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ENCOVRAGIN,G
MERCIES.
go down to
the
pi.
We have been
on the very
brink
of
death,
and
behold
we
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,
and
yet
behold
we 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