Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

all your wants, out of his riches in glory, by Chrift Jefus." Live in the constant belief of such gracious declarations, and they will fupport your fpirits in every ftrait. These divine promifes are adapted to every poffible case of distress.— Large families, fatherless children, and widows, and the cafes of the aged and infirm, are particularly noticed. I am the God of all the families of Ifrael, yea even a God to them. Caft thy fatherless children upon me, and I will fuftain them. I will not leave you orphans. Let your widows, defolate and helpless as they are, put their truft in me for all they want. I will carry thee to hoary hairs, and not forfake thee. The Lord never cafts off his old fervants. When thy father and thy mother forfake thee, the Lord fhall take thee up.

The Scriptures argue the continued grant of neceffary fupplies by fuggefting various confiderations of both leffer and greater importance. How beautiful and encouraging is that paragraph, Matt. vi. 25-34. "Take no thought for your life, what ye fhall eat, or what ye fhall drink; nor yet for your bodies, what ye fhall put on. Behold the fowls of the air! they neither fow nor reap, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. And are not ye much better than they? If God feeds the fowls, he will not surely ftarve his own children. And why take ye thought for raiment? Confider the lilies of the field; they neither toil nor fpin, and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them. The difciples were going out by Chrift's order to preach the Gospel. Their fituation would be fuch, that they could not poffibly fupport themselves in the common way. Their minds must in such circumstances naturally be perplexed; nothing could be better calculated to allay their fears than this kind of reasoning used by Christ.

The Lord has done much more for his people than what belongs to mere fupply, and therefore we may hope he will not neglect that. He has given them his grace to change their hearts; his Son to die for their fins; and provided the glory of heaven, of which he has made them the heirs already. Now if the Lord will give grace and glory, he will withhold nothing that he fees to be for our good. Having given his only begotten Son, how fhall he not with him freely give us all things?

All needful grace will God bestow,
Ard crown that grace with glory too;
He gives us all things, and withholds
No real good from upright souls.

EUMENES.

ON

W

ON THE RUMOURED INVASION.

HETHER the current rumours of an invafion fhould

prove eventually true or not, there furely can be no impropriety in taking occafion from them, to secure that preparation for the worft, which true religion affords.

Human policy, we find, confiders the probability of fuch an alarming event fufficient to justify precautions against, and preparations for, vigorous efforts to repel the attempt, fhould it be made. And shall the children of this world always be wifer in their generation than the children of light? Shall groundless confidence be obftinately maintained, till fatal experience prove its folly? Surely when we confider the threatened vengeance of Almighty God against national crimes, fo atrocious as ours; that national crimes as fuch cannot be punished but in this life; and reflect for a moment on the enterprifing warlike genius of bitter and party nation" of foes combined againft us; fears of confequence ought not to be treated as chimerical.

66 a

Circumftanced then as we are, let the children of the Moft High obey their Father's gracious invitation, "Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and fhut thy doors about thee; hide thyfelf for a little moment, until the indignation be overpaft." Ifa. xxii. 20.

But, 'tis natural to inquire, what chambers does religion prefent for the fecurity of its fubjects? Are there any impregnable bulwarks erected in order to feparate God's people from the common and poffible calamities which may involve others? No fuch thing: The protection which true religion affords, is that of the heart against prevailing fear, through confcious interest in Christ, and firm affiance in promised divine protection,

"This man," fays the exulting prophet, "fhall be the peace when the Affyrian fhall come into our land;" the fovereign fupport of our fouls fhall be the atonement and righteousness of the God-man, Chrift Jefus, fhould the enemy ever tread in our palaces" (Micah. v. 5), and make us fuffer "the grievoufness of war." Our Jefus is a fure hiding place," a fafe "covert from the tempeft" (Ifa. xxxii. 2); a "ftrong hold" (Zech. ix. 12); and a "tower of falvation" (2 Sam. xxii, 51). His precious blood, fprinkled on the confcience, is that fcarlet line (Jofh. ii. 18, 19), that mark on the forehead of God's chofen (Ezek. ix. 4), which shall diftinguish and fecure them, should war, as an

66

overflowing fcourge, go through our land. The God whom we ferve is able to deliver us," in famine, from death; in war, from the power of the fword." He who placed posts of invifible guards around Elifha, in Dothen, and covered the head of David in the day of battle, that he "feared not ten thousand of the people who fet themselves against him round about," is equally able to fecure his people now. Or, if ever his fervants fhould be permitted to fall in the common calamity, their end fhall be peace; their inheritance is inalienable; their eternal interests are secure; and joys, which never end, shall be their everlasting portion.

INTERESTING CORRESPONDENCE.

LETTER III*.

To, in the Prifon of

DEAR SIR,

HE Society, from whom you received a former letter,

THE defire again to addrefs you, and to fay that they feel

themfelves more than ever interested in your welfare. Your anfwer hath awakened, if poffible, a thousand more endearing wishes that we may be as inftruments in the hand of God, to minifter to your everlasting peace and happiness. And the favourable reception which you have manifefted to our firft offers, your promptnefs in replying, and the kind terms you make use of in expreffing your thankfulness for the attention fhewn you; all these we cannot but confider as fo many pleafing circumftances to encourage the prosecution of our correfpondence, and to prefage fome gracious and happy termination to it. May the Lord, in whofe fole difpofition the matter rests, grant that we may not be disappointed of our hope!

Indeed, indeed, we cannot relinquish the comfortable affurance, that the first impulfe of our writing to you originated in a divine direction. And why, dear youth, (if we may, without offence, affume that tender appellation), why fhould it be thought incredible, that the Great Father of Spirits fhould, at any time, influence and act upon the fpirits which he hath made, fo as to impart what counfel, and to direct what conduct, he fees to be neceffary to carry on

See page 322, and 503, of Vol. IV.

his own moft gracious and beneficent defigns in the earth? Is it not in him we live, and move, and have our being? Is he not about our path, and about our bed, fpying out all our ways? And if, as we are affured by the lip of truth, that not a fparrow falls to the ground unnoticed by him, yea that the very hairs of the head are all numbered, can we fuppofe that to promote the falvation of an immortal foul, which the Son of God hath died to redeem, can be too infignificant an object to attract his regard? May we not hope that the endeavour of one poor finner to affift another in this glorious caufe may originate from him? Is any inftrument too vile to be made ufe of, or any too feeble for God to work by, in the accomplishment of fo grand a purpose? O Sir! did you but fee and know the unworthy hand which writes this; did you but hear the complaints and acknowledgments which every member of our praying fociety groans over in fecret of the in-dwelling corruptions of his heart; you would need no ftronger conviction, that there must be fome higher principle than the best of us poffefs in ourfelves, whenever we are prompted to the defire of any good. Cherish then we pray you, dear Sir, the pleafing idea in the present inftance, and never lose fight of it in all our correfpondence with you, that we are but the feeble and unworthy inftruments by whom God is pleased to work; that it is he which speaks to you through us. By thus looking beyond fecond causes, and tracing that gracious hand, who is the first and great predifpofing caufe of all, you will open fuch a door for the moft pious contemplation, and fuch refreshing thoughts will pour in upon your foul, as we carneftly truft will at length enable you to apply to your own cafe what the Patriarch David found in his, "This is the Lord's doing," fays he, " and it is marvellous in our eyes." Juft let us add, while fpeaking of this man's experience, may the Lord grant you to imitate his exemplary penitence, as you have been allied to him too closely in his tranfgreffions! For no doubt his history, among others, was written for our learning, that we through patience, and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. See 2 Sam. chap. xi. and xii. Romans xv. 14.

To make a fuitable reply to every part of your letter would not come within the limits of a fingle fheet, and, after all perhaps, might not terminate to the fatisfaction of either of the parties. In general, we would obferve, that we rejoice very much, and adore the bountiful Giver of all good in the appointment, from perufing that part of it in which

you

you speak of the religious education you have received from the care of an affectionate mother. (0.may the Lord pour balm into her afflicted bofom !) We confider this as affording a good foundation to go upon, inafmuch as it convinces us that you poffefs a teachable mind, open to instruction and conviction. But we fee very plainly, in the other parts of your letter, that much rubbish has been fince thrown upon this foundation, which must be removed; and how fhall we accomplish this without diftreffing your feelings? We allude to thofe expreffions in your letter, in which you fay, that you hope your punishment will not extend beyond your prefent life; that you are prepared to meet death with fortitude; and that death, as a foldier, you have been long accustomed to look upon with contempt." Dear, dear Sir, pardon a freedom which an earnest regard for your fituation folely induces, and which an awful fenfe of our duty compels us to affume, when we fay, that fuch fentiments can only originate in the want of the knowledge both of God and yourfelf. It is the profpect of a happy or miferable eternity which alone gives confequence to all the events of the prefent life: And death, which at once determines this happy period or mifery, is too awful a fake to be confidered with levity. There is no fortitude, but that fortitude founded in the love and fear of God through a divine Redeemer, which can enable any man to face it. It may, indeed, according to the common vocabulary of the army, be confidered bravery to look upon death with contempt; and, among men, this, for aught we know, may be deemned the height of courage: But fuch things lose their very name when confidered in reference towards God. Here matters put on a more ferious and a more awful form. It is no courage, but daring impiety and presumption, to talk of rufhing into the divine prefence unprepared and unqualified for fuch a folemn interview; and could the wretched and unhappy characters who have gone out of life in this state, but return, to tell their fad tale to an unthinking world, their relation would damp the ardour of such ill-affumed and illfounded fortitude. We much fear, indeed we are convinced from your manner of writing, that the contempt of death which you speak of, and with which you fay you have many times voluntarily faced it in the fervice of your country, was not the fortitude of the Chriftian, but the foldier. And if fo, you have one motive more, perhaps, than you have duly confidered, to bow down with gratitude to that God of your life, who covered your head in the day of battle, that you

are

« FöregåendeFortsätt »