Page:MeditationsOnTheMysteriesOfOurHolyV1.djvu/297

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cattle. Blessed shall be thy barns, and blessed thy stores. Blessed shalt thou be coming in and going out, and in all the works of thy hands." " The Lord will open His excellent treasure, the heaven, that it may give thee rain in due season. And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail; and thou shalt be always above and not beneath." "The Lord shall cause thy enemies that rise up against thee to fall down before thy face." " The Lord will raise thee up to be a holy people to Himself." " And all the people of the earth shall see that the name of the Lord is invocated upon thee, and they shall fear thee." [1]

These and other blessings Moses foretold; and although they are temporal and accommodated to the imperfect state and condition of that people, yet they are a sign of others — much greater spiritual things, which Almighty God gives to Christian people (who, besides, want not these temporal), after a most excellent manner; for the providence of our heavenly Father (as His Son Himself promised us) is careful to provide for us those things that are meet, giving them for an addition to those that observe His law. [2] For He that " opens His hand" [3] and fills " with His blessing every living creature," will open it much more to replenish his children.

ii. Hence I will ascend to consider the spiritual blessings which Almighty God gives to those that keep His law, in the keeping of which He has most excellently included three kinds of good, viz. beautiful, profitable, and delightful good, of which David in the eighteenth Psalm makes another sweet catalogue. For, first, " the law of the Lord is unspotted, converting souls," [4] replenishing them with wisdom and all virtues. It is also most profitable to obtain all good that may be desired, not only for the soul,

  1. Deut, xxviii. 8.
  2. Matt. vi. 26.
  3. Ps. cxliv. 16.
  4. Ps. xviii. 8.