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* The Meditation, for Tuesday Morning.

Upon God's Mercy and Chrift's Incarnation, to prepare us for a worthy receiving the Holy Sacrament.

For God fo loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whofoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. John iii. 16.

IDLord, and I will tell you what
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he has done for my Soul; hear, and I will tell you what he hath done for yours, and the Wonders of his Bounty towards all the World. When we lay afleep in the Shades of Nothing, his Almighty Hand awaked us into Being; not to that of Stones or Plants, or Beafts, over which he has made us abfolute Lords, but to a Body wonderfully made, and an immortal Soul, little inferior to his glorious Angels; he printed on our Souls his own Similitude, and promised to our Obedience a Share in his own Felicity; he endu'd

us

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us with Appetites to live well and happy, and furnish'd us with Means to fatisfy those Appetites; creating a whole World to ferve us here, and providing a Heaven to glorify us hereafter.

II. These are the Favours of God's infinite Goodness, but what Return have we made to him? Blush, O my Soul, for Shame, at fo ftrange a Weaknefs, and weep for Grief at fo extreme an Ingratitude. We childishly preferred a trivial Apple before the Law of our God, and the Safety of our Souls: We fondly embraced a little needless Satisfaction, before the Pleasures of Paradise, and the Eternity of Heaven.

III. Behold the unhappy Source of all our Miseries, which ftill increased its Streams as they went farther on, till they exacted at laft a Deluge of Juftice, to drown their Deluge of Iniquity; and here, alas! had been an End of Man, a fad and fatal End of the whole World, had not our wife Creator foreseen the Danger, and in Mercy prevented the Extremity of the

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Ruin, referving for himself a few Tuefd. choice Plants to replenish the Earth with more hopeful Fruit: Yet they grew quickly wild, and brought forth four Grapes, and their Childrens Teeth were fet on edge; quickly they afpired to an intolerable Pride of fortifying their Wickedness against the Power of Heaven.

IV. This Rebellion provok'd Juftice to a second Deluge, and to bring again a Cloud o'er the Earth; but Mercy discover'd a Bow in the Cloud, and our faithful God remembered his Promife, allaying their Punishment with a milder Sentence, and only scatter'd them from the Place of their Confpiracy; which yet his Providence turned into a Bleffing, by making it an Occafion of Peopling the World. Still their rebellious Nature difobey'd again, and neither fear'd his Judgments, nor valu'd his Mercies; but with a graceless Emulation propagated Sin, as far as his Goodnefs propagated Mankind. Then he selected a private Family, and increased and governed

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Tuefd. them with a particular Tenderness, giving them a Law by the Hands of Angels, and engaged their Obedience by a thousand Favours; but they likewife neglected their God and Heaven, and fell in Love with the Ways of Death.

V. When thou hadft thus, O merciful Lord, ufed many Remedies, and our Disease was beyond their Power to cure; when the Light of Nature proved too weak a Guide, and the general Food too mild a Correction ; when the Miracles of Mofes could not foften their Hearts, nor the Law of Angels bring any to Perfection; when the whole was reduced to this defperate State, and no imaginable Hope left to recover us; behold! thy eternal Wifdom finds an amazing Expedient, the laft and the higheft Inftance of Almighty Love; he refolves to clothe Himself with our Flefh and come down amongst us, and die to redeem us, and has left us the blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood for a perpetual Remembrance of the fame.

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Mora.

VI. Wonder, O my Soul, at the Ted. Mercies of the Lord! How infinitely do they tranfcend even our utmost Wishes: Wonder at the admirable Providence of his Counfels, that are exactly fitted to their great Design! Had our Saviour been lefs than God, we could never have believ'd the fublime Myfteries of his heavenly Doctrine: Had he been other than Man, we must needs have wanted the Pow erful Motive of his holy Example. Had he been only God, he could never have fuffered the leaft of thofe Afflictions, he fo glorioufly overcame: Had he been merely Man, he could never have overcome those infinite AfAlictions he fo patiently endured. In thee, O blessed Saviour, the two Natures of God and Man were fo myfteriously united, without either Change or Confusion, that they made in thee but one Perfon, one Mediator, one Lord.

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