ties, and to the fetting forth of thy glory, thro' Jefus Chrift our Lord. Amen.

THE

The Bleffing.

HE peace of God, which paffeth all understanding, keep my heart and mind in the knowledge and love of God, and of his fon Jefus Christ our Lord; and the bleffing of God Almighty the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghoft, be with me now, and at the hour of my death. Amen.

On Monday night, (and the rest of the week,) at going to

bed, say,

Will lay me down in and take peace my reft, for it is thou, O Lord, only that makeft me to dwell in fafety.

Into thy hands I commend my fpirit, for thou haft redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth.

Have mercy upon me, O Lord, now, and at the hour of death.

Amen, Amen,

Amén.

E 2

The

The Meditation for Tuesday Morning*

Upon God's Mercy and Christ's incarnation, to prepare us for a worthy receiving of the holy sacrament.

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

I.

DRAW near, all ye that fear our

Lord, and I will tell you what he has done for my foul; 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 fhades of nothing, his almighty hand awakened us into being; not to that of ftones, or plants, or beafts, over which he has made us abfolute lords; but to a body wonderfully made, and an immortal foul, little inferior to his glori ous angels; he printed on our fouls his own fimilitude, and promifed to our obedience a fhare in his own felicity; he endued us with appetites to live well and happy, and furnished us with means to satisfy thofe appetites; creating a whole world to ferve us here, and providing a heaven to glorify us hereafter.

2. Thefe

Here you may observe the directions given on page 3,

2. These are the favours of God's infinite goodness: but what return have we made to him! blush, O my foul, for fhame, 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 fafety of our fouls: we fondly embraced a little needlefs fatisfaction, before the pleasures of paradife, and the eternity of heaven.

3. Behold the unhappy fource of all our miferies, which ftill increafed its ftreams 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 forefeen the danger, and in mercy prevented the extremity of the ruin, referving for himself a few choice plants to replenish the earth with more hopeful fruit; yet they grew quickly wild, and brought forth four grapes, and their children's teeth were set on edge; quickly they afpired to an intolerable pride of fortifying their wickednefs against the power of heaven, by building the Tower of Babel

4. This rebellion provoked Juftice to a fecond deluge, and to bring again a cloud over the earth; but Mercy difcovered a E 3 bow

bow in the cloud, and our faithful God remembered his promife, allaying their punishment with a milder fentence, and only fcattered 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 disobeyed again, and neither feared his judgments, nor valued his mercies; but with a gracelefs emulation propagated fin, as far as his goodness propagated mankind. Then he felected a private family, and increafed and governed them with a particular tenderness, giving them a law by the hands of angels, and engaged their obedience by a thoufand favours; but they likewife neglected their God and heaven, and fell in love with the ways of death.

5. When thou hadft thus, O merciful Lord, ufed many remedies, and our difease was beyond their power to cure; when the light of nature proved too weak a guide, and the general flood 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 ftate, and no imaginable hope left to recover us; behold! thy eternal wifdom finds an amazing expedient, the laft and the higheft inftance of

almighty

almighty love; he refolves to clothe himfelf with our flefh, and come down amongst us, and die to redeem us, and has left us the bleffed facrament of his body and blood for a perpetual remembrance of the fame.

6. Wonder, O my foul, at the mercies of the Lord! how infinitely do they transcend even our utmoft wishes; wonder at the admirable providence of his counfels, that are exactly fitted to their great defign! had our Saviour been lefs than God, we could never have believed the fublime myfteries of his heavenly doctrine: had he been other than man, we muft needs have wanted the powerful motive of his holy example. Had he been only God, he could never have fuffered the left of thofe afflictions he fo glorioufly overcame; had he been merely man, he could never have overcome thofe infinite afflictions he fo patiently endured. In thee, O bleffed Saviour, the two natures of God and man were fo myfteriously united, without either change or confufion, that they made in thee but one perfon, one mediator, one Lord.

The