It is storied of a priest of Neptune, the reputed god of the sea among the heathens, that when he shewed to one of Neptune's votaries the many offerings hung up in his temple, of those that by their devotions to him had been saved from shipwreck ; the votary answered, " But where are the offerings "of the many more worshippers of Neptune, that "have perished in the waves of the sea, and been "lost in the deep?" But in the present case we may reverse the story. When men represent the many evils that they have suffered from our God, the only true God, so dismally as if their whole life had been a continual tragedy, and a perpetual scene of sorrow and calamity; we may justly bespeak every such person thus: But, O unthankful man! where are all the blessings that God hath bestowed on thee? where are all the good things thou hast received from thy God? Hast thou utterly lost the far greater catalogue of his mercies? Are these quite out of thy remembrance? For shame keep a better account of God's dealings towards thee, and let not one affliction, though very grievous, drown and swallow up an hundred mercies conferred on thee!

3. Consider that there is none of our days so evil, but that there is some mixture of mercy and of God's goodness in them. Pure and unmixed evil is the portion only of the damned, there is no such thing to be found on this side hell. In this life it is most certain, that God doth, as the prophet expresseth it, Hab. iii. 2. in wrath remember mercy, tempering our evils with something of good to allay them. At the same time we have reason to complain to God, we have no reason to complain of him, but much to praise and bless his holy name for those mercies,

which at that very time we enjoy from him. Generally if we ourselves are sick, our children and many of our friends and relations are well. When we want health, other circumstances for the most part occur to render our sickness more easy and supportable. If we lose our sight, our memory strangely serves to supply that sad defect. If we cannot see, we can hear; and if we cannot hear, we can see; and all our senses together seldom fail us, till death seize us as his prey. If one of our children miscarry, and prove a child of sorrow to us, another doth well, and is our joy and comfort. If some insult over our calamity, others pity and assist us in it. If some unjustly calumniate and reproach us, there are others that will do right to our reputation. And finally, there is no so grievous outward affliction befalling any of God's faithful servants, but that there is still an answerable inward assistance and comfort administered from God to support him under it: that promise of God to St. Paul being not peculiar to him, but extending itself to every good man in the same or the like circumstances, 2 Cor. xii. 9. My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

4. And lastly, consider that adversity is needful to correct the errors of prosperity. If we knew how to use our good days well, we should have none, or fewer evil days. But, alas! we do not. The art of using prosperity aright, none of us are perfectly skilled in; and therefore it is necessary that days of adversity should be intermingled with our days of prosperity, that the one might remedy the evils of the other. For,

1. If all our days were days of prosperity, we

should be apt to look on prosperity either as a debt due to our very nature, or as the portion of our fate, not acknowledging the free goodness of God as the fountain of it. But on the other side, whenever and anon we taste of adversity, we are thereby convinced, that prosperity is no inseparable property of our nature, or necessary effect of our fate and destiny, but the gift of some free cause, that one while distributes good things to us, another while evil things, as he pleaseth; i. e. the gift of God.

2. If all our days were days of prosperity, without interruption, we should not duly prize our prosperity, nor taste the fuller sweetness of it. For such is our folly, that we learn to prize good things, chiefly by our want of them, and by experience of the evils opposite to them: Contraria juxta se posita, &c. "Contraries set against and compared with "each other, appear in their clearest colours." How sweet doth health taste and relish after a sharp and tedious sickness! How doth that man rejoice in a moderate fortune, as if it were riches and abundance, that is newly emerged and crept out of want and poverty! How welcome is our own home, though but homely, after durance in a house of imprisonment! How doth that man prize his safety, and the very liberty of treading firmly on the common earth, that hath newly escaped the danger of shipwreck! In a word, how thankful are we even for common mercies, after we have learned the worth of them, by a dear and sad want of them!

3. If we ourselves knew no adversity, we should be unapt to pity others in their adversity, which yet is a great duty incumbent on all Christians. We shall never know how to compassionate the evils

that our brethren suffer, unless we ourselves have some time or other felt the very same or the like evils ourselves. Christ himself, as man, learned compassion to his brethren by his own sufferings, Heb. ii. 17, 18. How much more do we sinners need this experience, to make us pitiful and compassionate to others in their calamity!

4. If we never saw any days of adversity, we should want an occasion and opportunity of exercising some of our chiefest virtues, and consequently of receiving the fuller reward of them. What occasion of patience in suffering evils, if no evil happened to us! What opportunity of submitting to God's will, if things still fell out according to our own!

5. If we knew no adversity, we should want one of the surest trials, and consequently the certain comfort of our sincerity. The day of adversity is the day of trial, whether our religion towards God be sound at the bottom. If we can still love God, even when he smites us, and writes bitter things against us, and seems to hate us; if we can still trust on him, and cleave to him, though he seem to slay us, (as Job expresseth it,) then is our love to him, and trust on him, sincere and solid. And from the knowledge of our sincerity, a far greater comfort arises to us, than all our worldly prosperity can possibly afford us. Nay, this will sweeten our succeeding prosperity; for if we find that we have loved God in adversity, we may be sure that our following prosperity is an effect of his love to us.

6. And lastly, if all the days of our life were days of prosperity, we should certainly love this life too much, and set our hearts upon this present world, not minding or seeking after, as we ought, the

things of a better life. And therefore God hath so tempered the occurrences of this life, so mingled our days of prosperity with intervening days of adversity, that we should not fix our habitation or place our happiness here; but that we should so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. If without interruption we enjoyed our imaginary heaven here, we should never at all, or very carelessly, mind and seek after our real heaven hereafter; and so should be undone for

ever.

Upon all these accounts it is apparent, that there is a great deal of justice, equity, wisdom, yea and goodness of God, in that providence of his, whereby he hath set the day of adversity against the day of prosperity, intermingling the occurrences of this life with good and evil.

I shall now conclude my whole discourse upon this text with a short exhortation.

Let us all wisely accommodate ourselves to this mixed providence of God; and under which soever of its dispensations we are or shall be, whether that of prosperity, or the other of adversity, let us endeavour to do our duty, and to answer the design of Providence therein. When we are in a prosperous state, let us rejoice and be thankful; but let our joy be moderate, remembering that adversity may, and some time or other will come upon us, and accordingly preparing ourselves for it. It is a common vanity of men in prosperity, to depend too much upon its stability and continuance, to grow secure, and lay aside all due and serious thoughts of future troubles. Even holy David confesses himself to have been some time guilty of this folly, Psalm xxx. 6, 7.