Prose Reflection by Jane Attwater

For more on Attwater's life, click here for her entry in the Biographical Summaries. For selections from her poetry, click here; for her hymns, click here; for her letters, click here; for selections from her diary, click here and here; for two of her informal religious discourses, click here and here; for two of her informal religious discourses, click here and here. 

Reflection, 4 July 1790

If riches if Friends if Earthly honour increase set not your heart upon ym for they all perish in using but pray to have your Hts fixed above remember ye exhortation of our Lord lay up your treasures in heaven yn there will your hearts be also & chearfully hope & be encouraged yt your desires will be granted for this also is an evil to wch you are exposed whilst in ye world & the saviour says he has prayed that you may be kept from it.—Finally from ye whole – what divine compassion! What Godlike pity is manifested in these gracious words of the divine Redeemer! Be struck with reverential awe O my soul!—never dare to willfully offend a God of such purity such Infinite love & mercy.—O blessed Saviour be thou my advocate pray for me yt my Faith fail not hold thou me up & I shall be safe for of myself I can do nothing ever watch & pray against every sin examine frequently the inmost recesses of ye heart & pray to the omniscient God in all the ardor of pious sincerity search me O God & try my thoughts see if there be any wicked way allowed in me convince me of it turn me therefrom & lead me in the way everlasting I wd devote my soul my all to thee O thou God of Infinite grace make me in all as thou wouldst have me to be – take encouragement O my Soul also from the kind condescending assurance & come with humble boldness to the footstool of divine mercy seeing there is such an Almighty Intercessor such a glorious high priest that is touched with the feeling of our Infirmaties & in the days of his flesh was in all points tempted as we are tho without sin is able also to keep thee without sin & present thee faultless before his heavenly father & he ever lives to make intercession.  Yes he is ever pleading before the throne for his people.

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed. Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 8, pp. 128-29; Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.B.4.(e.), Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.