idolatry had been sucked in with thy mother's milk! Then, in all probability, thou hadst been at this day worshipping devils, and posting with full speed in the direct road to damnation.

Or suppose your lot had fallen among Mahometans, who, next to pagans, spread over the greatest tract of earth. Though Arabia bred that unclean bird, yet it was not a cage that could long contain him : for not only the Arabians, but the Persians, Turks, and Tartars, all bow down their backs under that grand impostor. This poison has dispersed itself through the veins of Asia, over a great part of Africa, even the circumference of seven thousand miles, and stops not there, but has tainted a considerable part of Europe also. Had your lot fallen here, O what unhappy men had you been! You had then adored a grand impostor, and died in a fool's paradise. Instead of God's lively oracles, you had been deceived to your eternal ruin with such fond and wild dreams, that whoso considers them would think, that the authors had more need of manacles and fetters than arguments or sober answers.

Or if neither of these had been your lot, but you had been born in this little spot of the earth which is christianized by profession, but, nevertheless, for the most part overrun by Popish idolatry and antichristian delusions, what unhappy men and women had you been, had you opened your eyes in a Popish land!

Nay, you might have fallen into the same land in which your habitation now is, and yet have had no advantage by it as to salvation, if he that chose the bounds of your habitations, had not also graciously determined the times for you. For suppose your lot had fallen where it is during the Pagan state of England. Thick darkness overspread the people of this island, and here, as in other countries, the devil was worshipped, and his lying oracles zealously attended upon. Or suppose our lot had fallen in those later miserable days, in which queen Mary sent so many hundreds to heaven in a fiery chariot. But such has the special care of Providence towards us been, that our turn to be brought upon the stage of this world was graciously reserved for better days. We are not only furnished with the best room in this great

house, but before we were put into it, it was swept with the besom of national reformation from idolatry, yea, and washed by the blood of martyrs from Popish filthiness, and adorned with gospel-lights shining in as great lustre in our days as ever they did since the apostle's days. You might have been born in England for many ages and not have found a Christian in it; yea, and since Christianity was here owned, and not have met a protestant in it. O what an obligation has Providence laid you under by such a merciful performance as this!

If you say, All this indeed is true; but what is this to eternal salvation? do not multitudes that enjoy these privileges eternally perish, notwithstanding them? yea, and perish with an aggravation of sin and misery beyond other sinners? True, they do so; and it is a very sad consideration that it should be so; but yet we cannot deny this to be a very choice and singular mercy to be born in such a land and at such a time for let us consider what helps for salvation men here enjoy, beyond what they could enjoy, had their lot fallen according to the forementioned suppositions.

Here we enjoy the ordinary means of salvation, which elsewhere men are denied and cut off from; so that if any among the heathens be saved and brought to Christ, it must be in some miraculous or extraordinary way; for, "how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?" Rom. x. 14. Alas! were there a desire awakened in any of their hearts after a discovery of salvation; yet they might travel from sea to sea to hear the word, and not find it; whereas you can hardly miss the opportunities of hearing the gospel; you can scarcely shun or avoid the ordinances and instruments of your salvation. And is this nothing? Christ even forces himself upon us.

Here too, in this age of the world, the common prejudices against Christianity are removed by the advantage it has of a public profession among the people, and protection by the laws of the country; whereas, were your habitation among Jews, Mahometans, or heathen idolaters, you would find Christ and Christianity the common odium of the country; every one defying and deriding both name and

thing. Is it not then a special mercy to you to be cast into such a country and age, where the true religion has the same advantages over every false one, as in other countries they have over it? Here you have the presence of precious means, and the absence of soul-destroying prejudices, two singular mercies.

Here, in this age of the world, Christianity bespeaks you as soon as you are capable of any sense or impressions of religion, and so, by a happy anticipation, blocks up the passages by which a false religion would certainly enter.

Here also you have, or may have, the help and assistance of Christians to direct your way, resolve your doubts, support your burdens, and help you through those difficulties that attend the way to heaven. Alas! if a poor soul had any beginnings or faint workings and stirrings after Christ and true religion in many other countries, the hand of every man would presently be against him, and none would be found to relieve, assist, or encourage him.

Whether these things eventually prove blessings to your souls or not, certain I