"What shall I render to the Lord for all his mercies — mercies temporal, mercies spiritual, mercies eternal, multiplied mercies? The one thing that I asked of the Lord has been answered in full, and Oh, how much added. God himself become my salvation, and the salvation of my house; how unspeakable the blessing. Although chastisement and affliction were the means of correction and sanctification, or even the vengeance taken on my inventions, yet, as a God, he at the same time pardoneth. For Oh, my character is ever the same with backsliding Judah and treacherous Israel. Glory to that name which is ever the same, and changeth not. 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.' This was his name among a stiff-necked people, an idolatrous, ungrateful people; this is his name to me alike in character. O how he has magnified this name to me, a backslider in heart and life; multiplying pardons while I have multiplied transgressions: still he has been last with me, healing my backsliding; restoring my soul; leading me to the open fountain; giving faith to wash, and joy and peace in believing; not only so, but in this land of drought, this waste howling wilderness, this vale of tears, where 'man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards,' my cup with temporal comfort is full and running over; all his creatures minister to my comfort; and as days and nights roll on, his daily providence adds, and diminishes not.
"I had hardly hoped to see the faces of my children
again; for he commanded, and raised the stormy winds and lifted up the waves of the sea; they mounted to heaven and sunk again to the deep; death with all its natural horrors surrounded them; the deep yawned to devour them; but God, their own God, was at hand, their anchor of hope, their ark of safety, their hiding-place till the calamity was past: they cried to him, and he saved them out of their distresses; he made the storm a calm, and the waves thereof still, and brought them to the desired haven. This trouble was not unto death, but for the glory of God and the exercising of your faith, for the manifestation of his power and goodness, and the enriching of your experience.
"O then let us praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men. Let us exalt him in the congregation of his people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders."
"OCTOBER 23, 1801.
"Surely, surely my heart feels grateful for the time, though this, like every other good motion, will, like the morning dew, soon pass away.
"My children not only preserved through the tempestuous storms that threatened death with circumstances shocking to nature, but my poor sick child preserved during a long and fatiguing journey; that journey made comfortable, yea, delightful, by the warm reception of many kind friends, dear to nature, and many doubly endeared by grace: among the last, the mother and sisters of the kindest and best of husbands; they receiving her as their own flesh and blood, as well as their fellow-member in Christ; blest with a measure of health to enjoy all, and a measure of grace
to profit by all; eyeing by faith the dear invisible hand of a covenant God, preserving, leading, guiding through every step — his love the marrow of the whole, and their charter for safety, even amidst the dangers of prosperity.
"Is not godliness gain? profitable for this life as well as that which is to come? What is the portion of the worldling? even in this life 'shadowy joy or solid woe,' without a balance to the first, or consolation in the last; no sure footing in the one, nor support in the other; distanced from the fountain of happiness by nature, prosperity incrusts their hearts and increases their carnality; nestling in their worldly comforts, they forget they are the creatures of a day, that an endless eternity lies before them, and only the feeble uncertain thread of life between them and that curse under which they were born. Not so the child of God; all things work together for his good — all things; his standing is not in himself; his footsteps are directed by infinite wisdom: he is kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation. Nothing can separate him from the love of God. His life is hid with Christ in God: there is cause to rejoice always; his privileges are boundless, infinite, for God himself is become his salvation.
"Have we then any cause for fear? Yes, my children, yes; though nothing can rob us of our charter, there is another side to be beheld. In Christ we have all things richly to enjoy, but we have not all in possession: what we have is by faith; all is secured by our Surety for eternity. We shall overcome by the blood of the Lamb; but by the constitution of the covenant we must enter into that rest, that perfect