The Central Presbyterian

For the Central Presbyterian.

"BE CAREFUL FOR NOTHING."

4. All anxious care is forbidden, in the fourth place, by the fact that our heavenly Father knows that we have need of temporal supplies; and the inference is, that he will bestow them.

"Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." This assurance should put an end to all solicitude and a stop to all gloomy fears. The reins of the universe are held by our Father, who is infinite in intelligence, wisdom, power and love; and therefore we should not be afraid. He does not make us a mark for the arrows of his indignation, but a temple for the indwelling of his Spirit and the repository of his grace.

He calls himself our Father in heaven,—the dearest name by which he can be known to any created intelligence; and we, who were once abandoned, and outcast, and rebellious, and hell-doomed, are now "the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." And he who binds the universe to his throne, knows all our real wants; he knows what will prove a blessing, and what an injury; what will advance our highest interests, and what will retard them. Surely then, the conclusion is irresistible: "Be careful for nothing." "Take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewithal shall we be clothed?"

Commit the developments of future success or failure, without one distracting fear, into the hands of that God who "seeth the end from the beginning," and condescendeth to be called in Christ your Father in heaven.

It would be very foolish in a child to measure a parent's affection and care by his own childish conceptions, and to dread the coming winter lest he freeze with cold, or die of hunger. It should be enough for him to know that he is shielded by a parental roof, and protected by a parental heart.— And O! my brethren, how much greater the folly! how much greater the sin! to measure our heavenly Father's heart by our fears, to distrust his care, and to plod our way wearily through the world from year to year. How much greater the sin, when our Father is upon the throne, to cherish dark forebodings that wear deep channels down our cheeks and leave deep furrows across our hearts. It is enough for us to know that we are but orphans, but children of the living God. This is all the pledge we need. It is a guarantee that our wants shall be all supplied,—not indeed as we may wish, for the thing that we might choose might be the very thing that would do us harm; but as he sees best, who can never act either unwisely or unkindly.

And now, my Christian readers, let me urge you by the grace of God to take no undue, and no anxious thought about your future maintenance. "Be careful for nothing;" let this be the simple but sublime motto of your lives.

Unbelief may be disposed to modify the explicit command of Christ, and suggest that he does not mean for his injunction to be understood literally. You have so often been the harborers of annoying, peace-destroying cares, that you may hardly regard them as offensive sins. But do not entertain such a falsehood, even for a moment. It is an invention of the father of lies, and is designed to interfere with your mental peace, to retard your progress in the divine life, or, if possible, to destroy your Christian hope and fling you back again amid the dead rubbish of the world.

Christ calls on you to resist these insidious attacks of the Devil. "All earth-born care is wrong." It is never justifiable. It is a violation of the most positive command of the Lord Jesus. It is not only useless, but it is really injurious—destructive of our peace and incompatible with true happiness. It is rebuked and forbidden by the whole of the lower creation: the bird that flies and the lily that blooms, both cry out against it and denounce it as a monstrous crime. It is the sin of the ungodly who are without God in the world, and therefore should be abhorred and repudiated by all true Christians. It ignores the precious, consolatory truth that we have a Father in heaven who is acquainted with all our wants; and therefore it is nothing less than the hideous sin of unbelief, and should never be suffered to raise its foul, rebellious head in our presence.

It is time therefore, that we were repenting of the past, and humbling ourselves in sackcloth and ashes, because of the anxiety and distrust which we have so often exhibited. It is high time that we were not only doing this, but also beginning to obey the intensely practical injunction of our Lord by dismissing all carefulness in regard to the time to come.

Brethren, I charge you to repent of the past, and let the future present a different record. I know that this cannot be done without grace from above. It is the weakness of our faith that produces anxiety in the heart. It is unbelief that nurses this foul viper of cankering care.

But have we not the throne of grace? And does not our Father sit upon it? And do not the intercessions of our elder Brother prevail before it?

Then, let us go at once to the mercy seat with the faith we already have, that it may be increased. Let us go to the fountain of all grace, that our almost empty vessels may be filled. Let us confess our sins, and repent of them, and obtain grace from heaven to expel this monster—corroding care—that is so dishonoring to our blessed Master, and that fattens upon our peace and thrives upon our spirit's life and prospers at our expense.

CREVY.

Bless God for what you have, and trust him for what you want.