How often do we see the most trifling occurrences productive of the greatest events? All are therefore equally under the direction of God; the small as well as the great; for they depend upon one another. If it were possible to suppose any thing independent of Providence, it would be the casting of a lot: but the wise man affirms, "the lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposal thereof is of the Lord." Prov. xvi. 33. And accordingly, in the choosing of an Apostle to succeed Judas, they referred the matter to the divine direction by the casting of a lot, and supposed that the Lord, according to their prayer, had thereby shewed which of the two He had chosen.

Having thus considered and stated the doctrine of Providence, with the certainty of God's presence and attention to the ways of men; let me tell you, the belief of this is so essential to the profession of a Christian, and so necessary to the comfort of life, that I know of no better test of the state of a man's soul, than a daily sense of God's presence with him, for the direction of his life, either by his own immediate act, or the subordinate ministration of his holy angels, who have received a charge for the preservation of the servants of God. Wicked men have no liking to this subject; as if they expected no good to themselves from the attention of Heaven. Good men have no greater support in this world: they love to think and discourse upon it; and they celebrate the mercies they have received. Jacob, in his blessing, addresses himself "to the God which had fed him all his life long unto that day, and to the angel which had redeemed him from all evil." St. Paul, looking back upon the persecutions and afflictions of his life, had a certain knowledge, that "out of them all the Lord had delivered him." And the same knowledge will be more or less in every Christian, who reflects upon the occurrences of his life past. He may not be able to say, as the Apostle did, "Once was I stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and a day I have been in the deep :" but,

if his eyes are open, and he speaks the truth, he may say in other words, “At such a place, and at such a time, was I preserved, when my fortune, my comfort, my health, my life, my soul were in danger: many perils have I seen, from which nothing but the hand of God could save me; many more there must have been, perhaps worse and greater, which I could not see: but out of them all, the Lord delivered me, and I am alive at this day to praise him.”

Without a firm belief of God's preventing and directing power, good men would not know how to live; and they see that for want of it, many are lost. He that has lived long enough to observe how many dangers there are in the world, of which he has no foresight, and thinks there is nothing to preserve him, but that chance, by which others seem to be destroyed, is in a miserable condition; and I would not be in the like for all the world. When it is found that health is uncertain, and pleasure deceitful; that there are evils, which wealth cannot remove, nor wisdom provide against; and when with all this there is no sense of God's Providence correcting our sins and bringing good out of evil; then only disappointment becomes intolerable, and men send themselves out of the world in despair.

As the navigator, who has sailed round the world, and is arrived in safety at his own dwelling, delights to survey the dangers of the voyage, with his many deliverances from storms and shipwreck: and as the Israelites, when conducted to the land of Canaan, discoursed together on the miracles God had wrought in Egypt, with the perils of the wilderness, their various encampments, the victories they had obtained, and the cities they had destroyed; and repeated the wondrous narrative to their children, listening around them; so we may suppose, it will constitute a part of the blessedness of heaven, to look back upon the vicissitudes of this mortal life; and that the saints will delight for endless ages, in comparing the trials they underwent, the dangers they escaped, and the mercies they received in this

their pilgrimage; adding thereto the greater wonders of their walk through the valley of the shadow of death, their resurrection, ascension, and glorification, which are yet to come; all of which will furnish matter for such songs, and be celebrated with such sounds, as no ear hath yet heard, nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive.

In some passages of the Revelation, we have a slight prospect of this scene, with a foretaste of this heavenly entertainment. "I saw (saith the beloved disciple), as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had gotten the victory stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints." Rev. xv. 2, 3.

IT

SERMON X.

FRET NOT THYSELF.-Psalm xxxvii. 1.

T is of more importance to every man, that his mind should be at peace, than that his body should be in health. We use great caution for the preservation of our bodily ease; and are at great expenses for the restoration of it when lost. But as a restless mind is a worse evil, and hath also an effect in impairing the faculties of the body, all proper preservatives are diligently to be sought for and applied.

We are sent hither, into a world, where sin produces a thousand disorders: we are therefore born to meet with such things as will disturb and vex us, more or less, according to our different principles and propensities.

We must see right invaded, innocence oppressed, wisdom disregarded, merit neglected, justice hated, truth misrepresented and opposed, hypocrisy, rapine, and violence unpunished, and sometimes applauded.

At these things the wisest of mankind are apt to be agitated with unreasonable indignation: while the weak, ignorant, and impatient, are driven to despair, madness, and suicide.

When persons of delicate habits, and tender irritable minds, are without principle; which is too often the case in this age of uninformed sentiment; the prospect is dreadful. For when such are disappointed, they become desperate; accusing Providence, when they ought to accuse themselves; and flying out of life, in a rage at those evils, which, perhaps, need not to have been; or might have been cured; or at least, rendered very supportable.

Our blessed Saviour, knowing how his disciples were exposed to all the trials common to other men, and to other uncommon ones brought upon them by their profession, gives them this necessary advice-"In your patience possess ye your souls." Of which passage, the physiology is strict and true: for the impatient are not in possession of their souls they are no more masters of themselves than persons divested of their reason. And the two cases are so much alike, that the fashion of the times hath confounded them; by making no distinction, in cases of suicide, between the wickedness of impatience, and the weakness of lunacy.

And what can we find within ourselves to give us patience? Human prudence may be allowed the wisdom of experience, to make us cautious; but it hath nothing positive, to give us strength: no gifts, no doctrines, no promise; all of which are necessary to us in our present state.

The pride of heathen philosophy affected an indifference to pain and pleasure; and having adopted the principles of a blind fatality in nature, fled to insensibility, as the grand remedy for all the evils of life.

Under the state of the gospel, zeal and piety bring Christian people into difficulties, by exposing them to the hatred of the world. To avoid which, we are under a temptation

of betaking ourselves to the convenient policy of offending nobody: and, to put a face upon our pusillanimity, we call it discretion; the cheapest of all the virtues: because the reputation of it is obtained by doing nothing; at least, by doing no good, for fear of interrupting our own ease. The brightness of the rainbow is attended by another circle, of an inferior light, wherein the order of the colours is inverted. So is the bright circle of the virtues attended by another set of a spurious kind, which mock the true; and this fainthearted discretion is one of them. It may please us for a time, but it will deceive us at last.

The thing to be desired, therefore, is a true, religious serenity of mind. We call it patience, in respect to the ways of men; and faith or resignation, in respect to the ways of God.

This is to be attained,

First, from reasonable consideration;
Secondly, from the rules of prudence;
Thirdly, from the practice of piety.

The text saith, when the context is added, "Fret not thyself because of the ungodly!" The troubles of good men arise chiefly from the ways of evil men; of which we have many examples from the life and ministry of Jesus Christ; whose enemies were the greatest of villains and hypocrites, from Herod the king down to Judas the traitor. When good men trouble one another, they do it by mistake: but a bad man cannot act as such, without molesting society, and injuring his neighbours. Vice, as a cause, will have its proper effects, as brutes, by invariable instinct, follow the ferocity or uncleanness of their natures. Idleness will rob and plunder and run in debt; avarice will cheat; error will persecute the truth which it hates; ambition, to raise itself, must reduce other men; malice must gratify itself with lying and defamation; and revenge must live, like a vulture, upon blood.

When we see these things, we are to consider, that the