not forget thee. And can I think of being remembered by my Father in heaven, remembered with the favour he bears unto his own, and not fee reason to conclude, that as feeking him, I shall not want any thing that is good?

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3. Confider the Most High, as a God to his people; and what ftrong reafon then have they to expect from him all that is good? As he is a Being of all poffible perfections, and as he is theirs in an everlasting covenant, This is the joyful found which all thofe are bleffed that hear, and are concerned in, I will be your God, and ye fhall be my people. And what may not people expect from a God, who is their own? confidering,

(1.) That known unto the Lord are all the wants of his people. He appoints the bounds of their habitation, and knows where to visit them, and daily hears from them. Nay, he is always present with them, and in a day of trouble has efpecially engaged to be fo. Ifa. xliii. 2. When thou paffeft through the waters, I will be with thee and through the rivers, they fhall not overflow thee, &c.

;

(2.) That he is concerned for, and exercises a particular providence about the generation of them that feek him. The Lord knoweth them that are his. Their wants and ftraits, their fears and dangers, their work and way, he observes with a fpecial regard to all the circumftances they may be in; as an indulgent parent obferves his children, that he may fuit his mercies to their various needs. Even the very hairs of every righteous man's head are all numbered; fo exact is the care of God about them, Matth. x. 30. (3.) That'

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(3.) That from his infinite fullness of power and goodness, he is able to furnish his people with all that is good. What can they want, but God all-fufficient can eafily beftow? With what comfort may they feek to him, with whom is the fountain of life? He who every day feeds and sustains the whole world, fatisfies angels, and is his own happiness,can furely do exceeding abundantly above all that they can afk or think.

He can fupply all my wants of foul or body, prefent, or to come; beftow all mercies which the exceeding great and precious promises of his word contain, and which any of my requests built upon them, and encouraged by them, can crave. And he ever lives to do fo; being the fame yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

4. He hath encouraged the hope of those that feek him, by folemn affeveration and oath, concerning what he will do for them. P. xxxii. 3. Truft in the Lord, and do good, &c. and verily thou shalt be fed. Jer. xxxii. 41. I will rejoyce over them to do them good, &c. with my whole heart, and with my whole foul.

These are some of the encouragements which they that feek God, have to believe that they shall not want any thing that is good for them. To which we may add,

5. His extenfive care over creatures of a lower nature. This is the argument which our Lord himself uses to reprefs undue folicitude in his followers, as to the neceffaries of life, Matt. xxvi. 25. Therefore I fay unto you, take no thought for your life what ye fhall eat, or what ye fhall drink; nor yet for your body what ye fhall

put on, ver. 26.

Behold

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? Ver. 26, 29, 30. Confider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they pin. And yet 1 fay unto you, that Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of thefe. Wherefore if God fo cloath the grafs of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is caft into the oven, shall be not much more cloath you, O ye of little faith?

6. Lastly, The tranfcendent inftance of the love of God in the gift of his Son, may encourage the faith of his people, that they shall not want any thing that is good for them. He that Spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how fhall be not with him alfo freely give us all things? Rom. viii. 32.

APPLICATION.

How happy is their state who can make it out to themselves, that they belong to the generation of them that feek the Lord, and what strong confolation may they draw from the promise made to fuch, that they shall not want any good thing? How chearfully may they follow, where God leads, and how firmly truft him amidst all difcouragements or gloomy afpects, fpiritual, or temporal? How divine a calm may reign in their breafts? What man is be that feareth the Lord? His foul fhall dwell at eafe, Pfal. xxiv. 12, 13. It has reason to do fo; as all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, unto fuch as keep his covenant, and his teftimonies, ver. 10.

Let the fincere feeker of God humbly take up the resolution, although the fig-tree shall not bloffom, neither fhall fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olive fhall fail, and the fields fhail yield no meat, the flock fhall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stall: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my falvation, Hab. iii. 17, 18.

Though the fun should be darkened, and the moon fhould not give her light, the Lord will be unto them an everlasting light, and their God their glory. Why art thou caft down, O my Soul? Why art thou fo difquieted within me? Pfal. xliii. 5.

SER

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SERMON IV.

PSALM LXXIII. 23. Nevertheless 1 am continually with thee, thou haft holden me by my right-hand.

HESE are the words of the holy Pfalmift

Tjuft recovering out of a very lore and

deep diftrefs, which in the foregoing verses he at large describes, with the occafion of it.

Before he mentions any thing of his trial, he lays down this as an undoubted principle, Truly God is good to Ifrael, even to fuch as are of a clean heart. However fuch as thefe may feem neglected, or severely dealt withal by him; whatever hard thoughts they may be tempted to give way to, they have reason to believe, and will be brought to own at laft, that truly God is good to his Ifrael; peculiarly, favingly, everlastingly good to fuch as are of a clean heart.

Having laid down this as his ground upon which to justify God, he declares how forely he had been shaken, from obferving the unequal diftributions of providence, in the outward profperity of finners, and the affliction of God's faints. But as for me, my feet were almost gone,