portioned fatisfactions, our speech and our perceptions, our acts of life, the rare invention of letters, and the use of writing or speaking at a distance, the intervals of reft and labour, (either of which, if they were perpetual, would be intolerable), the needs of nature and the provifions of providence, fleep and bufinefs, refreshments of the body and entertainments of the foul, -These are to be reckoned as acts of bounty rather than mercy; God gave us these when he made us, and before we needed mercy; these were portions of our nature, or provided to supply our confequent neceffities: But when we forfeited all God's favour by our fins; then, that they were continued or reftored to us became a mercy, and therefore ought to be reckoned upon this new account.

For it was an extraordinary mercy, that we were fuffered to live at all, or that the anger of God did permit to us one bleffing, or that he did punifh us fo gently: But when this anger is turned into kindness, and this punishment into bleffing, these

are

are fteps of a mighty favour, and redemption from our fin. And the returning back our own goods to us in this cafe, is a gift, fweetened by the apprehenfions of the calamity we had to fear.

And thus it was that God punished man, and vifited the fin of our first parents upon their pofterity. He threatened that we should die, and fo we do, but not fo as we deferve. We wait for death, and stand fentenced, and are daily fummoned by fickneffes and uneafineffes; and every day is a new reprieve, and brings a new favour, certain as the revolution of the fun upon that day; and at laft, when we muft die by the irreversible decree, that death is changed into a fleep, and that fleep is in the bofom of Chrift, and there dwells all peace and fecurity, and it fhall pass forth into glories and felicities. We looked for a judge, and behold an advocate; we laid down in forrow, and shall rife in joy.

And that is the first confideration: All the bounties of the creation became mercies to us, when God continued them to

us, and restored them after they were forfeited. But,

2dly, As a circle begins every where, and ends no where, fo do the mercies of God; after all this huge progress, now it began anew: God is good and gracious; and God is ready to forgive. Now that he had once more made us capable of mercies, God had what he defired, and what he could rejoice in, fomething upon which he might pour forth his mercies. God made us capable of one fort of his mercies, and we made ourselves capable of another. God is good and gracious, that is, defirous to give great gifts: And of this God made us receptive, firft, by giving us natural poffibilities, that is, by giving those gifts he made us capable of more; and next, by reftoring us to his favour, that he might not by our provocations be hindered from pouring down his mercies upon us. But God is alfo ready to forgive: And of this kind of mercy we unhappily made ourfelves capable, even by not deferving it.

Our fin made way for his grace, and our infirmities called upon his pity; and because we finned, we became miferable; and because we were miferable, we became pitiable; and this opened the other treasure of his mercy; that because our fin abounds, his grace may much more abound.

3dly, The next order of divine mercies that I fhall remark, is alfo an improvement of our nature, or otherwise beneficial to it: For whereas our conítitution is weak, our fouls apt to be hindered in their operations, our bodies fubject to imperfection, to forrows and evil accidents; God hath in his infinite mercy provided for every condition extraordinary Supplies of comfort and usefulness, to make recompence, and fometimes with an over-running proportion, for those natural defects, which were apt to make our perfons otherwife contemptible, and our condition intolerable,

God gives to blind men better memories, He that wants one eye, hath the

force and vigorousness of both united in that which is left. And whenever any man is afflicted with forrow; his reafon and his religion, himself and all his friends, perfons that are civil and persons that are obliged, run in to comfort him: and he may, if he will obferve wifely, find fo many circumftances of eafe and remiffion, fo many defigns of providence and studied favours, fuch contrivances of collateral advantage, and certain referves of fubftantial and proper comfort; that, in the whole fum of affairs, it often happens, that a fingle cross is a double bleffing, and that (even in a temporal fenfe) it is better to go to the house of mourning than of joys and feftivity.

The affliction of poverty is oftentimes better, than the profperity of a great and tempting fortune. Wifdom dwells frequently in a mean and low eftate, in retired thoughts, and under an humble roof, And is it not generally true, that fickness itfelf is attended and recompenfed with religion and holy thoughts, with pious refo

lutions