any stop as if the Sage ruler of all things took no cognizance of their actions and which is done parhaps from a foresight they will persevere to the end in wickedness and having performed acts of moral vertues God allowes them a little calm in this life But in our sense when God passes over as undiscerned our faults he remits them without punishment and so seems to have been a stranger to our misdeeds but yet he never doth this that is never turns away his Face from our sins unless we first turn our Face upon them placing them before our Eyes and touched with a horrour at their deformity abjure and protest against them having done this we must then expose that abstract of wonders Christ Jesus before the Eternal Father that his wounded body may serve as a bulwark to defend us and appease his angry looks which implies the aversion of his Face or fury from us Our penitent having in this manner made his way he hopes the effect will follow that God averting his Face in that act will give him an abolition of his crimes that so he may reap the fruit of a Holy penitential fear We kow St. Peter fared not the worse when prompted by a low esteem of himself he requested his Lord to withdraw from him because a sinner No more did the good Centurion lose any thing in acknowledging his little of merit to have his house blessed and made happy by Christ's presence So our Penitent's awful respect in declining the Face of his Creatour springing from a sense of his own unworthiness and believing his sins an object unfit for an Eye so pure and unstained may perhaps draw benedictions upon him and contribute in a large measure to his happiness Wherefore he goes on still repeating turn away thy face from my sins The Application From this discourse we may learn the agitations of a Soul which hath once been defiled with sin sometimes he Figures God unto him as an angry judge and is affrighted to appear before him then again as a purity so compleat and Essential that though he should be conscious of no guilt as having been cleansed and washed as white as Snow he dares not yet stand to the examen Nay on the contrary it makes him petition to have that face which is the joy of Angels to be diverted from him we must then in imitation of our penitent fix only to this comfort that humility repentance and reverential thoughts though they keep us here depressed and under hatches will at last render that face we would now decline through the terrour of our Sins amiable and pleasing into our possession whereon we may gaze and feed our glorifyed Senses for all Eternity Amen CHAP. XX. Et omnes iniquitates meas dele And wipe away all my iniquities ST Cyril of Alexandria saith in the jâ—…stification of a sinner are required certain previous dispositions amongst which he reckons up faith hope repentance and fear Whence I conceive the apprehension of our Holy Penitent lest God should fasten his regards upon his iniquities mentioned in the preceeding verse was initiative and preliminary to his present address That his iniquities may be wiped away St. Austin holds it a thing most rare that any should embrace Christian Religion who have not first received within them an impression of the fear of God That the Ninivites became Penitent and shrowded themselves under a veil of Sackcloth and Ashes The only cause was a fear of vengeance threatned them by the preaching of Jonas St. Hierom upon the First Chapter of Malachy sayes behold O Lord how the fear of punishment diverts us from evil and that the priviledge of being your Children arises from a servile apprehension Our Penitent was not ignorant of this when after a dread conceived of God's judgments he immediately proceeds as if prepared by that terrour to demand an abolition of his crimes Wipe away my iniquities Besides he here explicates himself more fully that in case he do procure the Face of God to be averted then he is confident the sequel will be an expulsion of sin by grace For it were absurd that faith love and other qualities inherent should be necessary to dispose us for pardon and yet the formal effect to be extrinsecal and a justice not ours but imputed to us St. Paul desides this in his Epistle to the Colossians Christ hath freed us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of the love of his Son Where you see the infusion of justice by which a Man becomes pious succeeds to the Remission of sin by which we cease to be impious and just as the Air by the same ray of the Sun hath not only its darkness expelled but also is filled with light so that true Son of Justice communicating unto Man his divine grace doth at once by this gift disperse the Clouds of sin and replenish him with the splendour of inherent Justice The same Apostlâ—… Rom. 5. takes away all doubt in this point saying that the grace of God is diffused into our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given unto us and that no mistake in this Text may happen St. Austin explicates it in this Sense The charity of God is said to fill our hearts not with that love by which he loves us but by â—heâ—…by which we love him It is then in this fountain of love which springs within us whose over-flowing streams arise from Christ's donation in these we are washed we are sanctifyed and made just by this regeneration we are said to become a new Creature and from an Enemy purchase the title of being the Son of God all which powerfully import a mutation and real change within us St. John in his First Epistle sayes he that doth justice is just Abel was just in that he sacrificed unto God with all the circumstances of homage due unto a supream Being Noah just in that he gave credit unto God feared his judgements and obeyed his commands St. Luke affirms Zachary and Elizabeth to be just from their compliance and obedience to Divine precepts so that it is clear the Principle of their justification was inherent and that nothing extrinsick or imputative can be the formal cause of our actions for if not issuing from something within us we cannot own them to be ours Our Holy Penitent filled with supernatural illustrations was not a stranger to Divine Lawes established in order to Man's conversion Wherefore he knew well his Petition to have his iniquities strook off involved the gift of grace by whose power alone they were to be destroyed Nay even Natural Reason will lead us to this Truth for justification is a motion from sin to justice whence its name is derived as calefaction from heat Now it is evident to expell cold will not be thought calefaction unless the quality of heat be introduced So the bare remission of sin cannot amount to an act of justification without the consecution
merits Hence it is that Jesus Christ being infinite in consideration of his person and his humanity being infinitely holy his actions are of an infinite value and merit If it be said his goodness is deficient in this ransom and that he contracted it only to some few St. John confounds them for speaking of the incarnation he seems transported with wonder and expresses it with a sic that is God so loved the World as he gave unto it his only Son Can we imagine then he loved it so little as to select a certain small number no no he loved it so much as he died for all There is no good person upon Earth who desires not out of charity all Men's Salvation and shall Jesus Christ the Saint of Saints be limited in this his charity St. Bridget in her Revelations recounts how Christ our Lord said once unto her I am much offended with those who say my Lawes are hard that I give not sufficient Grace to their observance and that my passion is to some no wayes beneficial by which they would ravish my goodness from me but at the latter day I will justify my self before the Angels and Saints and make it clear as the Sun there was no want on my part that there is not one Soul for whom I would not have endured as much as I have done for all and that the sole fault consists in the obliquity of their wills alwayes rebellious and contrary to mine St. Peter in his second Epistle Chap. 2. speaking of certain Reprobate Hereticks sayes They deny him by which they are redeemed and St. Paul 1 Cor. c. 8. Thus thy Brother will perish for whom our Lord and Saviour dyed Whence it followes a person may be damned for whom Christ offered up his death by consequence he dyed for the Reprobate The councel of Trent Sess 6. c. 3. Christ dyed for all though as to the benefit of his death those only receive it unto whom his passion is applyed The price of his blood was given then for all Men though the success be different some more some less partaking the fruit of his passion He is a Saviour then to all in some degree of redemption even to those he shall judge and condemn as St. Austin on the 53. Psalm He shall judge all the VVorld who hath payed the ransome for all the VVorld In which appears his magnificence and copious redemption that would dye for Souls whom he foreknew would resist the charms of his grace to the last and as much as lyes in them render his passion fruitless nay he gloryes in that he came for the greatest sinners promising cure to the most desperate diseases nay to the impious in case they will comply with his prescriptions To bring this a little more home St. Thomas sayes the passion of Jesus Christ is like to a ray of the Sun which though it be created for the benefit of the whole World yet all reap not advantage by it there being some of a melancholy reserved humour who effect darkness and shut up their doors and windowes against his beams so the passion and death of our Saviour is offered up for the universal good of all Men but many loving the darkness of sin keep themselves barricadoed from his benign influence resisting the light of Faith and other attractives of his love Thus you see all have power to save themselves though such only are effectually saved unto whom the passion of Jesus Christ by our happy concurrence with his sufficient Grace is communicated and applyed as in the Fifth Chapter to the Hebrews he is cause of Salvation unto all those who obey him Our Learned Doctor upon these grounds hath reason to hope that when he shall have deciphered unto the wicked the wayes of God how full of mercy and obliging sweetness they are they will lend their cooperation and consent to the movings of his grace bear part with their Saviour's passion that they may likewise share in his glory acknowledging with faith and love all that is done or to be done by them the effects of his grace and so apply to themselves Christ's merits and satisfaction And the impious shall be converted to thee Impiety in the strict acceptation imports Atheism and a shaking off all acknowledgement of a Deity its usual mates are prophaneness and impurity by which all things sacred are contemned and Man degenerates into a brute What a task is it then to reduce an impious person Whom neither the fear of a divinity doth awe nor the charms of holy things allure nor finally the shame of a base action can move St. Austin treating of such as are enslaved to this vice sayes they resemble in nature to a Feaverish Distemper which still creates a thirst though you throw in an Ocean of liquor so where the flames of impiety have once taken hold to stop the wastes of its fury passes the art of reason or eloquence for the impious have neither Eye nor Ear nor any sense which is not depraved and turns all into the malignity of its own humour I remember St. Chrysostom makes a query why Herod fell so barbarously upon the massacre of so many Infants for sayes he he either believed the Prophecy or believed it not if he gave no credit to it it was sottish in him to embrue his hands in so much blood any spark of judgement would have dictated he ought to have contemned and slighted it Again if he believed it was a real prophecy issuing from the decree of Heaven it must needs be inviolable and could not want its effect At last he solves the question and throwes it upon this that a Soul drenched in impiety is above all things the most infatuated she is so unhappy as where there is no impulse from abroad to precipitate herself into inevitable ruine nay fruitlesly to attempt odious and impossible things It is of these impious holy Job speaks when he gives a relation of their Maxims They say unto God retire from us we scorn the knowledge of your wayes what is the Omnipotent that we must serve him and what benefit arises if we pray unto him These are the familiar blasphemies which the impious belch forth the presence of God they decline shutting up all the Avenues of Faith and Charity by which he may enter unto them The knowledge of his wayes and Commandements they abhor because they are contrary to their works to his power they submit not faigning to believe he is not omnipotent because he is merciful Finally they offer not up their supplications unto him because they would ask what is not fit for his supream wisdom and goodness to accord Our great Minister in despight of all these exorbitancies promises yet to himself the reduction of these Monsters and hopes to shape them to the resemblance in which they were created in which undertaking we need not doubt but he used all the Topicks of authority and reason apt to convince and
shall I return thee in requital when I would praise thee an Abyss of Majesty exhausts in a moment all Encomiums and my Adorations appear nothing before thy Divine Essence could I unmake my self in deference to thee the Fountain of all Beings it were a poor homage to thy ineffable greatness Nay could I annihilate the whole World for thy glory yet would it nothing equal what thy immensity might justly exact But whilst I thus labour with my own poverty finding nothing created worthy thy acceptance behold the perfect oblation of thy Son a prodigious effect of mercy this I offer to thee he can best speak our gratitude who can only satisfie thy Justice since by this gift the very treasury of Heaven will be exhausted and the Earth enrich'd with a pure Sacrifice whose odour draws upon mankind a continued flood of mercies It is this eternal offering meant by our Petitioner when he mentions thy great mercy whose very thought and foresight at the distance of many ages replenished his heart with joy And if the expectation of him to come so transported what dilation of spiritual joy ought to invade us who now possess what they had only in hope who now reap a plentiful harvest of Salvation when before the World was blasted with sterility and doom'd to darkness untill the bowels of this great mercy were opened to store us with his light and grace Let us joyn our Petitions with Holy David and adore the wonders of this great mercy in which we behold humane flesh hypostasiated in a Divine nature a Creatour link'd to his Creature Death unto Life Glory unto Confusion and Iniquity stamped with Innocence And whilst we contemplate these admirable contrivances of the Divine Wisdom can they do less than ascertain us if we place in the Frontispiece of our supplications this compositum made up of so many contrarieties that our desires will take effect that under this Sanctuary we shall strike off all the scores of guilt and render a satisfaction as great as God can expect or require Hence you see how confidently every sinner may repeat with David Have mercy on me O God according to thy great mercy CHAP. III. Et secundùm multitudinem miserationum tuarum And according to the multitude of thy mercies OUr Holy Petitioner having expressed his relyance in general on Gods mercy next fixes upon its effects in particular and makes a series or list of all his mercies Wherein methinks I behold him just like one in desolation of Shipwrack fastning on a plank and though the storm continue darkness surround him and nothing but the Face of Death appears before his Eyes yet he remembers that many have been saved in his condition how some have been cast upon the shore others upon a Rock some by a passing Boat gathered up In fine he calls to mind a thousand wayes of preservation to consolate himself in this distress and every thought of hope makes him grasp with new fervour his floating support Even so I may say of our distressed Penitent his goodly Vessel of innocence was wreck'd dashed against the powerfull charms of a Woman from thence he was thrown into an Ocean of Sins where on all sides he beheld the menaces of eternal destruction in these perplexities he runs with his thought over all the passages of God's mercy from the World's beginning by the consideration of them a little to keep up his sinking Spirits He fails not to remember the mild proceeding of God with Adam in not punishing him irrecoverably as he had done the reprobate Angels but was contented to Exile him from the delicious place of his Creation and to expose him here to the Whirl-winds of passions in which contest if he proved faithful his reward was to be the same as first designed for him From thence he passes to the conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrah where though God's justice fell heavy upon those miscreants yet he layes it on their impenitency and admires his goodness that would notwithstanding have kept in his shafts of vengeance for the sake of ten just persons if that small number were but found in those populous Cities he goes on to the Ninivites and pleases himself to see them under the Lee born thitherby repentance even when the storm of God's wrath was ready to plunge them in an Abyss of ruine He insists much upon the prayer of Moses which still diverted the rigorous designs of God upon his people he fancies that every Groan and Sigh of his contributes something towards the making up of a brazen Serpent by whose Soveraign aspect his cauterized Soul might be unvenomed and made whole It was no small Consolation when he reflects on God's people in the Land of Egypt whose Oppression which their own Sins had drawn upon them was yet relieved at the rate of miracles and wonders and such as Israel had not seen And why all this But to make good his promise to Abraham Isaac and Jacob that he would never abandon a Truly-repenting Heart Thus he goes on enumerating a thousand other passages of God's mercy from the Worlds Creation until his time nor is he content with this but advances further displaying in his prophetick knowledge innumerable other effects of God's compassion to Mankind and at last begins to make this Application though he could not deserve to partake of his great mercy that is not only to have his guilt remitted but also to become the object of his choicest favours yet at least he hoped he might be hudled in amidst the multitude of his mercies How sweetly did those Attributes Divine resound in his Ears where God is stiled rich in mercies where his Mercy transcends all his other works and where his Goodness and Mercy are proclaimed inexhausted Sources He leaves not a Crany in the World unransacked and after the severest scrutiny finds and confesses there is no place destitute of his mercy no Creature that is not cheered and enlivened by the effects of his mercy this made him cry Lord when thou dost open thy hand all Creatures are filled with blessings and he tells us that every Being looks upwards depending on his Creatour and expects from him a seasonable supply of all wants Nay he excludes not Hell nor Souls doom'd to eternal flames from this mercy for he considers that God is bonus universis good to all and though his Justice have plunged them in that Calamitous State of misery yet that their torments are not more intense and in many circumstances aggravated they owe it to his mercy which still hath something to do even in the punishment of the highest offendours Having then survey'd Angels Man and sensible Creatures the Heavens Earth and Hell and found no Being that could in the least repine for want of mercy upon these reflections with just reason our Petitioner entitles them a multitude of mercies for on all sides they flow as from a natural Source Nor wonder that we have more Presidents of his
Death might not prey on a treasure that deserves to be immortal wherefore let us never cease to cry with our holy Penitent à peccato meo munda me cleanse me from my sin Amen CHAP. VII Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco Because I know my iniquity AFter all these supplications our Petitioner now comes to give a reason why so confidently he requires an Act of Grace At the first view it seems a strange one and to imply his greater guilt It is this because he knowes his iniquity Ignorance where the fact is palpable makes a great plea in offendours our criminal on the contrary acknowledges his trespass declares he knowes what he has done and from thence claims and pretends a rationality in his petition had he in lieu of this inserted a Repentance of his misdeeds a detestation of his past failings this might have carried some weight in order to a remission But we must reflect injuries done to God and Man are things very disparate and quite of another nature For I may consider many disobligations I have thrown upon my Neighbour and yet not retract in my will those ill Offices because I may have received the like from him and many humane Lawes have allowed this retaliation so that to retain a memory of the harms I have done to Man may signifie nothing of vertue or pious amendment But when I look upon any miscarriage in my Duty towards God this glance must needs reproach me of ingratitude there can be no pretence or shadow of excuse to justifie any failing towards the Divine Majesty Since we are overwhelmed on all sides with his favours and benedictions whence the Sequel of such a consideration inevitably will humble confound and cast us upon the storms of Repentance Our Petitioner therefore knowing his iniquity virtually declares by it he disowns what he hath done or rather owns it to be exorbitant and from this confession layes claim to his Justice which upon the conversion of a sinner engages to abolish and raise out of his memory all past iniquities Because I know my iniquity This knowledge evidences the return of Grace to his Soul In the 35. Psalm he describes his own condition in the state of sin My iniquities surrounded me and I could see nothing St. Austin exclaims against that day wherein he committed sin and questions whether he may call it day since he was involved in a profound obscurity and then he goes on saying he will rise and disperse the mists of his iniquities that he may see the fountain of all goodness Our Petitioner again in the 48. Psalm gives Man when enslaved by sin the title of Beast nay with something of aggravation assimilating him to a Foolish Beast He remembred how Adam after his fall was cloathed with Skins of Beasts which attire was but a Symbol of his Mind bestiatized and made Savage by transgressions St. Thomas speaking of those Clouds of darkness wherein poor sinners lye groveling sayes it proceeds from a propension bent upon evil aversed from God and deprived of grace The opposite beams then which fill our Souls with light and serenity must needs draw their source from a love of what is good an adhaesion to God and a sweet repossession of grace and in these splendours our Petitioner finds himself First they raise his Soul to an Object infinitely good and amiable and after vehement affections enkindled towards this Sovereign felicity his Eyes are unsealed and beholds the Ghastly shape of his sins which cast him into exclamations against his own unworthiness upon reiterated addresses for mercy and pardon and at last admitted into favour he learns by that inestimable gift under whose Dominion he now lives what it is to offend God how monstrous a thing sin is and therefore will not conceal his new acquired notions but proclaim Quoniam c. because I know my iniquity It was not an abstract knowledge of his iniquity he alledges for this may consist with the most innocent and spotless Soul and was found in Adam before his fall But 't is what he had learnt by dear experience he had tasted that Tree which imports knowledge of good and evil but alas far different from those pure Idaeas which reside in Souls that were never involved in the shades of sin for such survey with an intellect as it were Angelical the commands of God and in obedience to his Law make use of their knowledge but to avoid the prevarication But our Petitioner looks upon the deformity of sin in all its circumstances of the Abyss of ruine it drawes upon us and having with the Cananean cryed for mercy then he confesses his nakedness then he layes open his failings and blushes not at the knowledge of his iniquity because they are now washed in a Christal stream and their past horrours serve but to raise in him a detestation of them and to invite him at the same time to admire the Wisdom of God that thus by his penitential acts will manifest his Justice and lastly to praise his mercy that hath given him a perfect knowledge of his iniquity as a certain Land-mark to preserve him from future Shipwrack because I know my iniquity I remember the Prodigal Son when languishing in misery and perishing for hunger pitched only upon this remedy that he would tell his Father he had sined against Heaven and him In like manner our Petitioner layes aside the thought of any good he may have done offers to the view of his eternal Father all the wounds of his cauterized Soul and that he might engage himself to a compleat discovery confesses he is not ignorant but knowes all the Windings and extravagant progressions of his iniquity how they had led him from Adultery to Homicide thence to Pride Vanity and Sole reliance on his own greatness and power and when he had summed up all his ingratitudes he gives this account Domine opus tuum vivica illud Lord I know my Sin So likewise I know the temper of the delinquent how he is composed of frailties unable of himself to set his hand to any good vvork to any supernatural motion Wherefore he hopes this consideration may something take off and render his deviations less irregular Yet on the other side he will not flatter himself into a blameless condition he knows a support of Grace ever attended him amidst his predominant passions and smartest tryals by whose means he might have been victorious This brings him on his Knees and drawes from him an humble confession Because I know my iniquity It was this knowledge fixing him on the basis of humility which prepared him for those sublime and supernatural communications he afterwards received from his dear Creatour What are his Psalms but a Series of raptures and coelestial ravishments a Tabernacle of sacred mysteries vvith vvhich his understanding was fed that vve may see to vvhat pitch Man is capable of arising from this knowledge of our Sins How confidently did St.
should not want their protection Our Holy Penitent thought the best stratagem to fasten his God unto him was an humble acknowledgment of his fault joyned with a fervent prayer In the First part of his petition he had copiously set forth his own guiltiness and now he supplicates in a Subject the most grateful that can be to his Creatour for his delight is to be with the Sons of Men It was to draw the World unto him that he exalted himself upon the Cross his extended arms there sufficiently expressed with what dear embraces he would receive those that fly unto him with an humble and contrite heart His thirst there was not so much the effect of his torments as an excessive zeal for Man's Salvation How often hath he justifyed himself in his proceedings with Man insomuch as all his wisdom and love could not contrive more inducements than he hath set on foot to gain us to him and if he be continually rapping at our door can we think he will shut up the treasures of his holy spirit in despight of our importunity No no great Penitent fear not prefer your memorial it is only expected you ask and the grant is ready that his holy spirit shall not be taken from you A holy writer observes that God alwayes gives more than is asked of him Anna prayed for a Son God gave her one that was a Saint a Prophet and his chief favourite Solomon sued for wisdom to govern his People he received it not only to Rule but he was universally knowing besides an infinite store of wealth was bestowed upon him The Servant endebted ten thousand Talents demanded only a little forbearance and the whole debt was remitted to him wherefore our Penitent demanding only to keep what he already enjoyes by this providential act he not only secures his possession but gives earnest for a new supply Nay his goodness alwayes prevents the prayer of the afflicted giving them ease of their griefs before they ask his help resembling that fountain which calls and invites the thirsty to drink or like that Tree which bending its bowes offers its fruits unto gathering hands when ripe so that God's love needs no baits to allure his favours from him an affectionate heart doth more with him then all the charms in nature It is true St. Austin distinguishes between a willing a thing and a willing it stoutly and entirely But we have all reason to judge the velleity of our Penitent was fervent and efficacious when he hath so much confidence as to call God to witness of it Tu scis Domine omne desiderium meum ante te that he had exposed before him all the motions of his heart and left him to be judge whether any circumstance was wanting that might hinder the effect of his petition as not to be deprived of his holy spirit St. Austin sayes were it impossible for a sinner to hide himself from God he would advise him to get into some abstruce retreat and there lye close till the Cloud of his anger be blown over but since this cannot be done his best way to escape God's hands is to put himself into his hands and prostrate himself at his feet Our Penitent then is not ill advised that being already enrolled in the list of his retinue to endeavour to prevent his dismission by a non auferes à me For he hath many advantages whilst he is in which will be lost if once cashier'd Now he hath the Ear of his Sovereign can discourse his case with him and purchase a good word from many powerful friends but if once discarded like a desolate Orphan he will find no refuge Besides though God beheld in his all-seeing prospect the treachery of Judas and ingratitude of the Jews yet to cut off all matter of excuse he obliged them with all the endearings imaginable why shoul not then our Penitent hope to dwell in the lasting enjoyment of this divine spirit since he is resolved for the future to be led by his holy dictamens he will seek his Salvation with ineffable groans it is St. Pauls expression of such as are guided by the Holy Ghost he will with the Prophet Jeremy cry out for a fountain of tears that he may bewail as he ought his own and his peoples sins and since this divine spirit communicates himself in so many different wayes unto Creatures he begs he may return himself a gift and oblation to God by every thing that is capable of Action that by a constant and unwearied motion in his service this seed of glory he now possesses may at last conduct him to the beatifick vision where he shall no more apprehend what is now the subject of his Fear To have his holy spirit taken from him The Application St. Ambrose sayes that no man in this life can be long secure from falling into sin for whom the Devil cannot lay prostrate at the first attack he presses with redoubled assaults and leaves no stratagem unessayed to work his end In this warfare our Holy Penitent was not a Novice he knew there was no place in Man impregnable unless fortified by God's Holy Spirit This he expresses in another Psalm If you withdraw sayes he your spirit we shall presently resolve into dust that is corruption from whence we came For grace is a motion in the understanding and will to wit a certain action in both these powers which soon passes away unless fixed by a continued influence of his favours Wherefore we must take the admonition of St. Paul and be wary that the grace of God prove not a liberality in vain bestowed upon us But that we make the right use of it which is the remission of our sins and a passage unto eternal life CHAP. XXV Reddite mihi laetitiam salutaris tui Restore unto me the joy of thy Salvation IT is not methinks easy to determine whether Man be more unfortunate in not having a discerning faculty of misery or through the mistakes he falls into about the object of his felicity How many have been seen to languish and pine away under an accident which they looked upon as their ruine and yet it proved their making whilest others again have triumphed and made jubilyes for seeming blessings that in the end became fatal to them who would not have looked upon the Patriarch Joseph when sold to the Madianites but as a slave and an abortive of fortune and yet without this cruelty of his Brethren in all likelyhood he had never handled the Scepter of Egypt Again who would not have envyed the success of our Penitent against Goliah and yet this glorious victory occasioned unto him a life full of disturbance for many years how to preserve himself This uncertainty in the event of things is managed no doubt by a special providence to teach us we ought to bear a temper unalterable amidst the various occurrences of this life not to be too much transported with joy nor cast down