under the style of a worm and no man Agur the son of Jakeh under the title of more brutish then any man and one that hath not the understanding of a man John Baptist as not worthy to carry the shooes of Christ after him Paul as the least of Saints and chief of sinners On the contrary the more vile any man is in his own eies and the more dejected in the sight of God the higher he is exalted in Gods favour Like as the Conduict-water by how much lower it fals the higher it riseth When therefore we would appear before God in our solemn devotions we must see that we empty our selves of all proud conceits and find our hearts fully convinced of our own vilenesse yea nothingnesse in his sight Down down with all our high thoughts fall we low before our great and holy God not to the earth only but to the very brim of hell in the conscience of our own guiltinesse for though the miserable wretchednesse of our nature may be a sufficient cause of our humiliation yet the consideration of our detestable sinfulnes is that which will depresse us lowest in the sight of God SECT XII IT is fit the exercise of our Devotion should begin in an humble confession of our unworthinesse Now for the effectuall furtherance of this our self-dejection it wil be requisite to bend our eyes upon a threefold object To look inward into our selves upward to heaven downwards to hell First to turn our eyes into our bosomes and to take a view not without a secret self-loathing of that world of corruption that hath lyen hidden there and thereupon to accuse arraign and condemn our selves before that awfull Tribunall of the Judge of heaven and earth both of that originall pollution which wee have drawn from the tainted loyns of our first parents and those innumerable actuall wickednesses derived there-from which have stayned our persons and lives How can we be but throughly humbled to see our souls utterly overspread with the odious and abominable leprosie of sin We finde that Vzziah bore up stoutly a while against the Priests of the Lord in the maintenance of his sacrilegious presumption but when he saw himself turn'd Lazar on the suddain he is confounded in himself and in a depth of shame hastens away from the presence of God to a sad and penitentiall retirednesse Wee should need no other arguments to loath ourselves then the sight of our own faces so miserably deformed with the nasty and hatefull scurfe of our iniquity Neither onely must we be content to shame and grieve our eyes with the foule nature and condition of our sins but we must represent them to our selves in all the circumstances that may aggravate their hainousnesse Alas Lord any one sin is able to damn a soul I have committed many yea numberlesse they have not possessed me single but as that evill spirit said their name is Legion neither have I committed these sins once but often Thine Angels that were sinned but once and are damned for ever I have frequently reiterated the same offences where then were it not for thy mercy shall I appear neither have I only done them in the time of my ignorance but since I received sufficient illumination from thee It is not in the dark that I have stumbled and faln but in the midst of the clear light and sun-shine of thy Gospel and in the very face of thee my God neither have these been the ships of my weaknesse but the bold miscarriages of my presumption neither have I offended out of inconsideration and inadvertency but after and against the checks of a remurmuring conscience after so many gracious warnings and fatherly admonitions after so many fearfull examples of thy judgements after so infinite obligations of thy favors And thus having
bottome of this divine love wherewith God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life None oh none can comprehend this mercy but he that wrought it Lord what a transcendent what an infinite love is this what an object was this for thee to love A world of sinners Impotent wretched creatures that had despighted thee that had no motive for thy favour but deformity misery professed enmity It had been mercy enough in thee that thou didst not damn the world but that thou shouldst love it is more then mercy It was thy great goodness to forbear the acts of just vengeance to the sinfull world of man but to give unto it tokens of thy love is a favour beyond all expression The least gift from thee had been more then the world could hope for but that thou shouldst not stick to give thine onely begotten Son the Son of thy love the Son of thine essence thy coequall coeternall Son who was more then ten thousand worlds to redeem this one forlorn world of sinners is love above all comprehension of men and Angels What diminution had it been to thee and thine essentiall glory O thou great God of heaven that the souls that sinned should have died and perished everlastingly yet so infinite was thy loving mercy that thou wouldest rather give thy onely Son out of thy bosome then that there should not be a redemption for beleevers Yet O God hadst thou sent down thy Son to this lower region of earth upon such terms as that he might have brought down heaven with him that he might have come in the port and Majesty of a God cloathed with celestiall glory to have dazeled our eyes and to have drawn all hearts unto him this might have seemed in some measure to have sorted with his divine magnificence But thou wouldst have him to appear in the wretched condition of our humanity Yet even thus hadst thou sent him into the world in the highest estate and pomp of royalty that earth could afford that all the Kings and Monarchs of the world should have been commanded to follow his train and to glitter in his Court and that the knees of all the Potentates of the earth should have bowed to his Soveraign Majesty and their lips have kissed his dust this might have carried some kind of appearance of a state next to divine greatnesse but thou wouldst have him come in the despised form of a servant And thou O blessed Jesu wast accordingly willing for our sakes to submit thy self to nakednesse hunger thirst wearinesse temptation contempt betraying agonies scorn buffeting scourgings distention crucifixion death O love above measure without example beyond admiration Greater love thou saiest hath no man then this that a man lay down his life for his friends But oh what is it then that thou who wert God and man shouldst lay down thy life more precious then many worlds for thine enemies Yet had it been but the laying down of a life in a fair and gentle way there might have been some mitigatiō of the sorrow of a dissolution there is not more difference betwixt life and death then there may be betwixt some one kind of death and another Thine O dear Saviour was the painfull shameful cursed death of the crosse wherein yet all that man could doe unto thee was nothing to that inward torment which in our stead thou enduredst from thy Fathers wrath when in the bitternesse of thine anguished soul thou cryedst out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Even thus wast thou content to be forsaken that we wretched sinners might be received to mercy O love stronger then death which thou vanquishedst more high then that hell is deep from which thou hast rescued us SECT XVI THe sense of this infinite love of God cannot choose but ravish the soul and cause it to goe out of it self into that Saviour who hath wrought so mercifully for it so as it may be nothing in it self but what it hath or is may be Christs By the sweet powers therefore of Faith and Love the soul findes it self united unto Christ feelingly effectually indivisibly so as that it is not to be distinguished betwixt the acts of both To me to live is Christ saith the blessed Apostle and elsewhere I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which now I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himselfe for me My beloved is mine and I am his saith the Spouse of Christ in her Bridall song O blessed union next to the hypostaticall whereby the humane nature of the Son of God is taken into the participation of the eternall Godhead SECT XVII OUt of the sense of this happy union ariseth an unspeakable complacency and delight of the soul in that God and Saviour who is thus inseparably ours and by whose union we are blessed and an high appreciation of him above all the world and a contemptuous under valuation of all earthly things in comparison of him And this is no other then an heavenly reflection of that sweet contentment which the God of mercies takes in the faithfull soul Thou hast ravisht my heart my sister my Spouse thou hast ravisht my heart with one of mine eyes Thou art beautifull O my Love as Tirzah comely as Jerusalem Turne away thine eyes from me for they have overcome me How fair is thy love my sister my Spouse How much better is thy love then wine and the smell of thine ointments better then all spices And the soul answers him again in the same language of spirituall dearnesse My beloved is white and ruddy the chiefest among ten thousand Set me as a seal upon thine heart as a seal upon thine arm for love is as strong as death And as in an ecstaticall qualm of passionate affection Stay me with flaggons and comfort me with apples for I am sick of love SECT XVIII VPon this gracious complacency will follow an absolute self-resignation or giving up our selves to the hands of that good God whose we are who is ours and an humble contentednesse with his good pleasure in all things looking upon God with the same face whether he smile upon us in his favours or chastise us with his loving corrections If he speak good unto us Behold the servant of the Lord be it unto me according to thy word If evill It is the Lord let him doe whatsoever he will Here is therefore a cheerfull acquiescence in God and an hearty reliance and casting our selves upon the mercy of so bountifull a God who having given us his Son can in and with him deny us nothing SECT XIX VPon this subacted disposition of heart wil follow a familiar yet awfull compellation of God and an emptying of our soules before him in all our necessities For that God