A94156:390
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature…
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature and necessity of it is discovered. : As also the Christian directed how he may perform it in [brace] religious duties, natural actions, his particular vocation, his family directions, and his own recreations. / By George Swinnock ...
London: printed for T.P., 1662
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Meditate upon the number of thy present mercies, personal, domestical, national, temporal, spiritual: How many are the mercies which thou enjoyest in bed, at board, at home, abroad? Thy house, thy barns, thy children, thy body, thy soul, are all full of blessings; thou hast many positive, many privative mercies. Many, O Lord, my God are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts to us ward, they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: If I would declare and speak them, they are more then can be numbered, Psal. 40.4. Think of them particularly; meat swallowed down whole doth not yield such nourishment as when it is cut into small pieces. If jewels are bundled up together, their riches and worth are hid, they must be viewed and considered one by one, then their value will appear.
Meditate on the nature of them how freely they are bestowed: When thou wast Gods enemy he ⟨p. 154⟩fed thee, and clothed thee, and maintained thee; as when a man turneth his back upon the Sun, the Sun even then refresheth him with his beams; so when thou didst depart away from God, he even then followed thee with goodness; like the fountain, he giveth his pleasant streams to thee gratis. For alas thou art less then the least of all Gods mercies, worse then any loathsome Toad, or poisonous Serpent: This will be an excellent file to set off the mercies of God in their lively, lovely colours: that David so great a King should do so much for such a dead Dog as Mephibosheth, did exceedingly affect his heart, 2 Sam. 7. So do thou think with thy self, What am I, and what is my Fathers house, that the Lord should do so much for me.
Meditate on the nature of them how freely they are bestowed: When thou wast Gods enemy he ⟨p. 154⟩fed thee, and cloathed thee, and maintained thee; as when a man turneth his back upon the Sun, the Sun even then refresheth him with his beams; so when thou didst depart away from God, he even then followed thee with goodness; like the fountain, he giveth his pleasant streams to thee gratis. For alas thou art less then the least of all Gods mercies, worse then any loathsome Toad, or poisonous Serpent: This will be an excellent file to set off the mercies of God in their lively, lovely colours: that David so great a King should do so much for such a dead Dog as Mephibosheth, did exceedingly affect his heart,