be done, that may be well-pleafing to him. Great acclamations and verbal praises and acknowledgments without an Honest and Sincere Endeavour to please and obey hint, are but a piece of mockry and hypocritical complement; and a meer fruftration and disappointed of Almighty God, in the end and defign of his mercy to us; which is, to make us really better, more dutiful, more capable of greater and everlasting mercies; to make us better Examples to others, who may thereby be invited to follow us in Piety and Goodness. A Man that hath received great and fignal Mercies and Deliverances, becomes a great and efficacious Example, and of much good, or much evil, according as he carries himself after eminent mercies received: If he become more Pious, Vertuous, Juft, Sober than before, he becomes a forcible motive and encouragement to others to be like him; again, if he either remain or degenerate into Impiety, Vanity, or Vice, he difcourageth Goodness, and becomes a great temptation to others to be like him.

3. Take heed lest after great Deliverance, thy heart be lifted up into prefumption upon God, Pride and Vain-gloty, and a conceit of thy own Goodness and Worth. This is the common Temptation that grows upon much mer cy received; and therefore the wife Law-giver did very frequently caution the People of Ifrael against this, Deut. 9. 4. Speak not in thine heart after the Lord thy God bath caft them out, faying, For my righteousness the Lord bath brought me to poffefs this land, &c. Let thy afflictions find thee Humble, and let thy afflictions make thee more Humble; but let thy Deliverance yet increase thy Humility; the more Mercy God fhews thee, the more Humble ever let thy Heart be, upon a double account. 1. Thy Deliverances do or fhould make thee know Almighty God the more; and the more thou knoweft him, the more Humble it should make thee Job 42. 5. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes have seen thee: Wherefore I abbor my felf in duft and ashes. 2. Thou haft need to double thy guards of Humility, because upon great deliverance thou must expect that the temptation and affaults

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of Pride and Vain-glory will be moft bufie with thee: And if in all thy Preparations for afflictions thou haft studied Humility; if under all thy afflictions thou haft improved thy Humility, yet if now, upon thy deliverance, thou art loft in Pride and Vain glory thou haft loft all the benefit both of thy Preparations, and of thy Afflictions, and of thy Deliverance alfo: thou art like an unhappy Ship that hath endured the Sea, and hath born the Storm, and yet finks when the is come into the Harbour.

4. And upon the fame account be Vigilant and Watchful. It is true, thoi haft wea hered a great Storm, out of which by the mercy of God thou art delivered; but ftill be upon thy guard, thou knoweft not how foon thou fhalt meet with another; take heed it furprise thee not unprovided. Though thou haft endured, it may be, a long and dark ftorm of affliction, and God hath mercifully delivered thee; yet thou haft no promife from Almighty God that thou fhalt meet with no more. These three Confiderations fhould keep thee Watchful and Vigilant, notwithstanding great deliverance from great afflictions. 1. Thou art there by better fitted and prepared to receive it; if it come it fhall not furprise thee unawares, nor find thee sleeping. 2. Moft certainly, if any thing be a more likely means as to preferve thee under fo from affliction, it is a prepared, watchful, vigilant mind: for, if I may fo fpeak, afflictions have no great bufinefs with fuch a Man; for he is already in that posture and frame of Heart, that affliction is ordinarily fent to give a Man. 3. There is nothing more likely to procure affliction than fecurity and unpreparednefs of mind: And that, First in refpect of the Goodness Mercy, and Juftice of God, who, though with moft unblameable Juftice, yet with fingular Mercy, is very likely to fend affliction to awaken him and amend him, and to recal him from that tendency to Apoftafie, that fecurity is apt to bring upon him. Secondly, in refpect of the Malice and Vigilancy of the great Enemy of Mankind; who, as he never wants malice, fo he often gets a permiffion to worry a Man whom he hath under this disadvantage of unpreparedness and fecurity.

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defire it, the fpecial Grace and bleffed' Spirit to affift us, and a merciful Father to accept of our fincerity, and a gracious Saviour to pardon our failings and deficiencies. So that the way to attain Contentation in this life, and happiness in the life to come, as it is plain and certain, fo it is open and free, none is excluded from it, but it is free and open to all that are but willing to use this means to attain it.

And I fhall wind up all this long Difcourfe touching Contentation with this plain and ordinary Inftance. I have before faid that our Home, our Country is Heaven and everlafting happiness, where there are no forrows, nor fears, nor troubles, that this World is the place of our travel, and pilgrimage, and at the beft our Inn: Now when I am in my journey, I meet with feveral inconveniencies; it may be the way is bad and foul, the weather tempeftuous and flormy; it may be I meet with fome rough Companions, that either turn me out of my way, or all dafa and dirt me in it, yet I content my felf, for all will be mended when I come home: But if I chance to lodge at my Inn, there it may be I meet with bad entertainment, the Inn is full of Guefts, and I am thrust into an inconvenient Lodging, or ill Diet, yet I content my felf, and confider it is no other than what I have reafon to expect, it is but according to the common condition of things in that place; neither am I folicitous to furnifh my Lodgings with better accommodations, for I must not expect to make long ftay there, it is but my Inn, my place of repofe for a night, and not my home; and therefore I content my felf with it as I find it, all will be amended when I come home. In the fame manner it is with this World; perchance I meet with an ill and uncomfortable paffage through it, I have a fickly Body, a narrow Eftate, meet with affronts and difgraces, lofe my Friends, Companions and Relations, my best entertainment in it is but troublefome and uneafie: But yet I do content my felf; I confider it is but my Pilgrimage, my Paffage, my Inn; it is not my Country, nor the place of my Reft: This kind of ufage or condition is but according to the Law and Custom of the Place, it will be amended when I come home, for

The vigorous perpetuating of the remembrance of them, will be an effectual means to perpetuate the due fruit of them in their life, vigour, and intention.

A Good Method to Entertain Unstable and Troublesome TIME S.

"HE firft expedient is to Expect them before they come : The very ftate of the World is Uncertain and Unftable, and for the most part Stormy and Troublesome : If there be fome intervals of Tranquility and Sedateness, they are commonly attended with longer periods of Unquietness and Trouble: and the greatest impreffions are then made by them, when they furprize us, and come unexpected. When the mind is prepared for them by a kind of Anticipation, it abates the edge, and keennefs and fharpness of them. By this means a Man, in a great meafure, knows the worst of them before he feels them, which renders the very Incumbence of them not fo smart and troublesome to sense, as otherwise they would be. This Pre-apprehenfion and Anticipation of troubles and difficulties is the Mother of Prevention, where it is poffible; and where it is not, yet it is the Mother of Patience and Refolution when they come. Bilney the Martyr, was wont before he suffered, to put his Finger in the Candle, to habituate himself to patient undergoing of his future Martyrdom; by this means, he in a great meafure knew the worst of it, and armed himfelf with Resolution and Patience to bear it. Men are apt to feed their fancies with the Anticipation of what they hope for, and wish in this World, and to poffefs it in imagination before they attain it in fruition; and this makes Men Vain: but if they would have the Patience fometimes to anticipate what they have just cause to fear, and to put themselves under a Pre-apprehenfion of it, in relation to croffes and troubles; it would make them Wife, and teach them a leffon of Patience and Moderation, before they have occafion to ufe

it felf. This the Apoftles frequently reprove, and fhew the Error of it, and that juftly: For the truth of it is, our continuance in this life, and in our honeft Employments and Callings, our thankful ufe of external bleffings here, and our honeft endeavours for them; the endeavour to do good in our places, fo long as we continue in them; our prudent prevention of external evils, are part of that obedience we owe to our Maker, and part of that Exercife or Task that is given us by him to perform in this life, and our cheerful, faithful, diligent converfation herein, is fo far from being incompatible to Christianity, that it is part of our Chriftian Duty, and of that fervice we owe to our Maker; and it is indeed the exercife of our Patience, and the evidence of a contented Mind: For whofoever grows fo weary of the World, that prefently, with froward Jonah, he wifheth to die, or throws off all, it is a fign of want of that Contentation that is here commended; because true Contentation confifts in a cheerful and ready compliance with the Will of God, and not in a froward preference of our own Will or Choice. It was part of our Saviour's excellent Prayer for his Difciples, John 17. 15. I pray not that thou fhouldeft take them out of the World, but that thou shouldeft keep them from evil.

The business therefore of thefe Papers is to let you fee, what are the helps to attain Patience and Contentation in this World, that our paffing through it may be safe and comfortable, and agreeable to the Will of God, and to remedy that impatience and discontent which is ordinarily found among Men: to teach Men how to amend their lives, inftead of being weary of them; and to make the worit conditions in theWorld eafie and comfortable,by making the Mind quiet, patient, and thankful. For 'tis the difcontented and impatient Mind that truly makes the World much more uneafie than it is in it felf.

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