O it is good to attend to these works of God, and study the meaning of them!

2. The providences of God may be observed to conduce to our holiness, not only by preventing sin that we may not fall into it, but also by purging our sins when we are fallen into them. Not that they can purge us from sin by their own power, for if so those who have most afflictions would have most grace also: but it is in the virtue of Christ's blood, and God's blessing upon afflictive providences, that they purge us from sin. A cross without Christ never did any man good.

3. Holiness is promoted in the soul by cautioning and warning the soul against sin for time to come. "I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more." O happy providences, how severe soever, that make the soul for ever afraid of sin ! Surely such rods are well bestowed. If a man has been under a sanctified rod, which has showed him the evil of sin and kindly humbled him for it, and a temptation should again solicit him to the same evil, Why, thinks he, what madness is it for me to buy repentance at so dear a rate! Have I not smarted enough already? You

may as well ask me, whether I will run again into the fire, after I have been already scorched in it?

4. Providences greatly promote holiness by drawing the soul into the presence of God, and giving it the opportunity and occasion of much communion with him. Comfortable providences will do this; they will so melt a man's heart in love to the God of his mercies, that he cannot be quiet till he has found a place to pour out his soul in thankfulness to the Lord, 2 Sam. vii. 18. Afflictive providences also will drive us to the feet of God, and there make us judge and condemn ourselves. And all this has an excellent use to destroy sin and promote holiness in the soul.

X. The consideration and study of Providence will be of singular use to us in a dying hour.

You find when Jacob died, what reflections he had upon the dealings of God with him in the various providences of his life, Gen. xlviii. 3, 16. In like manner, you find Joshua recording the providences of God, when at the brink of the grave, Joshua xxiv. And I cannot but think it

a sweet close to the life of any Christian. It must needs sweeten a death-bed to recount there the several remarkable passages of God's care and love to us from our beginning to that day; to reflect upon the mercies that went along with us all the

way, when we are come to the end of it. O Christians, treasure up these instances for such a time, that you may go out of the world blessing God for all the goodness and truth he has performed to you all your life long.

Now meditation on these things must needs be of great use in that day, if you consider the following particulars.

1. The time of death is the time when souls are usually most violently assaulted by Satan with horrid temptations and suggestions. He never exerts his utmost rage till the last encounter; and then his great design is to persuade the saints that God loves them not, has no care nor regard for them nor their cries. But what credit can these plausible tales of Satan obtain with a Christian who has been treasuring up, all his life long, the memorials of God's tender regard both to his wants and prayers, and who has carefully

noted the evident returns of his prayers, and the gracious condescensions of God to him, from his beginning to that moment? I am sure, says he, that God has had a tender, fatherly care for me ever since I became his; he never failed me yet in any former strait; and I cannot believe he will do so now. I know his love is like himself, unchangeable. John xiii. 1. "This God is my God for ever and ever; he will be my guide even unto death." Did he love me in my youth, and will he cast me off in my age?

2. At death the saints are engaged in the last and one of the most eminent works of faith, even the committing of themselves into the hands of God when they are launching forth into a vast eternity, and entering into that new state which will make so great a change upon them in a moment. There are two signal and remarkable acts of faith, both exceedingly difficult, its first act and its last. The first is a great venture that it makes of itself upon Christ; and the last is a great venture too, to cast itself into the ocean of eternity upon the credit of a promise. But yet I think that the first adventure of the

soul upon Christ, is much more difficult than the last adventure upon death; and what makes it so is, in a great measure, the manifold recorded experiences that the soul has been gathering up from the day of its espousals to Christ unto its dying day, which is, in a sense, its marriage-day. O with what encouragement may a Christian throw himself into the arms of that God, with whom he has so long conversed and walked in this world; whose visits have been sweet and frequent, with whom the soul has contracted so intimate acquaintance; to whom he has committed all his affairs and still found him a faithful God, and now has no reason to doubt but that he shall find him so in his last distress and exigence also!

3. At death the people of God receive the last mercies that ever they shall receive in this world by the hand of Providence, and are immediately to make up their accounts with God for all the mercies that ever they received from his hand. What can be more suitable therefore to a dying person than to recount with himself the mercies of his whole life, the manifold receipts of favor for which he is to reckon