412 APPENDIX. 



It is pity, brethren, we are not more deeply 

 apprehensive of it, since so it is. We sit conti- 

 nually in the lap and arms of Providence : she is 

 at once our fortress and our store-house : it is to 

 her we owe both our defence and supplies ; our 

 safety and our abundance : that we ever had any 

 good thing in this world, whether personal or na- 

 tional, it is because we have sucked the breasts of 

 her consolations : and that we keep and enjoy 

 any thing, (while our soul is among lions, while 

 we dwell in the midst of cruel and blood-thirsty 

 men, as holy David complains a little below my 

 text ;) it is because we sit under the shadow of 

 her wings. And, since we are, for all this, so over 

 apt to forget her, and to pride ourselves in bul- 

 warks of our own projecting, God hath seemed 

 oftentimes^, and now again of late, to be about to 

 dismantle all, and to teach us this lesson at the 

 dearest rate, if we will not learn it better cheap; 

 That we cannot be safe out of his protection ; that 

 the shadow of his wings is our best, nay our only 

 refuge ; and that, whether we take a refuge for 

 the protection of secrecy, or for the protection of 

 strength. Of which much might be said, would 

 the time permit it : but so much briefly of the first 

 privilege, that of safeguard and protection from 

 calamities, that they come not upon us. I haste 

 to the second ; 



2. If calamities do come, (and who is wholly 

 exempt from that common tax, and tribute of 

 mortality ?) the expression speaks assistance, too. 



