of foresight which I am now to mention are only such as God has ordained. These are two, experience and revelation.

To judge from experience what is probable or certain hereafter, is the province of reason. The ground of judgment in this case, lies in that uniform course of events, from which we conclude that the future will resemble the past. In what are called the laws of nature, we calculate on a stated connexion of causes and effects. On this principle we know that water will flow downwards from the summits of mountains, and not in the contrary direction; that animal bodies are sustained by food, and destroyed by fire or poison. We know that the light to-day will be followed by the darkness of night, and that the night will be followed by another day. On this regularity depend all human plans of business. Who could navigate the ocean, if there were no regularity in polar attraction, or in the movements of the sun? Who could till the earth, if there were no uniformity in the seasons? Who could travel a journey, if he could have no foresight as to the length of the day? Who could provide for his family, if it were wholly uncertain whether the winter would last one week, or one year?

In the laws of mind too, there is a uniformity similar to that which exists in the material world. Understanding, heart, conscience, and passions, are attributes of every human mind, which are affected essentially in the same manner by the same causes. If it were not so, civil government and social relations must cease. No laws could be framed for any community or any family. No reliance could be placed on any system of instruction, or argument, or persuasion. For who would undertake to instruct or move his fellow men, if there were no tendency in argument to convince, or in motive to excite? Amidst the great diversities of intellect and temper among men, there are points of resemblance, that are nearly universal; and from these, a careful observer may often predict the conduct of voluntary agents, with as much certainty as the astronomer calculates an eclipse. It was no accident that the sagacious Burke foresaw so exactly the results of the French revolution.

Now the lessons of experience are not useful merely to the philosopher, and the reader of history. They are intelligible to common men, and on common subjects. They

constitute a code of laws which every prudent man carries with him, and instinctively applies in his daily conduct.

On this principle of foresight from experience, the best systems of education are founded. The influence of youthful habits, in forming the whole character, leads us to estimate the prospects of manhood from the promise of early life. In the same way we predict the salutary or baneful influence of parental example on the young, as that influence is good or bad. We predict that one man will become the victim of intemperance, that another will be poor, and another rich, from the usual connexion of causes and effects as we see in experience.

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On this principle we all act in common affairs. We would not scruple to take a nauseous drug to avoid a fever; part with a mortified limb to save life; nor to lighten a sinking ship, for our own preservation, by throwing our goods into the sea. Should a man come to you with a dose of arsenic, as a healthful medicine, and say, the world have always been mistaken in thinking it a mortal poison; swallow it, and you shall receive no harm. Would you listen to him? No, you would look on him as an insane man or a murderer; you would listen to experience, which says swallow it, and you will not live one day.

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The other means of foresight to which I alluded is revelation. This is the province of faith. „Noah built an ark, to the saving of his house." Why? He foresaw that a flood was coming. How did he foresee this? „Being warned of God." The men of that generation too, had the same means of knowing that a deluge would come, the warning of God. They were told this for one hundred and twenty years, by Noah. But they had no faith, and therefore no foresight of the event, „,till the flood came, and took them all away."

God warned Pharaoh; „To-morrow, about this time, I will cause a very grievous hail, such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof; every man and beast, that shall be found in the field, shall die. He that feared the word of the Lord, made his servants and cattle flee into the houses; and he that regarded not the word of the Lord, left his servants and cattle in the field." At the appointed time the hail came, and smote all that were in the field, man and beast. These men that perished in the

When the approaching overthrow of Sodom was announced to Lot, he fled to Zoar. Why did not his sons in law escape also? Surely they might have foreseen what was coming; they were warned of God, ,,Get you out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city." To mention no more examples of this sort, there are many future things which reason and experience could teach, either not at all, or very imperfectly, which faith foresees by a confident reliance on the declarations of God. Thus Abraham ,,foresaw Christ's day, and rejoiced." Thus ,,David in spirit called him Lord, when he saw his glory and spake of him." Thus Isaiah foresaw the cross erected, and the suffering Saviour expiring on it. With the same certainty, though not inspired, the believer now may know beforehand, that whatever God has spoken will be accomplished. Has God said, "He that believeth shall be saved?" it must be so. Has God said, ,,He that believeth not shall be damned? These shall go away, into everlasting punishment?" it must be so: reason may speculate, unbelief may doubt and dispute; but faith listens with reverence to God, and foresees the unquenchable fire prepared for the wicked, and the ,,smoke of their torment ascending up forever and ever."

Thus it is that reason foresees future things, as probable or certain, in the light of experience. And thus it is that faith, with a clearer vision, foresees, in the light of revelation, many things which are rendered certain by the character or declarations of God. In this way the believer has a general assurance that the Judge of all the earth will do right. He has a more particular assurance that The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church;" - that ,,all things will work together for good to them that love God;" that all who embrace the gospel will be happy, and all who reject it will perish. He foresees the solemnities of his own dying hour. He foresees that glorious, dreadful day, when the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels; will gather all nations before him, and sever the wicked

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from among the just; when the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and pass away with a great noise; the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up." Nevertheless, the believer, according to promise, looks for new heavens, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." The apostle Peter, having surveyed these awful scenes of futurity, speaks of scoffers who make a jest of them all, „saying, where is the promise of his coming?" But very different, he says, should be the feelings of Christians; „seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be, in all holy conversation and godliness; looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless." But if God has thus given us the means, in his providence and word, of acting with a wise foresight of futurity; let us proceed to inquire,

THIRDLY, For WHAT REASONS should we act in this manner?

I. It is a sufficient reason for doing so, that this is only exercising a PROPER CONFIDENCE IN GOD. When he told the wicked Jews that, if they did not repent, the Chaldean sword should desolate their nation, as I have said already, they might have foreseen the approaching ruin. To go on heedlessly, till the calamity came, was a thousand times more unreasonable than the conduct of the stork, that had no reason, but saw the signs of the heavens, and fled away from the approaching tempests. And still more unreasonable is the conduct of immortal beings, who live as though there were no promises nor threatenings, no disclosures of an eternal hereafter, in the Bible.

Besides, the regard to futurity which God requires of us, is only a proper respect to his providence. There is a common extreme on this subject, consisting in an anxious, apprehensive state of mind about things that belong only to God, or things of which he has made no disclosure to us. It is a want of confidence that God will do what is best. For example; good men sometimes indulge excessive anxiety for the safety of the church. They speak of its dangers, in a strain of unbelief, as though the cause of truth were about to be utterly overthrown. They are

in much the same state of mind with a man on shipboard, for the first time; — a stranger to navigation, he is afraid that the pilot will commit some mistake; he is alarmed at every change of the wind, and every movement of the ship, expecting that something will happen, he knows not what. But God has not committed the care of the church to us; wo to its interests if he had. He has not made us responsible for the safety of the church. That is in good hands. ,,Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled. Blessed, O Lord of hosts, is the man that trusteth in thee."

In respect to individual interests too, there is often an anxious looking forward, which arises from distrust of providence. God has disclosed to us so much of futurity as enables us to do our duty. Here we must rest. All anxiety as to his secret purposes concerning ourselves, which have no respect to our duty; all restless desire to read the whole book of providence, when he is pleased to show us only a single page, is a meddling with divine prerogatives, as sinful as it is unwise.

But there is an opposite extreme. It is a blind trust in providence; a kind of Christian fatalism. It folds its hands and looks upward, with a presumptuous assurance that God will not only govern the world, but will also do what belongs to men. This we have no right to expect. If you know your house to be on fire, and sit still, because your safety depends on providence, according to the settled law of that providence, you will be consumed. That providence accomplishes ends, only by means.

Now, between this restless anxiety, on the one hand, and this presumptuous confidence, on the other, a wise regard to futurity resigns the throne and the sceptre to God, and leaves to man, with all his powers and motives and means of knowledge, only one grand concern, and that is to do his present duty. Hence,

A second reason why we should act with a wise foresight of futurity is, IT WILL PROMOTE OUR USEFULNESS. He that acts without plan, or whose plan contravenes the settled arrangements of providence, will act to no good purpose. Does the merchant wish to make a successful voyage? he studies the

market, and freights his ship, and plans her destination, with a careful regard to circumstances and probable results. Would the mariner reach his port? he looks at his compass, watches the aspects of the heavens, changes his helm and sails, with the changing winds and currents. So it should be in all human pursuits. Will that student become a man of knowledge, and a useful man, who has no plan of study? Who dreams away one half of his time in doing nothing, and spends the other half at random, in reading books of no value? and that have no tendency to qualify him for serving God, and his generation? Birds know better than this. Insects know better than this. ,,Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise; which having neither guide, overseer, nor ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.“

But to secure usefulness, it is not enough that we act from plan; it must be plan such as God approves. Most men live to little purpose, because they look at things seen and temporal, and forget things unseen and eternal." They act from present impulse, and for the present moment.

Had the Puritans of the seventeenth century been common men, how easily might they have escaped the fetters, and dungeons, and various forms of martyrdom, which they endured? It was only to do what thousands of others did; it was only to make conscience bend to authority and custom. They might in one moment have professed to believe, what they did not believe, and promised to do what God had forbidden; and then they might have been quiet in their own houses, and many of them might have been earls, and dukes, and dignitaries in church and state. But these holy men acted from higher principles. These daring spirits, trained in the fires of persecution, were not afraid of death. Cæsar, at the summit of his power, with all his victorious legions, could not have subdued their more than Roman heroism. He might have hewed them limb from limb; but every one of them would have died a conqueror. Had those men bowed before the storm that beat upon them, what would the world have been in the nineteenth century? Shrouded in moral and political darkness. So far as we can judge, the preeminent advantages of this age, are owing, under God, chiefly to the spirit of