66 66. lay our cares down, and receive provifions for our Matt. 6. 25, need, are thefe: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls. of the air; for they fow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, jet your heavenly Father feedeth "them. Are ye not much better than they? which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his ftature? "And why take ye thought for raiment? Confider the "Lilies of the field how they grow: they toil not, neither "do they pin: and yet I fay unto you, that even Solomon "in all his glory was not arrayed like one of thefe. Therefore if God fo cloath the grafs of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is caft into the oven, fhall he "not much more cloath you, Oye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, faying, What shall we eat? or "what shall we drink? or wherewithall fhall we be cloa"thed? (for after all these things do the Gentiles feek) "for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need "of all these things. But feek ye first the Kingdom of "God and his righteoufnefs, and all these things shall be "added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of it felf; fufficient to the day is the evil thereof. Luke 12. 22. The fame difcourfe is repeated by St. Luke: and acto verfe 1. cordingly our duty is urged, and our confidence abetted by the Difciples of our Lord, in divers places of holy Scripture. So St. Paul: Be careful for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and fupplication wit thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 1 Tim. 9. 17. And again, Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to Heb. 13. 5. enjoy. And yet again, Let your converfation be without covetousness, and be content with fuch things as ye have; for he hath faid, I will never leave thee, nor forfake thee: So that we may boldly fay, the Lord is my helper. And all this is by St. Peter fummed up in our duty, thus: Caft all your care upon him, for he Gareth for you. Which words he feetns to have borrowed Phil. 4. 6. rowed out of the 55 Pfalm, ver. 25. where David faith the fame thing almoft in the fame words. To which I only add the obfervation made by him, and the argument of experience; I have been young and now am old, and yet faw I never the righteous for faken, nor his feed begging their bread. And now after all this, a fearless confidence in God, and concerning a provifion of neceflaries, is fo reasonable, that it is become a duty; and he is fcarce a Christian whose faith is fo little as to be jealous of God, and fufpicious concerning meat and cloths; that man hath nothing in him of the noblene's or confidence of Charity. Does not God provide for all the Birds and Beafts and Fishes? Do not the Sparrows fly from their bufh, and every morning find meat where they laid it not? Do not the young Ravens call to God, and he feeds them? And were it reafonable that the Sons of the family fhould fear the Father would give meat to the Chickens and the Servants, his Sheep and his Dogs, but give none to them? He were a very ill Father that fhould do fo; or he were a very foolish Son that fhould think fo of a good Father. * But befides the reasonablenefs of this faith and this hope, we have infinite experience of it: How innocent, how careless, how fecure is infancy; and yet how certainly provided for? We have lived at God's charges all the days of our life, and have (as the Italian Proverb fays) fate down to meat at the found of a Bell; and hitherto he hath not failed us: we have no reason to fufpect him for the future; we do not use to serve men fo; and lefs time of trial creates great confidences in us towards them who for twenty years together never broke their word with us; and God hath fo ordered it; that a man fhall have had the experience of many years provifion, before he fhall underftand how to doubt; that he may be provided for an anfwer against the temptation fhall come, and the mercies felt in his childhood may make him fearless when he is a man. * Add to this, that God hath given us his holy Spirit; Sect. 6. he hath promised Heaven to us; he hath given us his Son; and we are taught from Scripture, to make this inference from hence, How should not he with him give us all things elfe? are. The Charge of many Children. We have a title to be provided for as we are God's Creatures, another title as we are his Children, another because God hath promifed; and every of our Children hath the fame title: and therefore it is a huge folly and infidelity to be troubled and full of care because we have many Children. Every Child we have to feed is a new revenue, a new title to God's care and providence; fo that many Children are a great wealth; and if it be faid they are chargeable, it is no more than all wealth and great revenues For what difference is it? Titius keeps ten Ploughs, Cornelia hath ten Children. He hath land enough to employ, and to feed all his Hinds: fhe bleffings, and promifes, and the provifions, and the truth of God to maintain all her Children. His Hinds and Horfes eat up all his Corn, and her Children are sufficiently maintained with her little. They bring in and eat up; and he indeed eats up, but they alfo bring in from the ftore-houfes of heaven, and the granaries of God: and my Children are not fo much mine as they are God's, he feeds them in the womb by ways fecret and infenfible; and would not work a perpetual miracle to bring them forth, and then to flarve them. Violent Neceffities. But fome men are highly tempted, and are brought to a strait, that without a miracle they cannot be relieved, what fhall they do? It may be their pride or vanity hath brought the neceffity upon them, and it is not a need of God's making and if it be not, they muft cure it themselves by leffening their defires, and moderating their appetites: and yet if it be innocent, though though unneceffary, God does ufually relieve fuch necellities; and he does not only, upon our prayers, grant us more than he promited of temporal things, but allo he gives many times more than we ask. This is no object for our faith, but ground enough for a temporal and prudent hope: and if we fail in the particular, God will turn it to a bigger mercy, if we fubmit to his difpenfation, and adore him in the denial. But if it be a matter of neceffity, let not any man, by way of impatience, cry out, that God will not work a miracle; tor God, by miracle, did give meat and drink to his people in the wildernefs, of which he had made no particular promite in any Covenant: and if all natural means fail, it is certain that God will rather work a miracle than break his word; He can do that, he cannot do this. Only we must remember, that our portion of temporal things is but food and raiment: God hath not promifed us coaches and horfes, rich houses and Jewels, Tyrian filks and Perfian carpets; neither hath he promised to minifter to our needs in fuch circumstances as we fhall appoint, but fuch as himself fhall chufe. God will enable either thee to pay thy debt, (if thou beggeft it of him) or elie he will pay it for thee, i. e. take thy defire as a difcharge of thy duty, and pay it to thy Creditor in bleffings, or in fome fecret of his providence. It may be he hath laid up the corn that fhall feed thee in the granary of thy Brother; or will cloath thee with his wool. He enabled St. Peter to pay his Gabel by the miniftery of a fifh; and Elias to be waited on by a crow, who was both his minifter and his fteward tor provifions: and his holy Son rode in triumph upon an Afs that grazed in another man's paftures: And it God gives to him the dominion, and referves the ufe to thee, thou haft the better half of the two : but the charitable man ferves God and ferves thy need and both join to provide for thee, and God bleffes both. But if he takes away the flesh pots from thee, he can also alter the appetite, and he hath given thee power and commandment to reftrain it and if he leffens the revenue, he will also shrink the K 3 neceffi ·Set 6. neceffity; or if he gives but a very little, he will make it go a great way; or if he fends thee but a courfe diet, he will blefs it and make it healthful, and can cure all the anguish of thy poverty by giving thee patience, and the grace of Contentednefs. For the Grace of God fecures you of provisions, and yet the Grace of God feeds and fupports the spirit in the want of provifions: and if a thin table be apt to enfeeble the fpirits of one ufed to feed better; yet the chearfulness of a spirit that is bleffed will make a thin table become a delicacy, if the man was as well taught as he was fed, and learned his duty when he received the bleffing. Poverty therefore is in fome fences eligible, and to be preferred before Riches, but in all fences it is very tolerable. Death of Children, or nearest Relatives, and There are fome perfons who have been noted for excellent in their lives and paffions, rarely innocent, and yet hugely penitent for indifcretions and harmlefs infirmities: fuch as was Paulina,one of the ghostly children of St. Hierom; and yet when any of her children died, fhe was arrefted with a forrow fo great as brought her to the margin of her grave. And the more tender our spirits are made by Religion, the more eafie we are to let in grief, if the caufe be innocent, and be but in any fence twifted with piety and due affeCtions. To cure which we may confider that all the world muft die, and therefore to be impatient at the death of a perfon, concerning whom it was certain and known that he muft die, is to mourn because thy friend or child was not born an Angel; and when thou haft a while made thy felf miferable by an importunate and ufelefs grief, it may be thou fhalt die thy felf, and leave others to their choice whether they will mourn for thee or no: but by that time it will appear how impertinent that grief was which ferved no end of life, and ended in thy cwn funeral. But what great |