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and if so, rather wonder your mercies are so many, than that you have no more. Besides, you cannot doubt, but that your corruptions require all the crosses, wants, and troubles that are upon you. Do not you find, after all the rods that have been upon you, a proud heart still, a vain and earthly heart still?-Consider how near you are to a change in your condition. Have but a little patience, and all will be as well with you as your hearts can desire. It is no small comfort to the saints that this world is the worst place that ever they shall be in. Things will be better every day with them. If the traveller have spent all his money, yet it doth not much trouble him if he know himself within a few miles of his own house. If there be no candles in the house, we do not much regard it, if we are sure it is almost break of day; for then there will be no use for them. This is your case "Your salvation is nearer than when you believed."

I have now done with the directive part of this discourse; but before I pass to the fifth head, I judge it necessary to add a few cautions to prevent the abuse of pro

vidence, and miscarriages in your behaviour towards it.

1. If Providence delays the performance of any mercy to you, that you have long waited and prayed for; yet see that you despond not, nor grow weary of waiting upon God.

These delays, both on spiritual and temporal accounts, are frequent; and when they befall us, we are too apt to interpret them as denials, and fall into a sinful despondency of mind, though there be no cause at all for it. But though the Lord means to perform to us the mercies we desire, yet he will ordinarily exercise our patience to wait for them; and that for these reasons because our time is not the proper season for us to receive our mercies. We are in haste, and will have them now, but the Lord " is a God of judgment, and blessed are they that wait for him." Afflictive providences have not accomplished that design upon our hearts which they were sent to accomplish, when we are so earnest and impatient for a change of them; and till then, the rod must not be taken off. The more prayers and searchings of heart come between our

wants and supplies, our afflictions and reliefs, the sweeter are our reliefs and supplies thereby made to us.

But though there are such weighty reasons for the stop and delay of refreshing providences, yet we cannot bear these delays; our hands hang down, and we faint: for, alas! we judge by sense and appearance, and consider not that God's heart may be towards us, whilst the hand of his Providence seems to be against us. O what groundless jealousies and suspicions of God are found at such times in the hearts of his own children! But this is a great evil, and to prevent it in future trials I will offer a few considerations in the case. -The delay of your mercies is really for your advantage. You read in Isaiah xxx. 18, that "the Lord waits that he may be gracious unto you." What is that? Why, it is nothing else but the time of his preparation of mercies for you, and your hearts for mercy, that so you may have it with the greatest advantage of comfort. The foolish child would pluck the apple whilst it is green; but when it is ripe, it drops of its own accord, and is more pleasant and whole

some. It is a greater mercy to have a heart willing to refer all to God and to be at his disposal, than to enjoy presently the mercy we are most eager and impatient for. In that God pleases you, in this you please God. A mercy may be given you as the fruit of common providence, but such a temper of heart is the fruit of special grace. So much as the glorifying of God is better that the content and pleasure of the creature, so much is such a frame better than such a fruition.-Expected mercies are never nearer, than when the hearts and hopes of God's people are lowest. "At evening time it shall be light," Zech. xiv. 7; when we look for increasing darkness, light arises.-Our unfitness for mercies is the reason why they are delayed so long. We put blocks in the way of mercy, and then repine that they make no more haste to us. "The Lord's hand is not shortened, but our iniquities have separated betwixt him and us." Isa. lix. 1,2.-Consider how many millions of men, as good as you by nature, are cut off from all hope and expectation of mercy for ever, and there remains to them nothing but a fearful expectation of wrath.

This might have been your case, and therefore be not of an impatient spirit under the expectations of mercy.

2. Pry not too curiously into the secrets of Providence, nor suffer your shallow reason arrogantly to judge and censure its designs.

There are hard texts in the works, as well as in the word of God. It becomes us modestly and humbly to reverence, but not to dogmatize boldly and positively upon them. "When I thought to know this," says Asaph, "it was too wonderful for me." "I thought to know this;" there was the arrogant attempt of reason, there he pryed into the arcana of Providence; but "it was too wonderful for me," it was a useless labor. He pryed so far into that mystery, the afflictions of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked, till it begat envy towards them, and despondency in himself; and this was all that he got by summoning Providence to the bar of reason.

I know that there is nothing in the word or in the works of God which is repugnant to sound reason; but there are some things in both, which are opposite to car

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