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SERMON XXI.

OF CASTING YOUR CARE UPON GOD.

PETER V. VII.

Casting all your care upon him, for he careth

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for you.

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o cast their care upon God, is one of the SER M. duties which the Apostle enjoins his disci

ples, towards the conclusion of this epistle; and he persuades them to the observation of the injunction by the strongest of all arguments" for God careth for you."

In the following discourse, I shall explain what is meant by casting your care upon

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SERM upon God; secondly, what you are to understand by God's caring for you; and, lastly, I shall endeavour to shew the force which there is in God's caring for you, to induce you to cast your care upon him.

No command can be so plainly given but that some will mistake it; and there have been persons who have imagined that, by being ordered to cast their care upon God, was meant that they should take no care or trouble, themselves, of any kindthat they should be altogether idle-and not in any shape concern themselyes with earthly affairs;-but this is both contrary to reason and to many express commands. of scripture:-it is contrary to reason, to suppose that we should be sent into this world and be required to pay no attention to its concerns-it is contrary also to reason to suppose that so many faculties, so . many talents, so.many passions, so much ability to be useful to our fellow-creatures,

should

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should have been bestowed on us to no SERM. end; and it is contrary to many express

commands of scripture, by which we are enjoined to provide for ourselves and our families, and to be industrious, that we may have it in our power to be charitable; neither of which can be done without some sort of care. God expects from us exertions of this kind, and has made it a part of our duty to use them; but the care which the text commands us to part from, is that over-solicitude, that anxiety about the things of this world, which entirely absorbs our attention and takes it off from the things of the next-this the apostle exhorts us to banish, and to leave the object of it to the providence of God. We may, with propriety, do all we innocently can, to procure the good and avoid the evil of this life: but, when we have done all, we must leave the event to heaven, and not disquiet and torment ourselves about

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SERM. about it. The nature and meaning of the command of "casting our care upon God," being thus shortly explained, the argument by which we are persuaded to obey it, follows-" for he careth for you.”—God observes, minutely, the affairs of men, and orders them for the best; we ought, therefore, to leave our concerns in his hands, and to rest contented with his disposal of them.

If you allow that there is a God, and that he made the world, I think it will follow, of course, that he governs it; for is it credible that a being who has been at the pains of raising such a magnificent structure, who has furnished it with such an infinite variety of creatures so admirably suited to the use and service of each other, should, as soon as he had finished it, entirely desert his own work:-is it not rather to be concluded that he still continues to superintend it, that he still continues to per

vade

vade and attend to what he has formed, and SERM. XXI. particularly to that noblest part of it, man!

Such was always the opinion of the best and wisest of the heathens before the times of Christianity; they not only believed that there was an all-powerful being, who created all things, but that he also perpetually had an eye to and directed them; and though perhaps some of them thought that this his providence was confined to considerable affairs, while those of less importance were left to their natural course, yet with us Christians the matter is otherwise; we are assured by scripture, in many places, that not even the most inconsiderable thing happens without his agency or permission; that his observation and interference are not partial and confined, but universal, and over all his works. We are told that God's providence extends to objects the least and most inconsiderable,

to the grass of the field, which to-day

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