(2.) Your sin is greater than the sin of young heathens and In- Jidels ; and so will your account be also. O better (if a wicked child) that thou hadst been the off-spring of savage Indians, nay, of beasts, than of such parents ! So many counsels disobey- ed, hopes and prayers frustrated, will turn to sad aggravations.
(3.) It is usual with God, to retaliate men's disobedience to their parents in kind : Commonly our own children shall pay us home for it. I have read in a grave Author of a wicked wretch that dragged his father along the house : The father begged him not to draw him beyond such a place ; Jbr, said he, ' I dragged my ' father no farther.' O the sad, but just retributions of God !
And for you, in whose hearts grace hath been planted by the blessing of education, I beseech you to admire God's goodness to you in this providence. O what an happy lot hath God cast for you ! How few children are partakers of your mercies \
See that you honour such parents : the tie is double upon you so to do. Be you the joy of their hearts, and comfort of their lives, if living : If not, yet still remember the mercy while yon live, and tread in their pious paths ; that you and they may both rejoice together in' the great day, and bless God for each other to all eternity.
376 PIVINE CONPUCT ; OB,
The fourth performance of providence.
IV. The next remarkable performance of providence for the peo^ pie of God which I will instance^ shall he zvith respect to its ordering the occasions, instruments and means of their conversion.
In nothing doth provicUnce shine forth more gloriously in this world than it doth in this performance for the people of God. How curiously soever its hand had moulded your bodies, how ten- derly soever it had preserved them, and how bountifully soever it had provided For them ; if it had not also ordered some means or other for your conversion, all the former favours and benefits it had done for you, had signified little. This, O this is the most excellent benefit you ever received from its hand. You are more beholden ^o it for this, than for all your other mercies. And in opening this performance of providence, I cannot but think your hearts must be deeply affected. This is a subject which every gra- cious heart loves to steep its thoughts in. It is certainly the sweet- est liistory that ever they repeated : they love to think and talk of it. The places where, and instruments by whom this work was wrought are exceedingly endeared to them for the word's sake : yea, endeared to that degree, that, for many years after, their hearts have melted when they have but passed occasionally by those places, or but seen the faces of those persons that were used as instruments in the hand of providence for their good. As nq doubt, but * JacoVs Bethel was ever after that night sweet to his thoughts ; so other saints have had their Bethefs as well as he. O blessed places, times and instruments | O, the deep, the sweet impressions, never to be razed out of the memory or heart, that this providence hath made upon those on whom it wrought this blessed effect at years of discretion, and in a more sensible way !
But lest any poor soul should be discouraged under the display of this providence, because he cannot remember the time, place, instruments, and manner wherein, and by which conversion-work was wrought ; I will therefore premise this necessary distinction, to prevent injury to some, whilst I design benefit to others.
Conversion, as to the subjects of it, may be considered two ways ; either as it is more sensibly wrought in persons of riper years, who in their youthful days were more profane and vile; or upon perr sons in their tender years, into whose hearts grace was more in- sensibly and indiscernably instilled, by God's blessing upon pious edi;cation. In the former sort, the distinct acts of the Spirit, as illuminating, convincing, humbling, drawing- them to Christ, and
THE MYSTERY OF mOVIDEXCE. 377
wsealing them, are more evident and disccrnablo ; in the latter, more obscure and confused ; they can remember, that God gave them an esteem and Hking of godly persons, care of duty, and consci- ence of sin ; but as to the time, place, instruments, and manner of the work, they can give but a slender account of them : how- ever^ if the work be savingly wrought in them, there is no reason they should be troubled, because the circumstances of it are not so evident to them as they are to others. Let the substance and reality of the work appear, and there is no reason to afflict your- selves because of the inevidence of such circumstances.
But yet where the circumstances as well as substance are clear to a man ; when we can call to remembrance the time when, the place where, the instrument by whom the work was wrouglit, it must needs be exceeding sweet ; and they cannot but yield a fresh delight to the soul every time they are reflected upon.
There are many of the following occasions, which, it may be, we took for stragglers^ when they first befel us : but they proved scouts, sent out from the main body of providence, which they make way for.
Now there be divers things in those providences, that are ver- sant about this work, which are exceeding sweet and taking : As, namely,
1. The wonderful st7'ange7iess and unaccountableness of this work of providence, in casting us into the way, and ordering the occa- sions, yea, the minutest circumstances about this work. This you find in Acts viii. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, &c. The Eunuch, at that very instant when he was reading the prophet Isaiah, hath an inter- preter, one among a thousand, that joins his chariot, just as his mind was by a fit occasion prepared to receive the first light of the knowledge of Christ.
And how strange was that change (how far soever it went) upon Naaman the Syrian! recorded, 2 Kings v. 1, 2, 3, 4. that the Syrians in their incursions should bring away this girl, (likely her beauty was the inducement) and she must be presented to Naaman^s wife, and relate to her the power of God that accom- panied the Prophet ; though you find in that particular case there had never been an instance given before ; Luke iv. 27. Doubtless the whole of this affair was guided by the signal direction of pro- vidence.
So for the conversion of the Samaritans it is observed, John iv. 4. Christ must needs go that way, i. e. it lay just in the road be- twixt Judea and Galilee ; and that at the sixth hour, i. e. high noon, he rests himself upon Jacob's well, still seeming to have no other design but his own refreshment by sitting and drinking there. But O what a train of blessed providences follow tliisj,
378. DIVINE CONDUCT ; OR,
which seemed but an accidental thing ! first the woman of Sama- ria, and then many more in that city are brought to beheve in Christ, as you find verses 29 and 41.