winter : and in like manner should we improve all present op- portunities with a view to our future good, both temporal and spiritual*". But they know nothing of anxious care. Thus precisely should it be with us. We cannot be too industrious in our respective callings, if only we leave events to God, and rest satisfied with his dispensations.
There are few perhaps who will not acknowledge, that all anxiety about superfluities, or about very distant events, is wrong : but yet they will vindicate it in reference to things which are near at hand, or are of prime and indispensable necessity. But it is respecting these very things that our Lord speaks : he bids us take no thought about "food or raiment;" no, not even "for the morrow:" and, because we should be ready to pass over such a caution if it were only once or obscurely given, he repeats it no less than four times in the passage before us, sometimes in a way of plain direction, " Take no thought ; " at other times in a way of expostulation, " Why take ye thought?" This marks the vast importance of the subject : and it should dispose all our minds to humble submission and cordial acquiescence.]
How much need there is for such a caution, every man's observation and experience will tell him —
[Even the rich, who on account of their opulence should be thought most out of the reach of this evil, are as much under the power of it as any. No man indeed is exempt from it, unless he have been delivered from it by the grace of God. The worldly man feels it in reference to the things on which his heart is fixed : and even those who are in pursuit of hea- venly things, are too often, through the prevalence of unbelief, still subject to its dominion ; insomuch that they are harassed continually with disquieting fears, when they ought rather to be " filled with joy and peace in believing." There is there- fore no order of men to whom this caution is not proper to be given ; since all, from the highest to the lowest, stand in need of it ; and it is no less applicable to the people of God than to the ignorant and ungodly world; to those who have " a little faith," as well as those who have no faith at all.]
Let us now attend to,
n. The arguments with which it is enforced —
In this beautiful address, (which cannot be too much admired,) our Lord shews in a very convincing manner that anxious carefulness ought on no ac- count to be indulged.
*■ Prov. vi. 6 — 8. and xxx. 24, 25.