embraces of those arms about you, will advance you higher, and fecure you better than your noble birth or estate could ever do.

My Lord, Providence hath moulded you, e meliori luto, made you both the offspring and head of an illuftrious family, planted you in a rich and pleasant foil, caufed many noble branches to fpring from you, drawn your life even to old age, through the delights and honours of this world. And now, that you have tried all those things that make the faireft pretenfions to happiness, what have you found in all these painted beauties and false gloffing excellencies, which have fucceffively courted you? Which of them all can you pronounce self-defirable? Which can you call objectum par amori? What is it to have the flesh indulged, fenfe gratified, fancy tickled? What have you found in meats and drinks, in ftately houses and pleasant gardens, in gold and filver, in honour and applaufe, to match the appetite of your nobler foul? Surely, (My Lord) to turn from them all with a generous difdain, as one that knows where to find better entertainment, is much more noble, than wholly to immerfe and lose our spirits in those sensual fruitions as many do, alas! too many in our days!

We are fallen into the dregs of time; fenfuality runs every-where into atheism. Providentia peperit divitias, fed filia devoravit matrem. The largeffes of Providence have fo blinded, and perfectly stupified the minds of fome, that they neither own a Providence, nor a God, who do σαρκοποιειν τον ανθρωπον όλον, και την ψυχήν ταις τε σώματος „doværs naTaou¤wlery, as Plutarch both wittily and judiciously replied upon Colotes the Epicurean.

But, bleffed be God, there is a fincere part, both of the nobles and commons of England, which this gangrene hath not yet touched, and, I hope, never shall.

My Lord, It is both your honour and intereft, to be onus ro xpaTToros, the entire and devoted fervant of Providence. It was once the wish of a good man, optarem id me effe Deo, quod eft mihi manus mea*. This is the moft noble and divine life that can be, to live and act in this world upon eternal defigns: To look upon ourfelves, and what we have, as things devoted to God; not to be content that Providence should ferve itself of us, (for fo it doth even of those things which understand nothing of it) but to ftudy wherein we may ferve Providence, and be inftrumental in its hand for the good of many; this is to be truly honourable; Quo magis quis Deo vivit, eo evadit nobilior, clarior, divinior.

How much God hath honoured you in this refpect, the world

I could wish I were that to God, which mine own hand is to me. †The more any live to God, the more noble, illuftrious and divine they be

come.

will understand better, when your lordship fhall be gathered to your fathers, and fleep in the duft; then he that praiseth, cannot be fufpected of flattery; nor he that is praised, be moved with vain glory: But the approbation of God is infinitely better than the most glorious name among men, before or after death.

And, as it is moft bonourable to ferve, fo you will find it most comfortable to observe, the ways of God in his providence: To compose ourselves to think of the conduct of providence through all the ftages of life we have hitherto paffed: To note the results of its profound wisdom, the effects of its tender care, the distinguifhing fruits of its fpecial bounty: To mark how providences have gone along ftep by step with the promifes, and both with us, until they have now brought us near to our everlasting rest. Oh! how delectable! how tranfporting are fuch meditations as these!

My Lord, It is the defign of this manual, to affert the being and efficacy of providence against the atheifin of the times, and to display the wisdom and care of the providence of God in all the concerns of that people who are really his. It is probable, if your lordship will stoop to fuch a vulgar compofure, fomewhat may occur of a grateful relish to your pious mind. I confefs, it is not accommodated, either in exactnefs of method, or elegance of style, to gratify the curious; nor yet is it deftitute of what may please and profit the truly gracious.

Should I here recite the pleasures and advantages refulting from an humble and heedful eyeing of the methods of Providence, it would look more like a book in an epiftle, than an epiftle in a book. One taste of spiritual fenfe will fatisfy you better than all the accurate defcriptions and high encomiums that the most elegant pen can bestow upon it.

My Lord, It is not that eminent station that some persons retain (in civil refpects) above the vulgar, that will enable them to penetrate the mysteries, and relish the fweetnefs of Providence better than others, (for, doubtlefs, many that live immediately upon Providence for daily bread, do thereby gain a nearer acquaintance with it, than those whofe outward enjoyments flow to them in a more plentiful and stated course) but those that excel in grace and experience; thofe that walk and converfe with God, in all his difpenfations towards them, these are the perfons who are most fully and immediately capable of these high pleasures of the Chriftian life. The daily flow and increase whereof in your lordship's noble perfon and family, is the hearty desire of

From my Study, at Dartmouth, Aug 10, 1677

Your Lordship's most

Humble Servant,

JOHN FLAVEL

THE

EPISTLE TO THE READER.

To the ingenuous READERS, those especially who are the heedful OBSERVERS of the Ways of PROvidence.

READER,

TH

HERE are two ways whereby the bieffed God condescends to manifeft himself to men, his word, and his works. Of the written word we must fay, No words like these were ever written fince the beginning of time, which can (as one speaks) take life and root in the foul, yea, doth it as really as the feed doth in the ground; and are fitted to be engraffed and naturalized there, fo as no coalition in nature can be more real than this, James i. 21. This is the moft tranfcendent and glorious medium of manifef Station: «God hath magnified his word above all his name," Pfal, cxxxviii. 2.

However, the manifeftation of God by his works, whether of creation or providence, have their value and glory: But the prime glory and excellency of his providential works confifts in this that they are the very fulfillings and real accomplishments of his written word. By a wife and heedful attendance hereunto, we might learn that excellent art, which is (not unfitly called by fome fcientia architectonica) an art to clear the mysterious occurrences of Providence, by reducing them to the written word, and there lodge them as effects in their proper caufes. And, doubtlefs, this is one of the rareft effays men could purfue against atheism, to shew, not only how providences concur in a moft obvious tendency to confirm this great conclufion, Thy word is truth; but how it fometimes extorts alfo the confeffion of a God, and the truth of his word, from thofe very tongues which have boldly denied it. Efchyles, the Perfian, relating their difcomfiture by the Gre

cian

army, makes this notable obfervation: "When the Grecian "forces hotly pursued us, (faith he) and we muft needs venture "over the great water, Strymon, then frozen, but beginning to "thaw, when a hundred to one we had all died for it; with mine "eyes I then faw many of thofe gallants whom I had heard before "fo boldly maintain, there was no God, every one upon their "knees, with eyes and hands lifted up, begging hard for help and "mercy, and entreating that the ice might hold until they got

Æfchyles in Traged.

1

"over." Many thousand feals hath Providence forced the very enemies of God to fet to his truth, which greatly tends to our confirmation therein; but efpecially to fee. how the word and provi dences of God do enlighten each other; and how the fcriptures contain all those events, both great and small, which are difpofed by Providence in their feafons: And how not only the promises of the word, are, in the general, faithfully fulfilled to the church, in all her exigencies and diftreffes, but, in particular, to every member of it; they being all furnished by Providence with multitudes of experiences to this ufe and end. O how useful are such obfervations!

And as the profit and ufe, fo the delight and pleasure refulting from the obfervations of Providence, are exceeding greatIt will doubtless be a part of our entertainment in heaven, to view with transporting delight how the defigns and methods were laid to bring us hither: And what will be a part of our blessedness in heaven may be well allowed to have a prime ingrediency into our heaven upon earth. To fearch for pleafure among the due obfervations of Providence is to fearch for water in the ocean: For Providence doth not only ultimately defign to bring you to heaven, but (as intermediate thereunto) to bring (by this means) much of heaven into your fouls in the way thither.

How great a pleasure is it to difcern how the most wife God is providentially steering all to the port of his own praise and his people's happiness, whilft the whole world is bufily employed in managing the fails and tugging at the oars with a quite oppofite defign and purpose? To fee how they promote his defign by opposing it, and fulfil his will by refifting it, enlarge his church by fcattering it, and make their reft come the more fweet to their fouls by making their condition fo reftlefs in the world. This is pleasant to obferve in general: But to record and note its particular defigns upon ourfelves; with what profound wifdom, infinite tenderness, and inceffant vigilancy it hath managed all that concerns us from first to laft is ravishing and transporting.

O what an hiftory might we compile of our own experiences, whilft with a melting heart we trace the footsteps of providence all along the way it hath led us to this day; and fet our remarks upon its more eminent performances for us in the feveral stages of our lives!

Here it prevented, and there it delivered. Here it directed, and there it corrected. In this it grieved, and in that it relieved. Here was the poifon, and there the antidote. This providence raised a difmal cloud, and that difpelled it again. This traitened, and that enlarged. Here a want, and there a fupply. This relation withered, and that springing up in its room. Words cannot exprefs the

high delights and gratifications a gracious heart may find in fuch employment as this.

O what a world of rarities are to be found in providence! The blind, heedlefs world makes nothing of them: They cannot find one freet bit where a gracious foul would make a rich feaft. Plutarch relates very exactly, how Timoleon was miraculously delivered from the confpiracy of two murderers, by their meeting in the very nick of time a certain perfon, who, to revenge the death of his father, killed one of them, juft as they were ready to give Timoleon the fatal blow, though he knew nothing of the bufinefs, and fo Timoleon escaped the danger. And what did this wonderful work of Providence, think you, yield the relator? Why, though he was one of the most learned and ingenious among the Heathen Sages, yet all he made of it was only this; The fpectators (faith he) wondered greatly at the artifice and contrivance which fortune ufes; This is all he could fee in it. Had a fpiritual and wife Chriftian had the diffecting and anatomizing of fuch a work of Providence, what glory would it have yielded to God! what comfort and encouragement to the foul! The bee makes a fweeter meal upon one tingle flower, than the ox doth upon the whole meadow where thoufands of them grow.

O reader! if thy heart be spiritual, and well stocked with experience, if thou haft recorded the ways of Providence towards thee, and wilt but allow thyself time to reflect upon them; what a life of pleasure mayest thou live! what an heaven upon earth doth this way lead thee into! I will not here tell thee what I have met with in this path, left it should seem to favour of too much vanity; non eft religio ubi omnia patent. There are fome delights and enjoyments in the Christian life, which are, and must be enclosed. But try it thyfelf, tafte and fee, and thou wilt need no other inducement; thine own experience will be the most powerful oratory to perfuade thee to the ftudy and fearch of Providence.

Hiftories are usually read with delight: When once the fancy is catched, a man knows not how to difengage himself from it. I am greatly mistaken if the history of our own lives, if it were well drawn up, and distinctly perused, would not be the pleasantest history that every we read in our lives.

The enfuing treatise is an effay to that purpose, in which thou wilt find fome remarks fet upon Providence in its paffage through the several stages of our lives. But, reader, thou only art able to compile the hiftory of Providence for thyfelf, becaufe the memorials that furnish it are only in thine own hands. However, here thou mayeft find a pattern, and general rules to direct thee in VOL. IV.

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