His

strance which was originally addressed to the house | honour. He is the sovereign source of all riches, of Israel, being applied to us, in all its original force and wisdom, and power, and excellence; the and severity: Hear, O heavens; and give ear, O Author of life, and of its every enjoyment. His earth, for the Lord hath spoken; I have nour- presence forms the light and glory of heaven; his ished and brought up children, and they have re- frown sheds darkness and desolation on every belled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, region on which it falls. With what reason and the ass his master's crib ; but Israel doth not should we acknowledge, with emotions of the know; my people doth not consider.' How inade- liveliest gratitude and wonder, the infinite mercy quately do we realize our dependence upon God, and goodness of God. He that is mighty hath the intimacy of his continued presence, the oper- done great things for us, holy is his name. ation of his sustaining hand, the ceaseless com- mercy is on them that fear him, from generation munications of goodness which flow to us from his to generation. He has put down the mighty from boundless liberality. Although he is the strength their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He of our lives, the health of our countenance, and the hath filled the hungry with good things, and the length of our days, may not weeks, and months, rich he hath sent empty away. He hath holpen and even years pass away without our rendering to his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, him any homage, or expressing any gratitude, or and he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to testifying the least consciousness of his Almighty his seed for ever,' Luke i. 49–56. power and unwearied care. And when this is considered, how can any pretend to deny the depravity of human nature, or that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God?'

The doctrine of our entire and constant dependence upon God, obviously lays us under a variety of very solemn and important duties to our supreme Benefactor. Of these, gratitude evidently holds the first rank, together with all those devout acknowledgments by which it ought to be expressed. It is meet that we celebrate the lovingkindness of God every morning, and show forth his faithfulness every evening. Submission is another important duty, implying resignation to the divine will, and contentment with our lot, and with all the events and circumstances by which it may be marked. A cheerful alacrity in duty is farther required; that we live as seeing him who is invisible, and that we walk worthy of all the mercy and goodness which we are daily receiving from his hand.

Elevating views of the perfections and character of God are peculiarly adapted to sustain our zeal in his service, and to engage our habitual homage and reverence towards his holy name. How honourable, how blessed, to be the worshippers and servants of him who filleth heaven and earth with his presence, who is the supreme Proprietor of countless worlds, and the beneficent Author of all being, and all excellence. Under what an infinitely important light is religion and all its duties seen, when viewed in connection with the glory and majesty of him who is the supreme and only potentate, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. That he should allow us to know him, that he should admit us to confide in him, and hold communion with him, and serve him, what a distinction is it, what an unspeakable

Little as the puny and short lived actors on the scene of time may think of that eternal and Almighty Being who, in the infinitude of his power, wisdom, and goodness, created and upholds this vast and glorious universe, with every thing it contains, he is no distant or unconcerned spectator of its interests or movements; he sits not retired in viewless majesty, leaving the works of his hands to be the sport of accident: he surrenders not the sceptre of his kingdom to any delegated power, as if he could be weary, or needed to find relief by dividing, with any other, the care and anxieties of empire; neither does the perfection of his government, nor the incommunicable attributes of his nature, admit of such a severance between the Creator and his works; he alone is exclusively and essentially self-existent, and independent; and other beings, from the very necessity of their nature, can only live, and move, and act through him; as a ray of light lives in its connection with the centre of illumination whence it emanates; as the stream exists and flows only whilst it continues connected with the fountain from which it has its birth, in like manner all things exist in their dependence upon God, who sustains them in being and in the possession of their every property, so that the moment he withdraws from any of them his sustaining hand, or intercepts the communication of his gracious blessing, they instantaneously and unavoidably perish.

Let the consideration of this great truth be deeply and permanently impressed upon the heart; thus will the ever-varying scene of human life, with all its ceaseless changes, lead forth your thoughts to God, and constitute a daily renewed source of piety and praise; thus will you be taught to cherish a lowly estimate of yourselves,

and of your various resources, faculties, and bless- | acknowledgment, that he ordains, in righteousings, for the continuance of which every moment ness and faithfulness, whatever comes to pass. you are dependent upon the divine will; and Many seem to live as if God only interposed on this will you feel the duty of engaging in all great occasions, and in connection with afflictive your labours and enterprises in a spirit of prayer- dispensations; and that the ordinary tenor of El reliance upon the help and favour of God, and providence was a current which flowed smoothly with the sincere desire and intention, that what- of its own accord, and which required no immeever you do may prove acceptable in his sight, and diate acknowledgment of the hand of God to be conducive to his glory. Go to now, ye that say, made. They cherish no practical impression of To-day, or to-morrow, we will go into such a the doctrine of a particular providence, or of the city, and continue there a year, and buy, and sell, influence which it should constantly exercise upon and get gain. Whereas ye know not what shall their minds. It is, indeed, the inestimable privibe on the morrow; for what is your life? It lege of the afflicted to know that God is a refuge is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, to the distressed, and a very present help in the and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to time of trouble; but beware of quenching the gratesay, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, ful emotions which his goodness should awaken, or or that,' James iv. 13—15. of forgetting, in the day of ease and prosperity, that all your well-springs are in God. It is one and the same Almighty Ruler who holds all our destinies in his hand; who both killeth and maketh alive, who maketh poor and who maketh rich, who bringeth low and who lifteth up.'

FOURTEENTH DAY.-EVENING.

A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps,' Prov. xvi. 9. ENDOWED with powers of reason and reflection, it is not only allowed, but required, that we should devise our way; yet should it always be in accordance with the dictates of God's revealed Word, and in submission to the decrees and determinations of his most holy and blessed will. The sin consists in man leaning to his own understanding,' doing what seemeth good in his (*n eyes, and fixing his plans and his purposes without reference to the sovereign purpose mind of God. Go to now, ye that say, Today or to-morrow we will go into such a city, ad continue there a year, and buy, and sell, and 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 For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings; all such

Visheth away.

icing is evil.'

It forms an important and interesting part of Practical religion to refer all things to God; to e his hand guiding and directing whatever tes to pass, and to acknowledge, with habitual Feverence and submission, the wisdom of all his Bay, and the righteousness of all his dispensas. In those examples of piety which the Tiptures have transmitted for our instruction, thing is more distinguishable than the habitual ad devout recognition of God in all things which has been usual with his people. Their brighter Ed their darker experience alike embodies the

The doctrine, that God rules over all, and that there is nothing too great to dispense with his care, and nothing too little to be beneath his notice, is accordant with the testimony of scripture, and all the most enlightened and exalted views which reason, as well as revelation, can form of his nature. We see, within the limits of our contemplation, no inconsiderable portion of that vast progression of being which seems to retire to an infinitude beneath, which cannot be followed for its minuteness, and to rise to another infinitude above, which cannot be comprehended or contemplated for its vastness and sublimity. But is there any point, within this range, where an indication is presented that the care of God ceases, or that his creative and governing power and wisdom ceases? Are the discoveries of the telescope replete with a beauty, and order, and magnificence, which evidently proclaim the glory of God; but are the secrets of the microscope the development of a confusion and chaos which in

dicates that there lies in the humbler regions of existence a province to which the presence and the power of God has manifestly been denied? The opposite has most unequivocally and brilliantly been demonstrated to be the case. The limb of the most ephemeral insect is formed as curiously and skilfully, and is as admirably adapted for the ends of its existence, as the arms and members of a man. The eye of the invisible animalcule has its fluids, and lenses, and nerves as appropriately adjusted and placed for the purposes of vision, as that of the horse or the elephant. And not to overlook the illustration of Christ-the hair of our head,

0

simple and inartificial as it seems, with its tubu- | night.' What then is the loving-kindness of lar form, with its longitudinal and transverse God? Herein is love, not that we loved God, fibres, and all the organs by which it lives and but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the grows, constitutes in its mechanism a production propitiation for our sins.' For God so loved no less admirable than the lofty cedar, or the the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, stately oak, the ornament of nature, and the pride that whosoever believed on him, might not peof earth's grandest landscapes. rish, but have everlasting life;' and 'God comBut in reality the whole framework of nature, mendeth his love towards us, in that while we and the whole system of providence hangs so were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' The geneclosely together, and is so mutually dependent in ral goodness of God is daily seen in a thousand all its parts, that it is impossible to say whether forms, in the preservation of man and beast, and the wisdom and care of God are more necessary in the opening of his hand to supply every thing for superintending the great or the minute events that lives; but that special love of God to a sinwhich occur. How often may events, upon which ner, that pities his miseries, heals his diseased the destinies of the world hinge, depend upon soul, washes away his guilt, restores him to his causes seemingly the most trivial and contempti- Father, enrobes him in righteousness, and makes ble. In the history of the Old Testament, for in-him an heir of glory—all this is only to be found stance, do we not find God inflicting his most and seen in the promise, incarnation, working, sufsignal vengeance upon his proud and vain-glori- fering, atonement, resurrection, ascension, and inous enemies, by employing, not the higher but tercession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yea, in this, the humbler order of causes; sending the fly, the and in this alone, was manifested the love of locust, and the caterpillar as the ministers of God towards us, because that God had sent his famine, disease, and death. The distinction which only begotten Son into the world, that we might some pretend to establish between a general and live through him.' Do we not then inquireparticular providence, as if God concerned himself how may we best show forth this love? The with the one but not with the other, is founded answer is easy. The love of Christ constraineth upon an evident misconception of the nature of us; because we thus judge, that if one died for things. The truth is, things great and small are all, then were all dead, that they who live so closely and inseparably linked together, that the should not henceforth live unto themselves but hand which shall guide the one must govern the unto him that died for them and rose again.' other; and the mind which dictates the decrees that regulate.worlds, must also appoint and adjust the course of the minutest events. sured then, that nothing connected with your condition can be the effect of chance, or the result of blind fatality, but is the effect of the wise, and just, and holy determination of your heavenly Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever and

ever.

FIFTEENTH DAY.-MORNING.

Be as

It is good to show forth thy loving-kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night,

Psal. xcii. 2.

Might we not then expect to hear every professing Christian exclaim- Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword; nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us; for I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' But alas! of how many may it be said-and O, mine own heart, beware lest it be also said of thee- The ass knoweth his owner and the ox his master's crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.'

But whatever calls to consideration we may have hitherto slighted, whatever opportunities we have hitherto neglected, once again the mornTHANKFULNESS and praise are, at all times, due ing invites us, by its peculiar arguments, to show to God; yet are there some periods that give a forth the loving-kindness of the Lord. He has peculiar call to this holy exercise. The Psalmist watched over us while we slept; he has spared here specifies two-the morning and the even- us to another day; he has caused his sun again ing, and assigns to each its most suitable sub- to arise-the emblem of the Sun of righteousject. It is good to show forth thy loving-kindness, with healing in his wings,'-he sets duty beness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every fore us, both for ourselves and for others; and

shall the Giver of all good be forgotten, his love man who is likest him, must be most blessed; unfelt, his name unpraised?