has promised^ — • and you may be as fully assured of its
accomplishment to your soul, as the promise and oath of God can make you ™ ]
i 2 Chron. xv. 2. k Pg. cxliii. 1—8.
» Isai. Ivii. 16—18. m isai. liv, 7—10. with Heb. vi. 17, 18.
OUR TIMES IN god's HAND.
Ps. xxxi. 15. My times are in thy hand.
TO the ungodly it is a satisfaction to deny the providence of God, and to cut him off, as it were, from any connexion with his creatures. But the saints find a rich consolation in the thought that God reigneth. This it is which reconciles them to the evils they endure, and fortifies them against those which they have reason to apprehend. David, in the psalm before us, complains that there were many who "took counsel together against him, and de- vised to take away his life." But he comforted him- self in the reflection, that, however man miffht be his enemy, God was " his God ;" and that however bit- terly his enemies might be enraged against him, " his times were not in their hands, but in God's ;" and,
VOL. v. p
consequently, that they could do nothing against him but by His permission.
From this view of the text we are led to notice, I. Our dependence on God —
God is the Governor of the universe : he appoints the stars their courses ; he makes the raging ele- ments to fulfil his wilP; he imposes a restraint upon the most savage beasts, causing them to suppress'' or forgef their instinctive ferocity, or overruling the exercise of it, for the preservation'^ or destruction of men% as he sees occasion. The affairs of men he more especially controls. In his hands are,
1 . The occurrences of life —
[Tliere is nothing really casual or contingent in the world. It is God that disposes of us from our earliest infancy to the latest hour of our lives. " He determines the bounds of our habitation^." If we are called to the possession of wealth, or deprived of it by any untoward circumstances, it is " the Lord who gives, and the Lord who taketh it away^." If we enjoy health, or pine away in sickness, it is " the Lord who both wounds and heals, who kills and makes alive '\" " There is neither good nor evil in the city, but the Lord is the doer of it\" Even the falling of a hair of our head, trifling as it is, takes not place but by his appointment^.]
2. The seasons of death —
[To every man " there is an appointed time upon earth';" there are " bounds which he cannot pass™." " God holdeth our souls in life":" and " when he taketh away our breath, we die, and return to the dust°." Youth and health are no secu- rity against the stroke of death: the most vigorous constitutions are soon broken, when God is pleased to afflict us^: the skill of physicians, however useful when attended with his blessing, is of no avails. So numerous are the occasions of death, that no caution can possibly avoid them: "a man may flee from a lion, and a bear meet him ; or he may go into a house for safety, and a serpent bite him'^." When God " requires oui- souls," we must surrender them at his calP." Our days are protracted to an advanced age, if he be pleased to uphold us ;
a Ps. cxlviii. 8. b 1 Kings xiii. 28. <= Dan. vi, 22.
^ Jonah i. 17. ^ 2 Kings ii. 24. * Acts xvii. 26.
g Job i. 2L ^ 1 Sam. ii. 6, 7. ' Amos iii. 6.
^ Matt. X. 30. ' Job vii. 1. "• Job xiv, 5.
n Ps. Ixvi. 9. o Ps. civ. 29. p Job xxi. 23—2.').
1 Mark v. 26. "■ Amos v. 19. « Luke xii. 20.
544. j OUR TIMES IN god's HAND. 211
if not, our course is finished as soon as ever it is commenced. It is " in God, and in God alone, that we live, and move, and have our being*."]