the bright angels, what made them happy and ftraight they'll answer with a sprightly voice: "we readily obeyed our great creator; "and he fixed us here to fhine for ever." Afk the blefled faints, what brought them to felicity; and immediately they'll tell you in the fame glad tone, "we faithfully lov'd our dear "redeemer, and that love has placed us here.” 2. Look up, O my foul! and fee the facred humanity of thy dear redeemer; that bleffed Jefus that died for us upon the crofs; and now invites us to partake of his holy facrament. See and rejoice in thofe eternal honours, which heaven and earth pay to their king. 3. What is a name of honour, or a momentary pleasure, compared to the blifs of an eternal paradife? what is a bag of money, or a fair estate, if counter-balanced with the treasures of heaven? how narrow there do our greatest kingdoms feem! how small a circle the whole globe of the earth! cities and towns fhew like little mole-hills, and the bufy world, but as a fwarm of ants, running up and down, and jostling one another; and all this ftir for a few grains or hulks. 4. O heaven! let me again lift up mine eyes to thee; and take a fuller view of that glorious profpect. There let me stand and fix my fteady fight, till I am fully convinced, that all the moft profperous fortune we can here poffefs, is all an idle dream compared to thy real joys; an abfolute nothing compared to thy folid felicity. Here obferve the directions given on page 8, and more particularly endeavour to improve your foul by reading a leffon out of the e WHOLE DUTY OF MAN, Sunday 5. Section V. The prayer on Wednesday evening, for the attainment of everlasting happiness. Whofo eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raife him up at the laft day. John vi. 54. Moft great, moft mighty, and most glorious Lord God! look down from the habitation of thy holiness upon me thy unworthy creature, who am come into thy prefence to adore thy incomprehenfible majefty, and to prefent before thee the evening facrifice of my unfeigned praifes for thy many and undeferved favours beftowed upon me. I acknowledge thy eternal honour, glory, praise and adoration; for thou art the fovereign Lord of heaven and earth, by whom all things were made, and by whose infinite power and goodness they are preferved and kept in being. And. Bleffed Bleffed be thy unfpeakable goodness, that has advanced me to fuch a degree of being, that I am in fome measure capable to know thee, to love thee, to ferve thee, and obey thee. And for ever bleffed be thy name, O Lord, that I was born of chriftian parents, and early dedicated to thee by baptifm; and that by thy grace and goodness I have been preferved to this moment, and have, in any degree, efcaped the pollutions of this wicked world.. Bleffed be thou, O God, who by thy grace, and by the voice of thy church, haft call'd me to repentance: discover to me, O thou fearcher of hearts, the vaft charge that is against me, that I may know and confefs, and forfake the many fins I have fallen into. Give me that true repentance to which thou haft promifed mercy and pardon, that I may amend what I have done amifs, and that iniquity may not be my ruin. And, O bleffed advocate, who ever liveft to make interceffion for me, I put my cause into thy hands; let thy blood and merits plead for me, and by thy mighty interceffion procure for me the pardon of my past offencés. That thou mayft fay unto me, as thou didft unto the penitent in the gofpel---Thy fins are forgiven---fo that I may go with a quiet confcience to thy holy table, and at laft be re 2 ceived ceived into thy glorious prefence for evermore. Amen. See the concluding prayer and bleffing on page 36 and 37. *The Meditation: Thursday Morning. Upon our fanctification whereby we are made worthy to come to the holy facrament. - Except a man be born of water, and of the fpirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh, and that which is born of the fpirit, is fpirit. Johniii. 5,6. 1. Onfider, O my foul, the mercies of thy God; confider the wonders he has wrought for the children of men. The eternál father created us out of nothing, and fet, us in the way to everlasting happiness. The eternal fon came down from heaven to feek us when we had loft ourselves. The eternal fpirit brings his grace to fanctify us, and give us ftrength to walk in that holy way. Thus every perfon of the facred trinity has freely contributed his peculiar bleffing; and all together as one co-infinite goodness, have graciously agreed to complete our happiness. • Here you may obferve the directions given on page 3. 2. Come then let us humbly implore the divine grace to make us worthy to addrefs our fanctifier; who from the father and the fon eternally proceeds, and with the father and the fon must be equally worshipped and glo rified. He infufes into man the breath of life, and brings him forth in the second birth; a birth that makes men heirs of heaven, and gives us a title to everlasting happiness. 3. Arife, therefore, O my foul, and intercede for pity upon the unhappy state of fallen mankind, which neither nature nor law could bring to perfection. For tho' they under the law were trained up in a fet form of difcipline, which grew and fpread into a publick religi on, and was uniformly profeffed by a whole nation; yet they had but weak conceits of the kingdom of heaven, and imperfect means to bring them thither: and as to thofe high and fupernatural myfteries, that fo gloriously exalt the christian faith; they all were blind or in the dark, and dangerously expofed to the effects of their own ignorance, wanting thofe clear and powerful motives to love their God. God having provided fome better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect, Heb. xi. 40. Nevertheless, this prepared them for |
