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SERMON II.

ON A PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE.

MATTHEW, VI. 34.

"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

ALTHOUGH in the material world, when we know what once has happened, it is easy to foretel what will happen again, for the actions of GoD upon matter are constant and uniform; although, knowing the properties of chemical agents, we can accurately predict the different operations of an acid upon an alkali and upon a metal; although the astronomer can with precision calculate eclipses, and ascertain the periods of the planets, yet who

can foretel, with any thing like certainty, the results of human action? Here the same consequents do not always succeed the same antecedent circumstances; the same event does not always follow the same apparent cause.

What extraordinary combinations of circumstances, what unexpected coincidences are ever and anon occurring to perplex and confound us! How infatuated we sometimes find the wisest counsellors, and what mighty events have been brought about by the instrumentality of fools! In profane history, as well as in sacred, we hear of a hundred men chasing a thousand, and a thousand putting ten thousand to flight; if the millions of Ethiopia fled before Asa1, by a handful of Grecians the multitudes of Xerxes were routed.

Or, to come down to individuals, while we see one man reaping the fruit of his labours, we see another, equally laborious, begging his bread. What are the dews of heaven to this man are the damps of disease to that. Saul and Jonathan "were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions,

and yet they fell in battle.

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How often do we see

the most prudent individual fall into the very ruin

12 Chronicles, xiv. 12.

22 Samuel, i. 23.

against which his most cautious measures were taken; while, perhaps, what we ourselves thought to be for our ruin has tended to our honour. Seven times more than it was wonted to be the burning fiery furnace was heated for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego', but it was only kindled for their promotion. Haman hangs on the gallows where he thought to see his rival suspended2; and the ministers of Darius fall into the very pit which they had prepared for Daniel3.

And yet, notwithstanding all this, that we have some power over future events (though the extent of that power cannot be ascertained) is an object of intuitive belief, a conviction of the mind which nothing can overcome a fact which all men tacitly acknowledge whenever they resolve to act, or deliberate on their mode of acting; whenever they plight their faith to others, or induce others to plight their faith to them; a fact implied whenever the ALMIGHTY issues to us His commands; a fact implied in the very existence of moral evil; since, to deny that there are inferior agents in the world, and to make GOD the only efficient Cause of all that is done, is to make GOD the author of sin, which is blasphemy. Experience

1

Daniel, iii. 19. * Esther, vii. 10.

• Daniel, vi. 24.

shows that HE who gave us our being, gave us also, within certain limits, the power of independent action, and enabled us to be the cause of certain events; experience shows that, generally speaking, the race is to the swift, and the battle to the strong; that there is bread for the wise, and riches for men of understanding, and favour to men of skill; and that, therefore, if we wish to win the race or the battle, we must be swift and be strong; if we wish for success in our other undertakings, we must be wise and be skilful.

What we stated before is the exception, and not the rule, but the exceptions to the rule are so very many, and so very great, that an inspired penman, in that apparently paradoxical style, which is sometimes used to startle the careless, and to set the wise on thinking, boldly affirms a proposition directly the reverse of what has just been stated, and declares "that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," (i. e. it is not always so, it is not necessarily so,) "but that time and chance happeneth to all1": that is to say, that what to man may appear mere accident, occurs so very often to frustrate the wisest

1 Eccles. ix. 11.

counsels, and to render vain the greatest strength, that he who, BECAUSE he knows himself to be strong, or swift, or wise, thinks himself THEREFORE secure of his end, will often find himself woefully mistaken.

Now what does all this prove? Not, surely, that man has no power over future events, for that we have already seen that he has; but that there must be some other agent, or agents, besides man busied in the direction of human affairs: for to suppose that anything can undergo a change without some cause for that change: that an effect can be produced without the intervention of a Being with power and will to effect it; this is a degree of scepticism at which those only have arrived who are blinded, beyond all possibility of cure, by the prejudices of sect, or the subtleties of system. And hence it has happened that those who have not possessed, or (which in this case comes to the same thing) have not used the Scripture for their guide, have in all countries had recourse to imagination, in order to account for these, otherwise, unaccountable circumstances. To what but to this are we to attribute the elves, the fairies, the ghosts, which amused the fancy or excited the fears of our ancestors? To what but to this, the demi-gods of heathen worship? Nor was the superstition peculiar to an illiterate

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