of the meanest of his creatures; and thus they deny to him the combination of properties asserted in our text, that, whilst possessed of unlimited empire, he sustains the feeble and raises the prostrate.

We shall not stay to expose the falseness of an opinion which has sometimes found advocates, that, having created this world, God left it to itself, and bestows no thought on its concerns. But whilst few would hold the opinion in the extent thus announced, many would limit the divine Providence, and thus take from the doctrine its great beauty and comfort. It is easy and common to represent it as incompatible with the confessed grandeur of our Maker, that He should busy himself with the concerns of the poorest of His creatures: but such reasoning betrays ignorance as to what it is in which greatness consists. It may be that, amongst finite beings, it is not easy, and perhaps not possible, that attention to what is minute, or comparatively unimportant, should be combined with attention to things of vast moment. But we never reckon it an excellence that there is not, or cannot be, this union. On the contrary, we should declare that man at the very summit of true greatness, who proved himself able to unite what had seemed incompatible. If a man, for example, be a great statesman, and the management of a vast empire be delivered into his hands, we can scarcely expect that, amid the multiplicity of mighty affairs which solicit his attention, he should find time for the duties of more ordinary

life. We feel that, engrossed with occupations of overwhelming importance, it is hardly possible that he should be assiduous in the instruction of his children, or the inspection of his servants, or the visiting and relieving his distressed fellowmen. But we never feel that his greatness would be diminished, if he were thus assiduous. We are ready, on the contrary, to admit that we should give him, in a higher degree than ever, our respect and admiration, if we knew that, whilst he had his eye on every wheel in the machinery of government, and his comprehensive mind included all that had a bearing on the well-being of the empire, he discharged with exemplary fidelity every relative duty, and entered with as much assiduousness into all that concerned his neighbours and dependents, as though he had not to extend his carefulness over the thousand departments of a complicated system. What would be thought of that man's estimate of greatness, who should reckon it derogatory to the statesman that he thus combined attention to the inconsiderable with attention to the stupendous; and who should count it inconsistent with the loftiness of his station, that, amid duties as arduous as faithfully discharged, he had an ear for the prattle of children, and an eye for the interests of the friendless, and a heart for the sufferings of the destitute? Would there not be a feeling, mounting almost to veneration, towards the ruler who should prove himself equal to the superintending every concern of an empire, and who could yet give a personal attention to the

wants of many of the poorest of its families; and who, whilst gathering within the compass of an ample intelligence every question of foreign and home policy, protecting the commerce, maintaining the honour, and fostering the institutions of the state, could minister tenderly at the bedside of sickness, and hearken patiently to the tale of calamity, and be as active for the widow and the orphan, as though his whole business were to lighten the pressure of domestic affliction ?

We can appeal, then, to your own notions of true greatness, for a refutation of the common arguments against the Providence of God. We know not why that should be derogatory to the majesty of the Ruler of the universe, which, by the general confession, would add immeasurably to the majesty of one of the earth's potentates. And if we should rise in our admiration and applause of a statesman, or sovereign, in proportion as he shewed himself capable of attending to things comparatively petty and insignificant, without neglecting the grand and momentous, certainly we are bound to apply the same principle to our Maker-to own it, that is, essential to his greatness, that, whilst marshalling planets and ordering the motions of all worlds throughout the sweep of immensity, he should yet feed "the young ravens that call upon him," and number the very hairs of our heads; essential, in short, that, whilst His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endureth throughout all generations, he should uphold all that fall, and raise up those that are bowed down.

We would add to this, that objections against the doctrine of God's Providence are virtually objections against the great truths of creation. Are we to suppose that this or that ephemeral thing, the tiny tenant of a leaf or a bubble, is too insignificant to be observed by God; and that it is absurd to think that the animated point, whose existence is a second, occupies any portion of those inspections which have to spread themselves over the revolutions of planets, and the movements of angels? Then to what authorship are we to refer this ephemeral thing? We subject it to the powers of the microscope, and are amazed, perhaps, at observing its exquisite symmetries and adornments, with what skill it has been fashioned, with what glory it has been clothed: but we find it said that it is dishonouring to God to suppose him careful or observant of this insect; and then our difficulty is, who made, who created this insect? I know not what there can be too inconsiderable for the Providence, if it have not been too inconsiderable for the creation, of God. What it was not unworthy of God to form, it cannot be unworthy of God to preserve. Why declare any thing excluded by its insignificance from his watchfulness, which could not have been produced but by his power? Thus the universal Providence of God is little more than an inference from the truth of His being the universal Creator. And men may speak of the littleness of this or that creature, and ask how we can believe that the animalcule, scarce perceptible as it floats by us on the evening

breeze, is observed and cared for by that Being, inaccessible in his sublimity, who "sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers:" but we ask in reply, whether or no it be God who gave its substance and animation to this almost invisible atom; and unless they can point out to us another creator, we shall hold that it must be every way worthy of God, that he should turn all the watchfulness of a guardian on the work of his own handsfor it cannot be more true, that, as universal Creator, he has such power that his dominion endureth throughout all generations, than that, as universal sustainer, he has such carefulness for whatever he hath formed, that he upholdeth them that fall, and raiseth up all that are bowed down.

But up to this point, we have been rather engaged with removing objections against the doctrine of God's Providence, than with examining that doctrine, as it may be derived from our text. In regard to the doctrine itself, it is evident that nothing can happen in any spot of the universe which is not known to Him who is em

phatically the Omniscient. But it is far more than the inspection of an ever vigilant observer which God throws over the concerns of creation. It is not merely that nothing can occur without the knowledge of our Maker: it is that nothing can occur, but by either His appointment or permission. We say either His appointment or permission-for we know, that, whilst He ordereth all things, both in Heaven and earth, there is much which He allows to be done, but which