and wonderful
favors and gifts, which they had obtained of God, out of their minds,
but to expect deliverance out of those their present troubles which they
could not free themselves from, and this by the means of that Divine
Providence which watched over them. Seeing it is probable that God tries
their virtue, and exercises their patience by these adversities, that it
may appear what fortitude they have, and what memory they retain of his
former wonderful works in their favor, and whether they will not think
of them upon occasion of the miseries they now feel. He told them,
it appeared they were not really good men, either in patience, or in
remembering what had been successfully done for them, sometimes by
contemning God and his commands, when by those commands they left the
land of Egypt; and sometimes by behaving themselves ill towards him who
was the servant of God, and this when he had never deceived them, either
in what he said, or had ordered them to do by God's command. He also put
them in mind of all that had passed; how the Egyptians were destroyed
when they attempted to detain them, contrary to the command of God; and
after what manner the very same river was to the others bloody, and not
fit for drinking, but was to them sweet, and fit for drinking; and how
they went a new road through the sea, which fled a long way from them,
by which very means they were themselves preserved, but saw their
enemies destroyed; and that when they were in want of weapons, God gave
them plenty of them;-and so he recounted all the particular instances,
how when they were, in appearance, just going to be destroyed, God had
saved them in a surprising manner; and that he had still the same power;
and that they ought not even now to despair of his providence over them;
and accordingly he exhorted them to continue quiet, and to consider that
help would not come too late, though it come not immediately, if it be
present with them before they suffer any great misfortune; that they
ought to reason thus: that God delays to assist them, not because he has
no regard to them, but because he will first try their fortitude, and
the pleasure they take in their freedom, that he may learn whether you
have souls great enough to bear want of food, and scarcity of water,
on its account; or whether you rather love to be slaves, as cattle are
slaves to such as own them, and feed them liberally, but only in order
to make them more useful in their servi