Divine Conduct, or The Mystery of Providence

And we will consider it under a double respect or relation, as it respects your present comfort in this world, and as it relates to your eternal happiness in the world to come.

This performance of Providence for you, doth very much concern your present comfort in this world. All the rooms in this great house are not alike pleasant and commodious for the Inhabitants of it. You read Psal. 74. 20. of the dark places of the Earth, which are full of the habitatJonr of cruelty: and many such dismal places are found in the habitable Earth. What a vast tract of the world lies as a waste Wilderness?

Suppose your Mothers had brought you forth in America, among the Salvage Indians, who herd together as brute beasts; are scorched with heat, and starved with cold; being naked, destitute and defenceless. How poor, miserable and unprovided of Earthly comforts and accommodations, are many Millions of the Inhabitants of this world? What mercies do you enjoy in respect of the amenity, fertility, temperature and civility of the place of your habitation? What is it but a Garden enclosed out of a Wilderness? I may without partiality or vanity say, God hath (even upon temporal accounts) provided you with one of the healthfullest, pleasantest, and in all respects, the best furnished room in all the ⟨p. 41⟩great house of this world. Hear what our own Chronicler saith of it,¹ It is the fortunate Island, the Paradise of pleasure, the Garden of God; whose Valleys are like Eden, whose Hills are as Lebanon, whose Springs are as Pisgah, whose Rivers are as Jordan, whose Wall is the Ocean, and whose Defence is the Lord Jehovah.