Daily Reading for March 21 • Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1711
Glory be to Thee, O heavenly Father, for first loving us, and giving the dearest thing Thou hadst for us: O help me to love again, and to think nothing too dear for Thee.
I believe, O my God, that Thou art a Spirit most pure and holy, and infinite in all perfections, in power, in knowledge, and goodness; that Thou art eternal, immutable; and omnipresent: all love, all glory be to Thee.
I believe Thy divine nature, O my God, to be in all respects amiable, to be amiableness in itself, to be love itself; and therefore I love, I admire, I praise, I fear, and I adore Thee. Thou, Lord, art my hope, my trust, my life, my joy, my glory, my God, my all, my love. . . .
I believe, O Thou communicative goodness, that Thou dost preserve, and sustain, and protect, and bless all things Thou hast made, suitably to the natures Thou has given them: all love, all glory, be to Thee.
I believe, O mighty wisdom, that Thou dost most sweetly order, and govern, and dispose all things; even the most minute; even the very sins of men, to conspire in Thy glory; O do Thou conduct my whole life, steer every motion of my soul, towards the great end of our creation, to love and to glorify Thee. . . .
Thy works, O Lord, are wonderful and amiable. I love, and admire, and praise Thy universal providence over the whole world: the perpetual flux of Thy goodness on every creature: all glory be to Thee. . . .
The longer I live, O my God, the more reason I have to love Thee, because every day supplies me with fresh experiments and new motives of Thy manifold love to me: and therefore all love, all glory, be to Thee.
From “An Exposition of the Church Catechism,” in The Prose Works of the Right Reverend Thomas Ken, D.D., collected and edited by the Rev. William Benham, B.D. (London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, 1889).