no condemnation

here." She then said, "Remember all the instructions I have given you. Perhaps your mother's death may prove your soul's salvation." I said to her, about a quarter of an hour before she died, "My dear, you have hold of the promises?" "Yes," she replied: "I know in whom I have believed." This was the last sentence she ever uttered.

The foregoing statement, given principally in the words of my dear wife herself, so fully portrays her character as to render further remarks scarcely necessary. Suffice it to say, that the deep interest she felt in the prosperity of Zion did not in the least abate, when prevented from active efforts to promote it; as was evidenced by the joy with which she always hailed intelligence of revivals of religion at home or abroad. If any traits of character were more prominently observable in her than others, they were, strict, unbending integrity; a high sense of honourable conduct in all things; firm decision in the path of duty, from which no cross or trial ever deterred her. The law of kindness was ever on her lips; and with overflowings of sacred joy she has inserted in her diary her strong hopes, that the relation who had, from a mistaken sense of duty, bound her not to enter a Methodist chapel till she was twenty-one years of age, was, at the age of eighty-six years, herself affected to tears whilst Mrs. Wood read to and prayed with her, and said, with strong emotions of mind, "I wish you could always be with me; for I love to hear you read and pray." My dear wife closes the memento of the visit by adding, "I leave her with the Lord. May He answer the many prayers I have offered for her, but more especially the powerful intercessions of her blessed Redeemer! Amen and amen."

Only one more point requires to be noticed,-her intense love for the holy Scriptures. The Bible was her constant treasure. All her reading was of a religious and devotional character; but the Bible was to her the "book of books." A memorandum, found in the Bible which she kept expressly for her own use, shows that she was in the habit of beginning and ending it with the commencement and close of the year. Twice she read it through in six months; and intended doing so generally, had her strength permitted.

The Rev. Philip C. Turner has kindly favoured me with the following mournfully interesting particulars. He observes,

"On Wednesday night she was suffering acutely; and when I drew near to her, she said, with apparent anxiety, 'O do tell me what I ought to do now; for I am so full of pain, that I feel as if it were impossible that I could do any thing. I cannot pray. What ought I to do?' Of course, I told her that no such exercise was required of her; that it was then her privilege to repose in the atonement of her Redeemer, and to rest in the assurance that his arm was around and underneath her. 'You trust,' said I, in his precious blood; do you not?' To be sure I do,' she answered; 'what else could I do? I have done that for many years.' After prayer, in which the Lord

graciously met us, I think she softly said, 'That comforts me. O that comforts me!' My last interview with her was about half an hour before she was taken from us. She then said, 'Talk: I cannot.' 'Shall I talk,' said I, 'of the love of Jesus, and his precious blood?' To this she seemed eagerly to assent. I repeated those passages of Scripture which I thought suited to her case, and said, 'You have no fear, have you?' 'No,' she replied; but pray that I may have a token for good, that I may tell,'-I scarcely know whether she closed the sentence; but she seemed to wish to speak to the family, who were each in turn taking leave of her, and for whose salvation I know she had felt much. I desired she would leave this with her Saviour; adding that we were fully satisfied as to her safety, and believed she was going to glory. I said, 'You fully trust in the Lord Jesus.' To this she gave me a full and explicit affirmative; and also delightful evidence, that whilst she walked through the valley of the shadow of death, she feared no evil."""Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord."

DIVINITY.

DIVINE PROVIDENCE:

A DISCOURSE,

Delivered in Grosvenor-street chapel, Chorlton-upon-Medlock, Manchester, July 2d, 1834, as one of the Monthly Lectures, appointed to be preached in rotation, by the Wesleyan- Methodist Preachers, stationed in Manchester.

BY THE REV. JONATHAN CROWTHER.

"FOR the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him."

2 CHRONICLES xvi. 9.

THESE words may not, perhaps, be considered the most appropriate that could have been selected, to the subject on which I am expected to discourse this evening. Yet, as they stand connected in this chapter with a special interposition of that divine Providence, which we are now assembled to contemplate and adore, they cannot be altogether out of place, as the text of a discourse upon that subject; and they will be found, I trust, to lead to some views of it, at least, which are of great practical importance.

The term providence,* as now commonly applied to God, does not

It occurs only in two passages in the Apocrypha, namely, Wisdom xiv. 3, and xvii. 2. St. Jerome observes, respecting this book, that it "smells strong of the Grecian eloquence, and is composed with art and method, after the manner of the Greek Philosophers." He specifies also a number of terms used in that book, which are evidently borrowed from the Grecian games. To the terms which he

occur in holy Scripture. It is, nevertheless, a term convenient and proper for the statement of a scriptural doctrine. By those of the ancient philosophers who admitted the existence of a God, or of a plurality of gods, terms of correspondent grammatical import were employed, to express that divine superintendence by which all things in the material creation were fitted and directed to their proper ends, and by which the universe was kept from falling back into that state of chaos which was supposed to have preceded the present orderly and beauteous frame of things. The doctrine generally held upon that subject was one of those bright and precious fragments of truth which, though frequently obscured or hidden amidst the numerous errors of their " philosophy and vain deceit," were never absolutely lost, but ever and anon displayed themselves, the beautiful, yet melancholy, relics of earlier and better days. After their example, we have learned to employ the term "Providence," for the purpose of describing "the conduct and direction of the several parts of the universe, by a superintending and intelligent Being."

Such is the general meaning of the term; but, on the present occasion, I must restrict myself to a more limited and special application of it. With this view, I shall refrain from noticing those displays of a divine Providence which are exhibited in the construction of the celestial universe, and in the regulation of those exact, and yet stupendous, motions, by which times and seasons are distinguished; although the Scriptures teach us to "consider the heavens" as "the work of God's fingers," and to contemplate the moon and the stars as being "ordained" to special and important uses. For the same reason I shall pass over those manifestations of an overruling and sustaining Providence which are displayed in the terrestrial world, in the maintenance of animal and vegetable life; though here again we are reminded of a God who sendeth rain and fruitful seasons, giving to the beast his food, and to the young ravens when they cry, and who remembereth to clothe even the grass of the field. My purpose is to invite your attention to such views of the providence of God as more immediately affect the higher interests of man. I do so the rather, because it is chiefly for the purpose of illustrating this particular department of the subject, that the Scriptures so frequently call upon us to contemplate those departments of it which relate more especially to the inanimate, and to the brute, creation. If, for example, they direct us to consider the divine wisdom and power, as emblazoned in the heavens above us, it is not for the purpose of exciting us to a bewildering astonishment, but for the purpose of impressing us with views, so much the more affecting, of that amazing condescension

has specified he might have added the Greek word for providence, povola; that word having never been used in reference to God, except by profane writers, until after the Christian æra.

which, from a scene of such magnificence and splendour, stoops to be mindful of such a worm as man. Or, if they call upon us to behold how he feeds the fowls of the air, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and how he arrays the lilies of the field, which neither toil nor spin; it is to shame the unnatural and monstrous unbelief that would deny, or call in question, the providential care which he exercises over us. In short, while "the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth," for the diffusion of his tender mercies over all his works, the special and crowning purpose of this extensive and unceasing visitation and inspection is, that he may "show himself strong in the behalf of those" amongst men, "whose heart is perfect towards him."

Let us therefore consider,

I. The proofs evincing a divine Providence; and,

II. The general characteristics by which its operations are distinguished.

I. First, then, we inquire into the general proofs evincing a divine.

Providence.

1. The first of these proofs is drawn from the moral fitness and necessity of such a providence. The Psalmist teaches us, he is a fool who says, "There is no God; and, surely, he is not less so, who, professing to believe in the existence of such a God as the Jehovah of the Scriptures, can say, “There is no Providence.” Some writers on this subject have gone so far as to assert, that, in the abstract, the idea of a God without a providence involves a contradiction. But the truth of that position may be reasonably questioned. If we suppose a God, invested with no higher attributes than those which were applied to the false deities of ancient Heathenism, where is the folly of farther supposing him to dwell in a remote and selfish seclusion from terrestrial things? Methinks, in this respect, the followers of Epicurus gave good proof of their consistency, at least, when, believing only in such gods as those referred to, they not only denied them to be the governors, but also the creators, of the world; it being, as they rightly judged, but reasonable to conclude, that such gods had neither the wisdom nor the power to create or govern such a world as this. And they were equally rational and consistent, when, having no distinct or certain notion of any intelligent Being, to whom the lofty attributes of eternal existence and universal power might be considered as pertaining, they attributed eternity to matter, and gave the empire of the world to chance. Were there, in reality, no higher object of worship than the demon-gods of Greece and Rome; and were there, consequently, no providence but such as these gods might be supposed to be capable of exercising; it were surely consistent with good reason and benevolence, at least, though it might seem to savour of impiety, to wish the sceptre of the world's dominion might be wrested from their grasp, and that, rather than be subject to such rule, the course of

nature, and of all events, might be committed to the sportive dance of atoms, and the blind rush of accidental causes.

But if, as taught in Scripture, we acknowledge, as the first cause of all created things, a Being absolutely perfect, and, therefore, infinite in wisdom, in goodness, and in power, we must, at the same time, admit a divine Providence, as still sustaining and governing the universe which he has made; and, especially, we must admit there is a Providence, to administer and over-rule the affairs and interests of men. Much as it has laboured on that point, "the wisdom of this world" presents us with no principles, which can at all suffice to show how any thing created can even continue to exist, unless by a perpetual exertion of wisdom and power, on the part of him who first called it into being; or how, upon the supposition that the divine guidance and support should be withdrawn, the world could do otherwise than immediately sink back into the nothingness from which it originally sprung. Even supposing the material creation in "the dew" of its "morning," and in "the beauty" of its primeval excellence, to have received the impression of such properties and laws as would have been sufficient, but for the positive intervention of some disturbing cause, to perpetuate its existence and its order; yet we cannot contemplate the character and aspect of the world, as it exists at present, and, especially, we cannot contemplate its moral character and aspect, without perceiving the necessity of a divine Providence, to counteract the evils which have gained access to it, and to control the whirlwind and tumult into which its moral elements are thrown. That the universal Creator should leave, without a Providence, a world like this, in which evil of all kinds has won so large and terrible a sway, and in which there are so many fearful tendencies to universal mischief and confusion, would neither be consistent with wisdom, nor goodness, nor justice, on any other supposition than that of man's having been judicially abandoned, without hope of redemption, to reap the fruit of his own rebellious doings.

2. The second proof of a divine Providence is found in the positive and repeated testimony of holy writ. Considerations like those to which I have already adverted, ought to be quite sufficient of themselves, not only to establish the doctrine of a divine Providence, but also to maintain a firm belief of it throughout all ages. But, alas! it is the fate of moral truth, much more than of truth of any other kind, to be neglected and forgotten; and the world's history affords melancholy proof, that there is no moral truth, however clear or important, which may not, by the transmuting power connected with the deceitfulness of sin, be utterly perverted, and "changed into a lie." Amongst other truths, that which embodies the doctrine of a superintending and controlling Providence, though it cannot be erased from the belief of any man who acknowledges God, as an absolutely perfect Being, is yet too frequently forgotten. He may hold this truth, as well as many others, in unrighteousness and, though a sober and deliberate judgment will never VOL. XIV, Third Series. OCTOBER, 1835. 3 D