he be not absent all the while--whether he bears or not any
share in the world he created, or in all those moving causes that owe
their activity and life to himself alone? God is surely present; he is
powerfully operating; he is the supreme controller, and the almighty
director; he is fully aware of those adverse appearances, and is no
less deeply engaged in the final issue of all events, to render them
consistent with the ends of justice and mercy, than as if we saw him
at work with our bodily eyes: or, as if we then could fully know the
mind of the Lord, or be his counsellors to instruct him.

The expressions of scripture are too strong, and too agreeable to the
very nature of God and of his works, to make us doubt for a moment of
his providential care and unceasing watchfulness. "He is not far from
every one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our being." To
the true disciple saith Christ himself, "The very hairs of your head
are all numbered;" and yet more strongly, "If a man love me, he will
keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him,
and make our abode with him." Promises, these, which have been ever
realized in the history of the saints in all ages who have walked with
God--Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and the patriarch Jacob--none more tried
than he--yet we read _his_ testimony to "the God, which fed me all my
life-long unto this day; the angel which redeemed me from all evil."

Keeping in view the notion of what is truly good for this state of
trial, and for the soul as well as for the body, there is no time and
no extent to which we shall not find the promise sure, and the
fulfilment exact, where God is pledged for the supply of his servants
that trust in him: his eye is ever open, his ear ever attentive unto
them. The petition he denies is able to operate as powerfully and as
favourably on their behalf as that which he grants; merciful alike in
the gift which he bestows and which he withholds, and wise alike in
the evil which he permits, and which he restrains.

There is nothing more important to the believer's faith, than to
apprehend that there is no uncertainty, nothing imperfect or weak in
the dispensations of God, as they respect the final issue of the
Christian's trials. Either God is wholly absent and forgetful of his
daily wants, or else he is wholly and for ever at work on his behalf.
If he were wholly absent, well might his servants doubt that, after
all their endeavo