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denying, forgiving supposed errors and wrongs: Laying aside inconvenient or unreasonable disgusts; not letting anger to rest in your bosoms; and that however God may further try you in these things, that a spirit of patience and quiet submission to any such dispensation as is according to God's will, may ever possess you, while you both render to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and to God the things which are God's. But your great business is with God, and the most proper advice I have to offer therein is,

Get and be of a poor and contrite spirit and trembling at the word of God. Let your hearts come down and lie low before God and as the sheep of his hand hear his voice. Ps. xcv. 6-8. "O come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand to-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart as in the provocation and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness." It is hardness and haughtiness of men's hearts that makes all divine exhortations ineffectual. Oh beware of it in the least degree of it! Consider what God hath done to stain the glory of all flesh : He will have no flesh to glory in his presence. Consider "the axe is now laid to the root of the tree." Matt. iii. 10. If we will not lower to bring forth the fruit of true humiliation and repentance, we shall be laid low, even to the ground: But those that tremble when the axe is at the root of the tree, when judgment is gathering in the cloud, God will look to them, that the axe shall not cut them down, nor the storm sweep them away. God will be to them a sanctuary. Isa. viii. 13, 14. "Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, and he shall be for a sanctuary." And they shall have rest in the day of trouble, either by escaping, or having full support under it. Hab. iii. 15, 16. "Thou didst walk through the sea with thy horses, through the heap of great waters. When I heard, my belly trembled: my lips quivered at the voice rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble." We should therefore stand trembling before God under the sense and apprehension of present and impending dispensations, but more especially under the sense of whatsoever evils have kindled the Lord's displeasure, and made him threaten a departure from us. Ezra ix. 4, and x. 9.

Let our whole course, garb, guise, converse and spirit, speak humility and humiliation in so humbling a time as this is. Carry it in all things as becomes a poor and an afflicted people. I am sure you will be thereby better disposed to trust in the name of the Lord, and have firmer ground to believe in his salvation.

The subject therefore I have been discoursing is, I trust through grace a suitable word from the Lord, as I was desired to prepare for this occasion. I have not designed to gratify or grieve any, have aimed to speak what may fall upon the consciences of us all, as we are more or less guilty and I fear we have been guilty in this thing, one way or other, most of us, of whatsoever opinion or apprehension. Oh that we might now lift up ourselves no more! That we might now lay our hands upon our mouths, and put our mouths in the dust, if so be there may be hope! Famous, remarkable and admirable might the Lord's providential operations then be for us in the eyes of others, as well as comfortable to ourselves. Isa. xiv. 2. "What shall one then answer the messengers of the nations? That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it." Acclamations of joy for the Lord's grace; as in laying the foundation of, so in strengthening, defending, carrying on and finishing temple-work among us should not be wanting. It would then be well, yea it could not be otherwise. At the worst, though all passages for comfort and relief on earth were blocked up, yet heaven would be open to you, whence you might receive help: And whatever should threaten, yet you might say with him (when demanded where he would be then, if such a thing as was threatened should come to pass) that you should be aut in cælo aut sub cælo, either in heaven or under heaven: either under Heaven's protection while you live, or in Heaven's possession if you should be moved out of this world.

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ARE ABLE TO CHOOSE OUT THEIR PEOPLE'S
WAY, AND WILL ALSO ENDEAVOR

THEIR PEOPLE'S COMFORT:

AS IT WAS DISCOURSED IN A

BRIEF SERMON

PREACHED TO THE GREAT AND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE PROVINCE OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY, CONVENED AT BOSTON IN NEW ENGLAND, ON MAY 28, 1701. THE STATED DAY

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"He chose David also his servant to feed Jacob his people and Israel his inheritance. So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands."Psalm lxxviii. 70-72.

BOSTON:

PRINTED BY B. GREEN, AND J. ALLEN. SOLD BY SAMUEL SEWALL, JR. 1701. 3

PREFACE TO THE READER.

WHEN the Lord our God planted these heavens, and laid the foun dations of this earth, and said to New England, Thou art my people: I mean when he first founded and erected, both an ecclesiastical and civil constitution here; together and at once; and thereby made us not only a people, but his people; he put it into the hearts of his servants in both orders, to endeavor a coalition of both those fundamental interests, viz. that of heaven, and that of earth; which is to say, that of religion, and that of civil government, that the latter might be sanctified by the former, and our churches and people be confirmed and flourish, with both temporal and spiritual prosperities, under a concurrence and confluence of all the blessings of both. Hence the first original, and long continuance of our religious solemnities, celebrated by the word of God, prayer, and praise, on the morning of our Anniversary Days of Election, in order to the more solemn and successful management of that great affair of those days, under the propitious aspect of heaven, by divine counsel and conduct, unto such an happy choice as might make sufficient provision for such an administration of government successively, as may be effectual unto the preservation and promotion of our public weal, in all the respects of it, both civil and sacred; and in this way of waiting upon God, his people heretofore have obtained signal instances of his favor, grace, and blessing; and which are hitherunto continued in a degree above our deserts; yet not without a very humbling diminution of our joy and comfort, from a sense of our own sinfulness and unworthiness, and of God's holy and just (though very severe) displeasure, moved thereby, especially since he hath entered into, and so long continued in, a way of judgment with us; in which process he hath caused us to pass under divers very afflictive and humbling changes and bereavements; and to see and feel things hard to bear: It concerns us therefore to know and acknowledge, and to be very humbly and penitentially sensible, that

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