Wesley Corpus

He is happy in knowing there is a God, an intelligent Cause and Lord of all, and that he is not the produce either of blind chance or inexorable necessity. He is happy in the full assurance he has that this Creator and End of all things is a Being of boundless wisdom, of infinite power to execute all the designs of His wisdom, and of no less infinite goodness to direct all His power to the advantage of all His creatures. Nay, even the consideration of his immutable justice, rendering to all their due, of his unspotted holiness, of his all-sufficiency in Himself, and of that immense ocean of all perfections which centre in God from eternity to etermity, is a continual addition to the happiness of a Christian. 13. A farther addition is made thereto, while, in con templating even the things that surround him, that thought strikes warmly upon his heart, These are thy glorious works, Parent of good 1 while he takes knowledge of the invisible things of God, even his eternal power and wisdom in the things that are seen, the heavens, the earth, the fowls of the air, the lilies of the field. How much more, while, rejoicing in the constant care which He still takes of the work of his own hand, he breaks out, in a transport of love and praise, “O Lord our Governor, how excellent are thy ways in all the earth ! Thou that hast set thy glory above the heavens !” While he, as it were, sees the Lord sitting upon His throne, and ruling all things well; while he observes the general providence of God co-extended with His whole creation, and surveys all the effects of it in the heavens and earth, as a well-pleased spectator; while he sees the wisdom and goodness of His general government descend ing to every particular, so presiding over the whole universe as over a single person, so watching over every single person as if he were the whole universe; how does he exult when he reviews the various traces of the Almighty goodness, in what has befallen himself in the several circumstances and changes of his own life all which he now sees have been allotted to him, and dealt out in number, weight, and measure.