to be his will, and therefore acceptable to him. Nor let any imagine that we may customarily unite with others in a worship which we deem wrong and unwarrantable, and dissemble our better knowledge for good ends, to make us more useful, and enable us to do the more good. It were better for us certainly to leave the Governor of the world to take care of it in his own way, and not venture out of the line of our duty, and transgress the laws of strict integrity which he has prescribed to us, (to do evil that good may come,) but to trust him, that the way of truth and sincerity which he hath enjoined will be best for us and for all.

4. One short remark, arising from the history we have been treating, though not directly in the train of what has gone before, will finish what I have to observe to you at present.

In this Syrian general we see the way of divine Providence in bringing men to the knowledge of the truth when they little looked for it. Happy if all were disposed to improve it as was this worthy person. And to this circumstance our Lord perhaps might allude, when, in rebuke of his townsmen, who slighted

their own great advantages in having himself among them, he says; (Luke iv. 27.) "Many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian."

In the fortune of war, a female captive, taken, and by chance as it were brought into this general's family, prompted by her concern for a fatal distemper her master laboured under, makes mention to her mistress of a man endued with divine power in her own country. From this slight incident, and pressed by the virulence of his disease, Naaman was carried into Samaria, and not only miraculously healed of his leprosy, but at the same time cured of a much worse disease of the mind,— pride, and ignorance of the true God.

So might we trace the hand and immediate appointment of God for good in our own history, if we would but accustom ourselves to turn our eyes this way.

The time and place of our birth, dispo sitions of our parents, manner of education, our first companions ;-by these, which are things not of our own choice, our characters are mostly formed to good or otherwise. If little of good be acquired in early life, or lost afterwards,

afterwards, a sudden happy turn is sometimes given to the dispositions, or a gradual lasting change made in the character, by the company we fall into, the more intimate connexions we make; by books, by discourses private or public which we hear, and by other incidents of our lives not to be numbered.

And all these, which by many harshly and heedlessly are termed fortune, chance, accident, are but the work and operation of God, without whom, literally, not a sparrow falleth to the ground: Matth. x. 29.

Our wisdom is to follow the divine call and guidance, in whatever way made known to us, which this great Syrian captain seems to have done in a very exemplary sort.

And if the divine word, which hath been before us this day, hath suggested aught whereby we may be led to correct what is wrong or bad, or be carried on in that which is good, our labour will not have been in vain, and the good providence of God is to be acknowledged for that and for every thing. Unto him, &c.

PRAYER.

O eternal, ever-blessed Lord God, the kind

universal

universal Father! whose impartial goodness is extended to all thy rational offspring, affording them powers sufficient to perform the services thou requirest from them, and to recommend themselves unto thee; for thou dost not expect above what thou hast bestowed: nevertheless where greater talents and opportunities of purifying themselves, and promoting thy holy truth, are given, thou wilt call for a proportionable improvement!

We come before thee with deepest humility and thankfulness for the light and advantages for the knowledge of thee, and our true happiness enjoyed by us, the people of this fa voured land, above many others, entreating thine ever-needful aid, that we may use and employ these thy gifts aright, so as to be approved by thee at the last.

It hath pleased thee, in the councils of thine unsearchable wisdom, (who permittest the rise and wide-spreading of evil among thy works for good in the end,) it hath pleased thee that the knowledge and worship of thee, the only true God, should be darkened and obstructed by the introduction of false objects of worship, the rivals of thy supreme majesty, even among the followers of thy Son Jesus Christ. Hasten

the

the approach, we beseech thee, of those happy times foretold by thy servants the prophets of old, when thou, O Father! who art God alone, and no other, shalt be everywhere known and acknowledged. And enable us, who have been brought to this knowledge of thee, to act the part which becomes us; and never through the fear of man, or regard to our worldly interests or estimation, to go contrary to our better knowledge, and appear to worship any other; but to esteem it our highest honour, the short time that we are here, to bear testimony to thee and thy truth.

Assist us, O heavenly Father! thus to be always making the wisest use of this our short day of trial, which is fast hastening to its close; that, when the night of death overtakes us, we may not be found to have lived wholly useless, but for the purposes of the most lasting good, in promoting virtue, and an unswerving loyalty to thee and to thy holy laws, in ourselves and in others; that at the last day, when we shall awake out of the dust, we may, through thine infinite mercy and unmerited goodness, have some place allotted us in those happy abodes, where they that be