Mystery of Providence - Flavel - XIII - Chapter 10 completed

Required reading

Mystery of Providence by John Flavel (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Chapter 10 completed (Section: 'Due observation of Providence will both beget...' to the end of the chapter).

My notes and thoughts
Today we complete the chapter on advantages of meditating on providence with three more advantages.

(i) Meditating on providence secures inward tranquillity
Good advice: 'It is usual with Christians to argue themselves into fresh reviving hopes, when the state of things is most forlorn, by comparing the providences of God with one another.'

(ii) Meditating on providence is useful in advancing holiness in our lives
Flavel has already given us an excellent treatment of this concept earlier in the book in chapters six and seven.

(iii) Meditating on providence is useful in our dying hour
I didn't see this advantage coming.  'And I cannot but think it is a very sweet close to the life of any Christian.  It must needs sweeten a deathbed to recount there the several remarkable passages of God's care and love to us from our beginning to that day, to reflect upon the mercies that went along with all the way, when we are come ot the end of it.'  Flavel says this is important because 'The time of death is the time when souls are usually most violently assaulted by Satan with horrid temptations and black suggestions.  We may say of that figurative, as it is said of the natural serpent "he never exerts his utmost rage till the last encounter,"'  If this is true, then this is an great advantage of meditating on providence.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.