a person or persons that a testator appoints as guardian or guardians over his wife and family, and whom he intrusts with his effects, to see his will executed, and the heirs at law or legatees by will, properly righted. Well, and will the Lord undertake this office, if he be in faith intrusted with it? Yes, he will; for so he hath declared, and so he hath commanded, and promises to be faithful to the charge: "Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive, and let thy widows trust in me;" and he doth execute this office of an executor with faithfulness, truth, and mercy, and never failed in it; and so it is written, "A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widow, is God in his holy habitation:" "The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed," Psal. ciii. 6. And again, "Which executeth judgment for the oppressed, which giveth food to the hungry, the Lord looseth the prisoners." The Lord did all this for the poor widow, who came to the prophet Elisha, her husband being dead; but he had in his life feared the Lord; and being overhead and ears in debt, we may readily suppose that he made no will; and if he did, no earthly executor would have administered, where there is no property to leave, nor any thing left to pay the guardian for his trouble: but this poor woman pleads her husband's faith with the Lord's prophet; and the Lord undertakes the office of an executor; he works a miracle, blesses and in creases the pot of oil, pays the creditor his demands, preserves the widow and the fatherless from bond slavery, and tells her and her sons to live upon what he had provided, and she need not fear coming to want; "For the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." And now, reader, as I have set aside Mr. Brothers's relationship to God Almighty, and proved that Omnipotence hath no nephews, he can stand no longer as a competitor with me; and I will now give my reader another point to decide, and that is, who act the most agreeable to the Christian character, and who are the greatest enthusiasts; those that make the Lord their trust? or those that prostitute sacred things to such vile purposes, and expose them to the contempt of fools for the sake of sixpence per head; the one makes the word of God his rule, and the others make themselves transgressors for a morsel of bread. I see no cause for altering my will; nor do I believe that I shall ever repent of making choice of so faithful and so affectionate an executor. And, should I make ten wills more, I will never make the first either null or void. And, should I be compelled to choose an earthly executor, in compliance to national law, my faith and will would still be, that he might act only under the first executor; yea, I would put him in among my effects, and leave him, as well as all the rest, with the first guardian; for good men are not their own, they are bought with a price; and bad men are not their own, "The deceiver and the deceived are the Lord's;" therefore I should only leave that to the Lord which is his own: "Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation: and David said, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father for ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head over all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might, and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now, therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee." Now I would not be understood by these things to cast a reflection upon the wisdom of these disputants, who receive sixpence or a shilling per head of those that hear these debates; far from it, for I think they are the greatest fools that pay the money, agreeable to the assertion of divine wisdom, who affirms that, "The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." Nor would I be understood to rival these men in their wisdom, envy their honour, or covet their profits: they may pray for me, for "I trust that I have a good conscience in all things, willing to live honestly;" and I know that a believer in Christ hath the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. But then God tells me in his word that all men have not faith; for, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God:" these men know of no God but themselves. And others say, "The Lord hath forsaken the earth:" these allow of no providence but their own contrivances. And others say, "Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us:" these take the government of the world upon their own shoulders; but they are not supreme in government for all this; for Satan leads them all captive at his will. Nor are these men without a God in the world; for what they get comes by chance; and what they keep or lose, is attributed to the smiles and frowns of fortune; and what they leave is committed to an arm of flesh: and they have their promise; for, "Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and in his heart departeth from the Lord; for he shall be as the barren heath and dreary desart, and shall not know when good cometh." And the heir of promise hath his blessing also: "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is, for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, that |