DISC. in my heart by faith? and do my appetites I. and paffions move in obedience to that heavenly principle? Do I love God, and delight in prayer and praife? Do I love my neighbour, and rejoice to affift and benefit him, to cover his faults, and overlook his infirmities? Are thofe tempers alive and reigning in me, which Chrift has pronounced blessed? and, in the general and common course of my thoughts, words, and actions, do I confider myself as in his prefence, to whom I must give account? The answers returned by confcience to fuch questions as thefe, would perhaps fhew the best man living, that if he have not all he wanted, there is no just reafon for complaint. Three is another confideration which may completely fettle your minds, on the subject of the diftreffes to which the righteous are fometimes fubject in this prefent life. A very good man may be rendered much better by trials and afflictions. Proportionable to his fufferings will be his reward; and if you could propofe the question to those faints in heaven, who once wandered, deftitute,. , afflicted,

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afflicted, tormented, in sheep-fkins and goat- DISC. fkins, upon earth, they would tell you, they do not now wish to have done otherwife.

Our Lord clofes his interefting and divine discourse on this subject of worldly care and anxiety, in the words of my text, with an argument drawn from the evident abfurdity of anticipating forrow, and rendering ourfelves unhappy beforehand. "Be not there"fore careful for the morrow; for the "morrow will be careful for the things of "itself; fufficient unto the day is the evil "thereof." The meaning is, that, having fuch a promise from our heavenly Father, of being provided for as his children, if we are but dutiful children, we should not render ourselves miferable by foreftalling mischief, and adding the future to the present; but that, having, through his grace, transacted the bufinefs, and overcome the difficulties of the day, we should at night difburthen our minds of folicitude, and reft our weary heads upon our pillows in peace; fince the trouble

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DISC. trouble of each day is fufficient for the day;

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and He, who has been with us to-day, will be with us to-morrow.

In this ever memorable and moft important precept, Chrift confults our natural quiet, no less than our fpiritual welfare. The chief fources of uneafiness are, vexation at what is past, or forebodings of what is to come: whereas what is past ought to give us no difquiet, except that of repentance for our faults; and what is to come ought much less to affect us, because, with regard to us and our concerns, it is not, and perhaps never will be. The present is what we are apt to neglect. That, well employed, will render the remembrance of the past pleasant, and the profpect of the future comfortable. Attention to the duties of the day is like the manna, when it defcended fresh and grateful from above; anxiety about the events of to-morrow resembles the fame manna, when, diftruftfully laid up contrary to the divine command, it bred worms and putrified. Give us, then, bleffed Lord,

even as thou haft commanded us to ask at DISC. thy hands, our daily bread, and let it not be corrupted by discontented and unthankful imaginations. Thou art the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Thou haft borne us from the womb, thou haft fupported us from our youth up, even until now. Thou forfakeft none but those who have first forfaken thee. Only enable us to truft in thee, and then we shall never be confounded.