The providence of God is not more concerned in the government of _night_ and _day_, and the variety of _seasons_, than in the common course of events, that seem most to depend upon the meer wills of men. So that it is as strictly right, to look upon all worldly changes, all the various turns in your own life, to be the effects of divine providence, as the rising and setting of the sun, or the alterations of the seasons of the year. As you are therefore always to adore the wisdom of God in the direction of these things; so it is the same reasonable duty, always to magnify God, as an equal director of every thing that happens to you in the course of your own life.
15. There is nothing that so powerfully governs the heart, as a true sense of God’s _presence_; and nothing so constantly keeps us under a lively sense of the presence of God, as this holy resignation, which attributes every thing to him, and receives every thing as from him.
Could we see a _miracle_ from God, how would our thoughts be affected with an holy awe and veneration of his presence! But if we consider every thing as God’s doing, either by order or permission, we shall then be affected with _common things_, as they would be who saw a _miracle_.
For as there is nothing to affect you in a miracle, but as it is the _action_ of God, and bespeaks his presence; so when you consider God, as _acting_ in all things, and all events, then all things will become venerable to you, like _miracles_, and fill you with the same awful sentiments of the divine presence.
16. Now you must not reserve the exercise of this pious temper to any particular times or occasions, or fancy how _resigned_ you will be to God, if such or such trials should happen: for this is amusing yourself with the _notion_ of resignation instead of the virtue itself.
Don’t therefore please yourself with thinking, how piously you would act and submit to God in a _plague_, a _famine_, or _persecution_; but be intent upon the perfection of the present day; and be assured, that the best way of shewing a _true zeal_, is to make _little things_ the occasions of _great piety_.
* Begin therefore in the smallest matters, and most ordinary occasions, and accustom your mind to the daily exercise of this pious temper, in the lowest occurrences of life. And when a _contempt_, an _affront_, a little _injury_, _loss_, or _disappointment_, or the smallest events of every day, continually raise your mind to God in proper acts of resignation, then you may justly hope, that you shall be numbered amongst those that are resigned, and thankful to God in the greatest trials and afflictions.