inite
goodness and presentness of God, in that He, for His Son's sake, and
through His Son, affords us aid. God will be owned in such deliverance
just as in the deliverance of your first parents, who, after the fall,
when they were forsaken by all the creatures, were upheld by the help of
God alone. So was the family of Noah in the flood, so were the
Israelites preserved when in the Red Sea they stood between the towering
walls of waters. These glorious examples are held up before us, that we
might know, in like manner, the Church, without the help of any created
beings, is often preserved. Many in all times have experienced such
divine deliverance and support in their personal dangers, as David
saith: "My father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord taketh me
up"; and in another place David saith: "He hath delivered the wretched,
who hath no helper." But in order that we may become partakers of these
so great blessings, faith and devotion must be kindled within us, as it
stands written, "Verily, I say unto you!" So likewise must our faith be
exercised, that before deliverance we should pray for help and wait for
it, resting in God with a certain cheerfulness of soul; and that we
should not cherish continual doubt and melancholy murmuring in our
hearts, but constantly set before our eyes the admonition of God: "The
peace of God which passeth all understanding keep your heart and mind";
which is to say, be so comforted in God, in time of danger, that your
hearts, having been strengthened by confidence in the pity and
presentness of God, may patiently wait for help and deliverance, and
quietly maintain that peaceful serenity which is the beginning of
eternal life, and without which there can be no true devotion.

For distrust and doubt produce a gloomy and terrible hate toward God,
and that is the beginning of the eternal torments, and a rage like that
of the devil.

Now you must guard against these billows in the soul, and these stormy
agitations, and, by meditation on the precious promises of God, keep and
establish your hearts.

Truly these times allow not the wonted security and the wonted
intoxication of the world, but they demand that with honest groans we
should cry for help, as the Lord saith, "Watch and pray that ye fall not
into temptation," that ye may not, being overcome by despair, plunge
into everlasting destruction. There is need of wisdom to discern the
dangers of the soul, as well as the safegua