638 ENCOVRAGIN,G MERCIES. go down to the pi. We have been on the very brink of death, and beholdwe live. Let us recount the wonders óf his mercy towards us let our hearts be filled with gratitude, and our lips with his high praises ; blessed be the name of the Lord our God, our feeder, our preserver, our healer. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise ye the Lord. Secondly. We are often dying with regard to the cou- rage of our hearts, our hope and comforts in this life, andyet beholdwe live. When outward troubles surround us, how do our hearts sink within us, and our life is ready to fail us. We give all over for lost, and our hopes are ready to expire. How do we faint under every fresh affliction, every new burden presses us down almost to the grave. One loss comes upon the back of another, poverty stares us in the face, all meagre and in tattered raiment ; at the ap- prehension of its frightful appearance we are ready to drop into the dust. How shall I provide for myself and my household? Our paths"are beset with thorns and snares, our distress is great, our friends forsake us utterly, and perplexing circumstances attend us, overwhelming trials and over- whelming fears; Our enemies rise up against us, ever watchfur and ever malicious. As David flying like á partridge to the mountains. Psal. cxlii. Refuge failed rne, no man cared for my soul: I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul. 1 Sam. xxvii. 1. Or reproach bath broken my'heart, and my soul is poured out in the dust. Psal. lxix, 20. My heart seems dying within me. Notwithstanding all these distresses, our hearts are not broken : notwithstanding all these deaths, " yet be- hold we live." God, even our God, bath preserved us. I. By some unforeseen and unexpected turns of pro- vidence, changing the scene of things, in a short time scattering the clouds, and giving us fair and shining sky. Amos v. 8. 'Sometimes he makes the day dark as the night, and then he turns the shadow of death into the morning, and by the paths of the grave leads us to life and joy, There are strange revolutions of the right hand of the Most High ; he changes enemies into friends, and makes a curse work into -a blessing. Deut. xxiii. 5. He brings the blind by a way that they know not, and leads them in paths that they have not known: he makes' dark
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