Meditation CXVI.
Meditation CXVI.
PROVIDENCE TO BE APPROVED OF.
Portsmouth Harbor, Oct. 31, 1761.
Nothing is harder to attain to, than an entire resignation to the disposal of Providence; and in this very thing I condemn myself. But, O how absurd to quarrel with God about his conduct towards his creatures! Did I ever demand a reason why God sends Gabriel on this or that errand, and not some other of the bright multitudes of bliss? Dared I ever find fault with the immense distance of the stars or the huge magnitude of the sun? Did it ever give me uneasiness, if foreign nations were scenes of revolutions and wars?
But if any trying providences come home to me, I am up, if not in arms, yet in astonishment, at God—and wonder why he deals so and so! Now, God's right over, and propriety in me, is as full and sovereign as over any other of his creatures. And so I should be as well pleased with what he carves out for me, as I am with what he does for others. I never complained of the age of the world in which I was born (nay—but have blessed God for it;) and why should I, of the time of life that this or that event concerning me takes place?
I pant after some things which in themselves are good—but God postpones them, as I think. But the truth is, the proper time of God's giving, and my receiving, has not come. And yet in the greatness of my folly, I grow impatient, like the farmer, that for an early harvest, reaps corn not fully ripe.
Now, my will shall be swallowed up in yours, since I am more your property than mine own. And as I would not direct Omniscience how to dispose of his angels—so will I never tell him how to deal with the inhabitants of his earth, though I am one of the number. Yet, O Most High! as you will be inquired of by your people for these free mercies which you will bestow, and even importuned (as once by wrestling Jacob) for blessings, and the performance of your promises; so I implore your divine interposition in my behalf—if it is your holy will, and that you would bring me again to my homeland, that I may hear blessings instead of blasphemy, and see your glory in churches.
O let my absent moments from Zion be numbered up, and finished; my wanderings counted, and completed; my company changed, and my song be to the God of my mercy in the courts of his holiness; and make me yet see some of the days of the Son of man, in commemorating the sufferings and death of my divine Redeemer! In your tender mercy—hear, help, and give an answer of peace.
But, Lord, if you shall (and for your glory I would gladly live) be more glorified in my resignation to your holy will, and my remaining in the state I am in, than in my possessing those things I long after—I cast myself over on you; and to your kind and wise disposal say, Amen.
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