Dedication to the Earl of Bedford
My Lord,
It was a weighty and savory speech, which a pious pen once saved from your Lordship's lips, namely, that you accounted the prayers of God's ministers and people, the best walls about your house. He that so accounts, doubtless understands that prayer engages providence (Isaiah 45:11), and providence so engaged is the surest protection (Job 1:10).
Many great men enclose their dwellings with a high wall, but the foundation (as the wisest of men observes) is laid in their own conceits (Proverbs 18:11), yea, in sin, and crying sin too (Habakkuk 2:12). Of such walls we may say, as the oracle to Phocas, [illegible in non-Latin alphabet]: if the building emulate the skies, yet sin being in the bottom, all will totter.
It is a fond vanity to think of ensuring a destiny that can control the stars and endure the assaults of fortune (as they love to speak), while providence is not engaged for them, not so much as by a bare acknowledgment.
My Lord, it is not the vast bulk of an estate, nor the best human security in the world, but the vigilant care of divine providence that guards both it and its owners from the stroke of ruin. It is the fear of God within us and the providence of God round about us which make the firm and solid basis of all sanctified and durable prosperity. It is beyond all debate that there is a providence of God always enfolding those in everlasting arms that bear his image. The impress of that image upon you and the embraces of those arms about you will advance you higher and secure you better than your noble birth or estate could ever do.
My Lord, providence has molded you from better clay, made you both the offspring and head of an illustrious family, planted you in a rich and pleasant soil, caused many noble branches to spring from you, drawn your life even unto old age through the delights and honors of this world. And now that you have tried all those things that make the fairest pretensions to happiness, what have you found in all these painted beauties and false flattering excellencies which have successively courted you? Which of them all can you pronounce self-desirable? Which can you call an object worthy of love? What is it to have the flesh indulged, sense gratified, fancy tickled? What have you found in meats and drinks, in stately houses and pleasant gardens, in gold and silver, in honor and applause to match the appetite of your nobler soul? Surely, my Lord, to turn from them all with a generous disdain, as one that knows where to find better entertainment, is much more noble than wholly to immerse and lose our spirits in those sensual gratifications, as many do — alas, too many in our days!
We are fallen into the dregs of time; sensuality runs everywhere into atheism. Providence has given birth to liberties, but the daughter has devoured the mother. The largesses of providence have so blinded and perfectly stupefied the minds of some that they neither own a providence nor a God, who do [illegible in non-Latin alphabet], as Plutarch both wittily and judiciously replied upon Colotes the Epicurean.
But blessed be God, there is a sincere part, both of the nobles and commons of England, which this gangrene has not yet touched, and I hope never shall.
My Lord, it is both your honor and interest to be [illegible in non-Latin alphabet], the entire and devoted servant of providence. It was once the wish of a good man, 'I would that I might be to God what my hand is to me.' This is the most noble and divine life that can be, to live and act in this world upon eternal designs. To look upon ourselves and what we have as things devoted to God; not to be content that providence should serve itself of us (for so it does even of those things which understand nothing of it), but to study wherein we may serve providence and be instrumental in its hand for the good of many — this is to be truly honorable; the more one lives for God, the more noble, renowned, and divine he becomes.
How much God has honored you in this respect, the world will understand better when your Lordship shall be gathered to your fathers and sleep in the dust — then he that praises cannot be suspected 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 most honorable to serve, so 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 stages of life we have hitherto passed. To note the results of its profound wisdom, the effects of its tender care, the distinguishing fruits of its special bounty. To mark how providences have gone along step by step with the promises, and both with us, till they have now brought us near to our everlasting rest — oh, how delectable! how transporting are such meditations as these!
My Lord, it is the design of this manual to assert the being and efficacy of providence against the atheism 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 such a plain composition, somewhat may occur of a grateful relish to your pious mind. I confess, it is not accommodated, either in exactness of method or elegance of style, to gratify the curious; nor yet is it destitute of what may please and profit the truly gracious.
Should I here recount the pleasures and advantages resulting from a humble and heedful observance of the methods of providence, it would look more like a book in an epistle than an epistle in a book. One taste of spiritual sense will satisfy you better than all the accurate descriptions and high praises that the most elegant pen can bestow upon it.
My Lord, it is not that eminent station that some persons retain (in civil respects) above the common people that will enable them to penetrate the mysteries and relish the sweetness of providence better than others (for doubtless many that live immediately upon providence for daily bread do thereby gain a nearer acquaintance with it than those whose outward enjoyments flow to them in a more plentiful and regular course), but those that excel in grace and experience, those that walk and converse with God in all his dispensations towards them — these are the persons who are most fully and immediately capable of these high pleasures of the Christian life. The daily flow and increase of these things in your Lordship's noble person and family is the hearty desire of
From my study at Dartmouth, August 10, 1677. Your Lordship's most humble servant, John Flavel.
