DSSC. THE FORETASTE OF HEAVEN. 533 meditations of the all-comprehensive knowledge of God to such a degree, as to lose and abandon all your former pride and appearances of knowledge and wisdom, in all the native and acquired riches of it, and count them all as nothing in his sight ? Have you never looked upward to the midnight skies, and with amazement sent your thoughts upward to him who calls all the stars by their names, and brings them forth in all their sparkling glow ries, who marshals them in their nightly ranks and or- ders, and then stood overwhelmed with sacred astonish- ment at the wisdom which made and ranged them ad in their proper situations, and there appointed them to fulfil ten thousand useful purposes, and that not only towards this little ball of earth, but to a multitude of upper planetary worlds ? Have you never enquired into the wonders of his wisdom in- framing the bodies,. the limbs, and the senses of millions of animals, birds, and beasts, fishes and insects, as well as men all around this globe, and who bath framed all their organs and powers of nature with exquisite skill, to see and hear, to ruri and fly, and swim, to produce their young in all their proper forms and sizes, furnished with their various powers, and to feed and nourish them in their innume- rable shapes and colours, admirable for strength and beauty ? And_have you not felt your souls filled with der vont adoration at the unspeakable and infinite contri- vances of a God ? And not only his works of creation, but of his pro- vidence too, have afforded some pious souls such,devout amazement. What astonishing wisdom must that be which has created mankind on earth near six thousand years ago, and by his divine word, in every age con- tinues to create them or give them .being, with all the sane natural powers and parts, beauties and excellen- cies ! That he bath wisely governed so many millions of animals with living souls or spirits in them, so many millions of intelligent creatures, endued with a free will of their own to chuse qr refuse' what they will, or will not do, and hath managed this innumerable companyof beings in all ages, notwithstanding all their different and clashing opinions and customs, their crossing humours, wills and passions in endless variety, and yet bath made them all subservient to his own comprehensive designs, 31 3
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