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the visible church? Who, although they have verbally acknowledged that their safety has arisen from the Divine protection, can open their eyes in the morning, and enter on their worldly engagements with renewed corporeal vigor, without raising their hearts in grateful adoration of the boundless goodness of that almighty Being, from whom every blessing flows! Have we not many nominal Christians, who are enemies to the doctrine of a particular providence ; and who even make a false zeal for the glory of God a pretence, with which to cover the unbelief of their hearts? If they are pressed with the propriety of thankfully acknowledging God in all their ways; their excuse for the base ingratitude of their forgetfulness of Him, is a wretched notion, which contradicts the positive declarations of scripture, that God is too great to intermeddle with the minute affairs of mortals; and that we degrade His Majesty, if we suppose that He regards matters of so little moment.* But these objectors themselves, while they give evident proof of their inattention to, or disbelief of the plainest assertions of the inspired volume, are the persons, who derogate from the honor of God, while they suppose that the regulation of the affairs of the universe, and of every being in it,

* A Christian is taught to believe that God clothes the grass of the field, feeds the birds of the air, and the young ravens that call apon Him. Matt. vi. 26, 30. Luke xii. 24, 27, 28.

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occasions trouble or fatigue to Omniscience and Omnipotence. Such persons may be addressed in the words of the Prophet, hast thou not 'known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary: there is no searching of his understanding?'* It. would be well, if they would study the boundless compassion of our God, as manifested in the gift of His Son; and they would soon come to this conclusion, that if God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son' for its redemption, nothing that respects the welfare of those, who are the objects of this love, can be unimportant to the Lord our God. The true reason of the arguments brought against the Scripture system of Providence, is the necessity, which the belief of it establishes, of an humble walk with God; and the restraint which it lays on the criminal independence of the fallen mind of man. Go to now, ye that say, to-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a ⚫ year, and buy, and sell, and get gain: whereas 'ye know not what shall be on the morrow: for what is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, if the Lord

* Isa. xl. 28.

'will, we shall live, and do this, or that.'* If: we believe in God,' we shall own His hand in all our concerns. At the return of every morning, we shall gratefully look up to Him, as our Preserver through the dangers of the preceding night like a mariner, who has escaped safe to shore from the roaring billows of the deep, we shall review the perils through which we have been brought in safety, and admire and adore the goodness of God. Each believer will lift up his heart to heaven, fraught with the idea that many of his fellow-creatures have been, during the watches of the last night, consumed by devouring flames, while sleeping in their beds; or murdered by the merciless hands of the sons of violence : that many have been seized with fatal diseases, and lain through the tedious hours of darkness in agonies of bodily pain, crying, would God it were morning! and when the morning came, unrelieved from anguish, have repeated the cry, would God it were evening! That many have spent the gloomy season in still deeper mental distress, which forbad them to close their eyes, either through the loss of some beloved relative, dear to them as their own lives; or perhaps from a sense of the wrath of God drinking up their spirits; for the spirit of a man may sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?' He will consider that thousands have, since the

* James iv. 13, 14, 15.

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sun last sunk below the horizon, dropt into eternity. He will inquire, who hath made me to

differ from another, and what have I that I have

not received ?'*

6 slept in peace ;' acknowledge that

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it was Thou, Lord, only who madest me to dwell in safety.'t Careless mortal, day after day you are preserved in life, while thousands around you are dropping into the grave. Yet you live without any consideration of the end of your creation and preservation. that you may now perceive, that God's providence has hitherto preserved you from the pit of destruction. May you account the long-suffering 6 of the Lord to be salvation ; and henceforward pursue, with an undivided heart, the great object for which you were sent into the world!

We are taught to pray at the return of every morning, for defence through the day on which we are entered; and to beseech God that there

in we may fall into no sin, neither run into any • kind of danger.' It is not necessary here to point out the various kinds of external danger to which our tenements of clay are daily and hourly exposed. Certain it is that they are very many.

* 1 Cor. iv. 7. How affecting and humiliating is the question, which God put to the Jews by the Prophet Malachi! Was not 'Esau Jacob's brother ? Ch. i. 2.

+ Psa. iv. 8.

The pages of every newspaper afford a lively comment on the subject; and, if read in the spirit, which the excellent prayer we are considering breathes, the perusal of them must afford spiritual profit to a devout mind. Would to God that all, who join in the worship of our church, felt their dependence on God for their security from those evil accidents which may happen to

the body! Were it so, they would soon also perceive the necessity of looking to Him by faith for preservation from all those evil thoughts which assault and hurt the soul. A real believer in the Providence of God cannot be indifferent to the concerns of his immortal part.

Having cursorily hinted the necessity of looking to Divine Providence for protection from the various external calamities, which flesh is heir to, we proceed to remark, that the genuine member of our Church considers sin as the greatest of all evils. Against the danger of bodily disasters he is here taught to pray in general terms, without specification of their various kinds; but sin is particularized as that, which ought to be the chief object of his dread. The Christian worshipper may be compared to a person, who has a long journey, which he is under the necessity of taking, and in which many difficulties are likely to occur; but he foresees one in particular of such magnitude, as to engross his attention, and swallow up all the rest, Or, we may consider

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