This renewed a contemplation which often had come into my thoughts in former times, when first I began to see the merciful dispositions of Heaven, in the dangers we run through in this life; how wonderfully we are delivered when we know nothing of it; how, when we are in a quandary as we call it, a doubt or hesitation whether to go this way or that way, a secret hint shall direct us this way, when we intended to go that way: nay, when sense, our own inclination, and perhaps business has called us to go the other way, yet a strange impression upon the mind, from we know not what springs, and by we know not what power, shall overrule us to go this way; and it shall afterwards appear that had we gone that way, which we should have gone, and even to our imagination ought to have gone, we should have been ruined and lost.
Dit bragt mij tot de overweging, die ik reeds meermalen, bij mijn leven, had gemaakt, hoe de Voorzienigheid ons in gevaren beschermt en leidt door schikkingen, waarvan wij het doel niet begrijpen. Dikwijls toch worden wij door geheel onverwachte gebeurtenissen uit groote gevaren bevrijd; dikwijls drijft een geheime aandrang, in hagchelijke oogenblikken, ons aan, om veeleer dezen dan genen weg in te slaan, die onfeilbaar tot ons verderf zou geleid hebben.