Thus )^ou see what care providence hath had over your souls iri preventing the spiritual dangers and miseries that else woidd have befallen you in the way of temptations : In the next place I wili shew you, that it hath been no less careful for your bodies, and with how great tenderness it Imth carried them in its arms through in- numerable hazards and dangers also *. He is called " the keeper *' of Israel, that never slumbereth nor sleepeth," Psal. cxxi. 4. " The •' preserver of men,'"* Job vii. 20. To display the glory of his pro- ■vidence before you, let us take into consideration the perils into which the best of men sometimes fall, and the ways and means by which providence preserves them in those dangers.
There are manifold hazards into which we are often cast in this world. The apostle Paul gives us a general account of his dan- gers, in 2 Cor. xi. 26. And how great a wonder is it that our lives have not been extinguished in some of those dan^-ers w^e have been m ? For,
(1.) Have not some of us fallen, and that often into very dan- gerous sicknesses and diseases, in which we have approached to the very brink of the grave ? and have, or might have said with Heze-
kiah, Isa. xxxviii. 10. " I said in the cutting off <> t u ••• -to «c / 1 T 1, 11 ^ ^1 ^ P^x. aV^?^ Jobxxxni. 18.
•' OT my days 1 shall go to the gates or the •.^. ^^ ^^ ^ qo
*' grave : I am deprived of the residue of my ? ? 5 ^ ^' years."' Have we not often had the sentence of death in our- selves ? And our bodies at that time been like a leaky ship in a »torm (as one -f- aptly resembles it) that hath taken in water on; every side, till it was ready to sink ? yet hath God preserved, ca- reened, and launched us out again as well as ever. O what a vonder is it that such a crazy J body should be preserved for so many years, and survive so many dangers f surely, it is not more ad- mirable to see a Venice-glass pass from hand to hand, in a continual use for forty or fifty years, and still to remain whole, notwithstanding
* Providential preventions of bodily dangers, Psal. xvii. 8. Thou keepest me as the apple (yf thine eye. — The eye hath five tunics to guard it against danger. (I.) A- ranea tunica., like a spider's web. (2.) lietijormis, like a net. (3.) Uvea, like a berry. (4.) Cornea^ like an horn. (5.) Adnata tunica^ the cover, or lid of the eye : Here is guard upon guard, resembling the various v?ays providence bath to secure ns from ruin.
•j- Mr. Thomas Goodwin, in his aggravation of sin against mercy, p. 50.
f Tlie eye is but a small part of the body, yet physicians reckon no less than thirty diseases incident to it. The leucmna, glauco77ia, lippitudoy xerophthalmia, Jicus^ tithiaih^ epiphora ; and in short thirty of these kinds of diseases.
tHE MYSTEllY OF PliOVIDEXCE. 40S
thany knocks and falls it hath had. If you enjoy health, or reco- ver out of sicknesses, it is because he puts none of those diseases upon thee^ or because lie is the Lord thy physician^ Exod. xv. 26.
(2.) And how many deadly dangers hath his hand rescued some of you from in those years of confusion and public calamity, when the sword was bathed in blood, and made horrid slaughter, when it may be, your lives were often given you for a prey ? This Da- vid put a special remark upon, Psal. civ. 7. " O God the Lord, the " strength of my salvation ; thou hast covered my head in the day *' of battle."
Beza being in France in the first civil war, and there tossed up and down for twenty-two months, recorded six hundred deliver- ances from dangers in that space, for which he solemnly gave God thanks in his last testament If the sword destroyed you not, it was because God did not give it a commission so to do.
(3.) Many of you have seen wonders of salvation upon the deeps where the hand of God hath been signally stretched forth for your rescue and deliverance. This is elegantly expressed in Psal. cvii. 23, 24?, 25, 26, 27. (which I have elsewhere opened at large * ) concerning which yoti may say, in a proper sense what the Psalmist doth metaphorically, Psal. cxxiv. 1, 4. " If it had not been the " Lord who was on our side, then the waters had overwhelmed *' us, the streams had gone over our soul." To see men that have spent so many years upon the seas (where your lives have conti- nually hung in suspense before you) attain to your years when you could neither be reckoned among the living nor the dead (as sea- men are not :) O what cause have you to adore your great Pre- server ! Many thousands of your companions are gone down, and you yet here to praise the Lord among the living. You have bor- dered nearer to eternity all your days than others, and often been in imminent perils upon the seas; surely such, and so many salvations, call aloud upon you for most thankful acknowledg- ments.
(4.) To conclude ; how innumerable hazards and accidents (the least of which have cut off others) hath God carried us all through ! I think I may safely say, your privative and positive mercies of this kind ai'e more in number than the hairs of your heads. Many thousands of these dangers we never saw, nor were made particu- larly sensible of; but though we saw them not, our God did, and brought us out of danger before he brought us into fear. Some have been evident to us, and those so remarkable, that we cannot think or speak of them to this day, but our souls are freshly affect* ed with those mercies.
* See my Seamen's Companion.
404 DIVINE CONDUCT ; Oil,
It is recorded of our famous * Jewel, that about the beginning of Queen Mary's reign, the inquisition taking hold of him in Oxford, he fled to London by night ; but providentially losing the road, he escaped the inquisitors who pursued him: However he fell that night into another imminent hazard of life ; for, Meandering up and down in the snow, he fainted, and lay starving in the way, panting and labouring for life, at which time Mr. Latimer's servant found and saved him.
It were easy to multiply examples in this kind, histories abound- ing with them ; but I think there are few of us, but are furnished out of our own experience abundantly ; so that I shall rather chuse to press home the sense of these providences upon you, in order to a suitable return to the God of your mercies for them, than add more instances of this kind. To this purpose I desire you seriously to weigh the following particiUars :