Winter meditations directions how to employ the leisure of the winter for the glory…

IV. The Merciful Words of God, which provides for our NECESSITIES IN THE WINTER are very manifold, and it becomes us to take a most Thankful Notice of those many Mercies. When our God Seals up our •im••, in the Winter, He Opens His own Hand, in our Literal Supplies for the Winter; and we should so Know those Works of God, as to be Thankfully Affected with them.

The Winter it self, That is not without much of Mercy in it. It is our Winter particularly, which for divers Months in the Year, […] a better Defence unto us against Foreign Invasions, than all the Sconces and Castles wherewith we could be Fortified. Doubtless the Polanders thought their Cold was a kindness unto them, when in an Army of seventy Thousand Turks Invading them, Forty Thousand suddenly perished, by the Severity of the Cold, tho' it were but the Month of November with them. Truly, in the Month of November the Cold begins none of the least preservatives also for us New-En••anders! And who ⟨p. 40⟩can say, How many Epidemical Diseases have by our Winter been Extinguished? Our Cold precipitates the Vapours which would else Thicken and Poison our Air, and by Freezing the Surface of the Earth, i• keeps in many malignant Steams, that otherwise would thence arise to Suffocate us. It is called for, in Psal 148.8 Praise the Lord, ye Hail, and Snow, and Vapour, and Stormy Wind. It seems, they that have much, of the Hail, the Snow, the Vapour, may find something in them, for which they should Praise the Lord. The Psalmist says, God giveth Snow like W••l; the Snow, is as a goodly white Robe on the Body of the Earth, whereby •is cherished, with a Nitr•us Impregnation, for Fruitfulness in the Year Ensuing. Thuanns tells us, That sometimes it has Rained Corn; and indeed, what Corn should we have, if all Rain were denied unto us? It was Miraculous, when God after a sort Rained first Bread and then Flesh, for Israel of old; He does it in Effect to: us continually.