on the part of the Christian, a very needless, and therefore a very unreasonable thing. Surely it is very unwise in him not to cast his care on God.1

But it is worse than unwise, it is ungrateful and undutiful. When God says, 'Leave these matters which you cannot manage to my management,' if we refuse, what is it but to insult our Divine benefactor by discovering doubts of his sincerity, or of his wisdom, or of his power? Whether would the ingratitude or the folly of the Levite of Mount Ephraim have been greater, if he had met the generous invitation of the hospitable old man of Gibeah, "Let all thy wants lie on me, only lodge not in the street," with a sullen refusal? And when the greatest and best of all beings says to us, who are but dust and ashes, Let all your wants lie upon me, wants, we well know, we cannot supply, but he can, where shall we find words to describe the baseness and the absurdity of putting away from us so generous, so needed a boon? Is it a fitting return for all his kindness, to insist on keeping hold of a burden which he is willing to release us of, when getting rid of that burden is necessary to enable us to yield him the cheerful, ready, joyful service he so well deserves? Surely when he says, I would have you without carefulness, that ye may serve me without fear in righteousness and holiness all the days of your lives, the sense of his kindness and the desire of his glory should equally lead us to comply with the command, "Cast all your care on God." Indeed, wherever the proposition, God the infinitely powerful, wise, and benignant Sovereign of the universe cares for me, is interested in my welfare, and pledges to secure it, is understood and believed, in the degree in which it is understood and believed, it does, it must banish carefulness and anxiety from the mind. Here, as in so many other cases, it is with a man according to his faith. Oh, how happy, oh, how holy, would we be! how easy would labour be, how light affliction! could we but, believing that God cares for us, "cast all our care

1 Psal. cxxxv. 6. Isa. li. 12, 15; xlix. 15.

on him," saying, "I am poor and needy; but the Lord thinketh on me! Thou art my help and deliverer, O my God!"1

Thus have I turned your attention to affliction as a state calculated to excite anxiety and carefulness; to the afflicted Christian's duty in reference to this view of affliction,—to cast all his anxieties on God; and to the motive urging him to this course, God cares for him.

This is the duty of the Christian at all times, and the motive is equally powerful in all circumstances. The inward ear of the Christian should ever be open to these words, so full of wisdom, so full of love of the great Master. "Take no thought; be not careful; anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor 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, by anxiety, can add one cubit to his stature, or, as it has been explained, one moment to his life? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed as one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into oven; will he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore, take no thought, be not anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or what shall we drink? and wherewithal shall we be clothed? (for after all these things the Gentiles seek,) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. Fear not, little flock; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.""

the

There is a class, a large class of men, and it is very likely

there are some of them here, to whom I can neither address the exhortation nor the encouragement in the text in the true sense, that which I have endeavoured to bring out to you; to whom I dare not say, Cast your care, all your care, ay, any of your care on God; to whom I cannot say, God cares for you in the way in which he cares for his own, for them who know and believe in him and love him, for they are none of his. His creatures they are, but his disobedient creatures; his subjects, but his rebellious subjects; they are not his children, they are not his people. There are men whose anxieties are all engaged about worldly, many of them about sinful, objects. Even with their very low notions of the Divine character, they themselves would be ashamed to take their cares and anxieties to God in prayer, and try to cast them on him. They feel that it would be to insult him to do so. Their inward feeling is, the less God hears of such things the better. They are cares he would never take off their hand, and undertake for. And though there is a sense in which God's mercies, God's tender mercies, are over all his works, in which he cares for all; yet, with regard to those who are living in unbelief and disobedience, it is quite plain that, remaining in that state, what they have to depend on is not pledged covenant love. Their dependence, if they have any, must be a presumptuous dependence on insulted kindness, or severely tried patience and long-suffering. Such persons are proper objects of deep, deep sympathy, shutting themselves out of all rational support and consolation, amid the anxieties, and perplexities, and sorrows of life. Oh! that we could awaken even one such person to carefulness about that of which he has no care, the salvation of the soul; to anxiety about that regarding which he is not at all anxious, the miseries of eternity. Oh! that we could hear him, like Ephraim, bemoaning himself and saying, "What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Who can dwell with devouring fire? who can dwell with the everlasting burning? How shall I come before the Lord?

How shall I stand before this holy Lord God?

Oh! how shall I escape, or how shall I endure the wrath to come? What, what must I do to be saved?" Then when he is beginning to despair we would begin to hope of him. Then would we say, with all the intensity of earnestness we could throw into our language and voice,—for however desirable such anxiety is, in comparison of stupid inconsideration or presumptuous confidence, its continuance is not a desirable thing; the sooner it is removed, if aright removed, the sooner it is got quit of, if safely disposed of, the better, then we would say, Poor overburdened one, cast thy care on God, the God of salvation. He cares for thee, he alone can release thee. In the belief of the truth respecting his gracious character, manifested in consistency with, in glorious illustration of, his immaculate holiness and infinite justice in the atoning death of his Son, the just One, in the room of the unjust, you may obtain, you will obtain, relief at once, from a burden of guilt, which will certainly, if unremoved, sink your soul to hell, as well as from a burden of anxiety, which, if unremoved, might lay your body in an untimely grave. And in getting relief from that anxiety, a foundation is laid for getting relief from all anxieties: and henceforward we could with unfaltering voice address to him the words of the text, in all the blissful immeasurable breadth and depth of meaning which belongs to them. "Cast all your care on God, for he cares for you." Oh! that it may be so with some poor thoughtless sinner, anxious about every thing but that about which, above all other things, he has cause to be anxious. Amen.

DISCOURSE XXIII.

THE CHRISTIAN'S GREAT ENEMY-HIS DUTY IN REFERENCE TO HIM, AND HIS ENCOURAGEMENT TO DISCHARGE IT.

1 PET. V. 8-11.-Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you: to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

THERE is, perhaps, no article of revealed truth which has been more generally ridiculed by infidels, and probably, for that reason, more frequently attempted to be explained away by philosophizing Christians, than the doctrine of the existence and agency of evil spirits. That among professed Christians highly absurd notions on this subject have been entertained, and to a certain extent are still entertained, I am not disposed to question; but surely revelation cannot be fairly charged with the errors and absurdities of those who profess to believe it, unless it can be satisfactorily proved that it gives sanction to these errors and absurdities.

In the present instance it will be no difficult task to show that no such sanction is afforded, and that in the doctrine of the existence and agency of evil spirits, as taught in the Holy Scriptures, there is nothing irrational or ridiculous.