care has God taken of us, from the first moment that we came into the world ! How many millions of the children of men have never attained to our age, or had such blessings multiplied to them as we ! And if we speak of our souls, we must know all the devices of Satan himself, before we can estimate aright the care which we have experienced at the hands of our heavenly Father. There has not been an hour in which we should not have been destroyed, if God had permitted Satan to sift us, as he gladly would have done. It is through God's unbounded mercy that "we continue to this day" following after God, and that we have not long since " turned back unto perdition." If, through mercy, we can say, " My foot standeth fast ;" it becomes us gratefully to add, " In the congregations will I bless the Lordp."]
2. An humble dependence on God for future bless- ings—
[In the passage before cited, to shew that the ordinance was appointed for the remembrance of past mercies, it is added, " I am the Lord your Godq." This taught the Hebrews to expect a continuance of those blessings at his hands. And to whom shall we look ? Whither shall we go for blessings, either temporal or spiritual ? If we lean on the creature, we shall find it a broken reed. We must rely on God alone. We must look to Him, as "our Sun and our Shield:" we must "rely on him both for grace and glory ;" and rest assured, that " he will withhold no good thing from us, if only we walk uprightly before him;" "acknowledging him in all our ways," and " committing" our every concern " into his hands1."
It is worthy of observation, that, on the last day of this feast, the Jews were wont to go to the pool of Siloam, and to pour out water with joy ; referring, in their minds, to the promise, that at that time " living waters should go out from Jerusalem8 ;" and to that particular song which the Prophet Isaiah had taught them, " With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation1." In the midst of that ceremony, our blessed Lord addressed the whole multitude, saying, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him should receive11." If only we look to Him, " we shall want no manner of thing that is good*."]
P Ps. xxvi. 12. i Lev. xxiii. 43. r Prov. iii. 6.
■ ver. 8. l Isai. xii. 3. u John vii. 37 — 39.
x In the Church of England we have Rogation-days, for the ex- press purpose of supplicating God's blessing in reference to the fruits of the earth, and the out-pouring of his Spirit on the Church : and these begin the Sunday before Whitsunday.