his disciples from being improperly careful about the things of this mortal life, our Lord says, "Take no thought," that is, no anxious thought, as the word signifies," for your life, what ye shall eat, and what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on, Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them: are ye not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature? And why take ye anxious thought for raiment ? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin ; yet I say unto you, that even Solomon. in all his glory. was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more cloth you, O ye of little faith?" We may also remember, that our blessed Lord says in another place, addressing himself to those of his followers, who were likely to be exposed to great danger in defence of the Truth. "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father. But, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear

ye not therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows,' "* The holy Psalmist too speaks to the same effect, Ps. xci. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord; he is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers; under his wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield and ́ buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noon day. A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee; only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked." Would you know in what particular instances this protecting care has been shewn? Consider the condition of the Israelites, when God inflicted his plagues upon Pharaoh and his people in the land of Egypt. While the latter were enduring the most grievous calamities, the former, who dwelt among them, escaped from the affliction. Thus it is written, Exodus viii. 21, 22, concerning the plague of flies.

* Matt. x. 29 30.

"The houses of the Egpytians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground wherein they are, and I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, to the end thou mayest know, that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth." Thus also we read in the next chapter concerning the murrain, which took place among the cattle. "Behold," said Moses unto Pharaoh, "the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle, which is in thy field, upon thy horses, upon thy asses, upon thy camels, upon thy oxen, and upon thy sheep. There shall be a very grievous murrain, and the Lord shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt, and there shall nothing die of all that is the children's of Israel. And the Lord appointed a set time, saying-to-morrow the Lord shall do this thing in the land. And the Lord did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died, but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one." There is yet another remarkable instance of that distinction, which the Lord made in his dealings towards the Egyptians and the Israelites, which deserves our notice. When Pharaoh had repeatedly hardened his heart, and refused to let the children of Israel go, "the Lord said unto Moses-stretch out thine hand towards hea,

ven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand towards heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They saw not one from his place for

another, neither any rose

three days, but the children of Israel had light in their dwellings."* We may then be assured, from these instances, that the Lord does at all times extend his providential care towards those who fear him, so that every Christian, who feels a liberty in offering up his petitions to the throne of grace, may confidently use the words of the holy Psalmist, and say, "Keep me as the apple of the eye: hide me under the shadow of thy wings."* But, though we are thus encouraged to expect the protecting hand of the Almighty to be our shield and our defence in the day of trouble, we have no right to suppose we shall not have our share of those sorrows, which are the common lot of all men; nor, indeed, that we shall have a less share of them than those who do not make the Most High their confidence. Nevertheless, to maintain the faith and hope of the Christian under all his trials, it is proper to observe, that, while he suffers, he has the great comfort of looking to the Lord, as his deliverer in due time, and + Ps. xvii. 8.

Exod. x. 21-23.

of being assured, that an eternal weight of glory shall shortly be his recompense; but the ungodly has no such hope, no good reason to suppose, that the Almighty will interfere in his behalf, and still less to look for happiness beyond the grave. His prospects are dark and gloomy, and no wonder then, if he should be given up

to melancholy and despair. troduced the two different

Having thus incharacters of the

righteous and the wicked to your consideration, and led you to observe how each will be affected by the same calamity, I proceed to show,

2d. That what men call evil, is the

operation of God's hands; I say, what

men call evil, because I would make a distinction here between the evil of punishment, and the evil of sin. The former is inflicted, agreeably to the law of righteousness, by the Judge of all the Earth upon the offender, because of his transgressions. The latter cannot, in any sense, be attributed to God, because he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and abhorreth the thing which is evil. But, the evil of punishment, I say, comes from the hand of God. Accordingly he saith by the mouth of his Prophet Amos, ch. iii. 6, "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it." And, again by Jeremiah, ch. xviii. 11,