fufficient for the day being, which, confidering the weakness and mortality of our nature, is a great, nay and a greater continuance, than we can with certainty promife ourselves in this life. But though the term of our life may poffibly extend no farther than the prefent day, yet as it may, for any thing that we can tell, be lengthened out to many years, we are therefore taught to pray that this Bread may be given us this day, or, as faint Luke has it, day by day, a phrase according to Hebrew writers, fignifying the whole term of our lives, that God would during our Being here, be it longer or fhorter, fupply us with fuch things as are neceffary for our well-being here, in fuch a manner, and in fuch proportions as he fhall fee most conducive to our real benefit This is the true purport of the petition, and though fpiritual good things are of the greatest moment,

moment, and confequently demand our chief concern, yet, let zeal without knowledge pretend what it will, temporal good things demand, and indeed deferve our reafonable attention. It is abfolutely neceffary, that we fhould pray to the Author of our being for fuch things as are neceffary to preserve it, for fuch things as reafon and fcripture make it our duty to feek, and which yet without his concurrence we fhould feek in vain; that we should pray in the words of our Lord, according to the fenfe now given of them, for our daily bread, and in the language of our church, afk those things which are requifite and neceffary, as well for the body as the foul.

This petition is calculated to breed in us a thorough perfuafion of, and dependance upon the providence of God in general, and particularly as it relates to the supply

of

of our wants. It naturally implies to us, that the fame God which at firft created, ftill governs and preferves the world, that no perfons are exempted from his jurif diction, that the most minute occurrences of life are at his difpofal, that without his bleffing all our labours are ineffectual, and the wifeft, moft industrious, and careful man on earth, is not able without his concurrence to acquire even his daily bread. This is a leffon, which many who are wife in their own conceits find it difficult to learn; exalted in dignity and power, great in human knowledge and worldly wisdom, they imagine every thing to be within their own reach, there is nothing which they cannot do themselves of themselves, and therefore it is unneceffary to have recourse to a Providence, and apply for the affiftance of foreign aid, when their own forces

are

are so amply fufficient to accomplish all their defires.

It is this vain and prefumptuous way of thinking, which leads men into numberless miscarriages, which induces them to despise the useful affiftances of men, and to reject their neceffary dependance upon God, which renders them at length (when they experimentally find the vanity of human wisdom and the weakness of human ftrength) the contempt of the greater part of mankind, and the pity of the wiser few, who will happily learn from their error and disappointment, to truft in the Lord with all their heart, and not to lean on their own understanding.

If we look into ourselves with an impartial eye, we shall easily discern the numberlefs

berlefs things which we ftand in need of in this world, and at the fame glance fee the impoffibility of our acquiring them of ourselves; and fuch perfons, as feem the fartheft removed from these wants, who are bleft with the greatest affluence, will find abundant reafon, when they confider the uncertainty of human affairs, to distrust their own profperous condition, and apply to Providence, who was the first giver, to be the continuer alfo of those bleffings, which are in themselves fo uncertain, and always upon the wing. Man indeed, upon a fair review of himself, of his wants and weakness, ought to efteem it his greatest happiness, that there is a refource above to which he may always betake himself, that there is an overruling Providence in whom are centered infinite power, wifdom, and goodness, which are continually displaying themselves in the moft perfect harmony,

and