is with him':" but his faith will only make him more cautious, and prudent, and active, and diligent; it will arm with courage and resolution even the constitutionally timid; and yet dispose every man to that great comprehensive virtue-Resignation. For all things are alike our trial; all events alike, the great and the small, our severer trials and our daily crosses, all are superintended by the good providence of God. His all-seeing eye looks through the darkest cloud that overshadows us; all trials are designed for our profit; and they tend, not indeed to outward prosperity, yet, if rightly borne, they all tend, through the grace of the Holy Spirit and the merits of the Saviour, to present peace and to future glory.

O God, whose never-failing Providence ordereth all things, both in heaven and earth; we humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

'Ps. iii. 6. xci. 6. xxiii. 4. cf. xxvii. 3. cxii. cxxi.

DISCOURSE V.

THE DIVINE FAITHFULNESS. PROMISES.

HEBREWS xi. 13.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

A BELIEF fervent, practical, enlightened, and habitual in THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD, comprehends a very large portion of vital religion. It branches off into two great departments of faith; reliance on the PROVIDENCE, and trust in the PROMISES, of the Almighty on the one hand, a stedfast belief in all that we know from reason or revelation of His preservation, protection, superintendence, and moral government of mankind in this life; on the other, a firm trust in the gracious promises which revelation alone could convey to us, and especially in those, as beyond all comparison the most important, which relate to the life to come.

I

To quicken and invigorate a faith so extensive and important, and so difficult, moreover, to be constantly maintained, the greatest care has been employed by our heavenly Father. To prove His faithfulness, has been made one of the leading purposes of revelation. Almost every part of holy writ contributes to the proof. And to the Historical Scriptures of the Old Testament in particular has been assigned no inconsiderable share in establishing the reality of Divine Providence, and the truth of the Divine promises.

But the right application and real value of these books, with reference to the providence of God, we have already considered; let us enquire at present into the support they were designed to render to the faith of Christians in the DIVINE PROMISES. And this inquiry may be distributed under three heads : first, the instances which these Scriptures record of the faithfulness of God, in the actual fulfilment of certain of His promises; secondly, the animating examples which they present to us, of faith in the Divine promises; and, thirdly, the uniform preservation of the one great principle of faith throughout all the various dispensations of religion.

I. To prove the faithfulness of our heavenly Father, it was observed, is one of the leading

purposes of revelation. And vast is the debt we owe to revelation on this account. Without it, indeed, we should know by experience, and at this day the experience of many ages, the faithfulness of God as our Preserver. The return of the seasons, the increase of our corn and of our cattle, the life and the health of so many generations of men during six thousand years, nay, the feeding of the fowls of the air, and the clothing of the grass of the field, abundantly attest the never-failing care and bounty of our great Preserver". But of His moral government of mankind we should entertain very indistinct conceptions without the aid of revelation; and we should altogether want the most direct proof of His faithfulness, which consists in recorded instances of special promises actually given and fulfilled. Prophecy supported by history is the most signal proof of the Divine faithfulness. And the history of the elder Church of God; the very structure of Prophecy'; and even the structure of the Historical

a See Matt. vi. 26-32. and Paley's Nat. Theol. ch. xxvi. p. 515, et seq. ed. 1802, on the Goodness of the Deity. Though there may be the appearance of failure in some of the details of Nature's works, in her great purposes there never are. Her species never fail. The provision which was originally made for continuing the replenishment of the world has proved itself to be successful through a long succession of ages."