upholdeth him with his hand." O, how ungrateful for a child of God to
repine at the dealings of such a tender and faithful parent! O, the
ingratitude of unbelief! Who can accuse the Lord of unfaithfulness to
the least of his promises? Why, then, should we refuse to trust him,
when the assurances of his watchful care and love are so full, and so
abundant?

We have not only strong ground of confidence in the Lord, under the
pressure of afflictions in general, but we are particularly directed to
look to him for the supply of all our temporal wants. If we have
evidence that we are living members of the body of Christ, growing in
grace and the knowledge of him, we have the most direct and positive
assurances that all things needful for this life shall be supplied. Our
Saviour, after showing the folly of manifesting an anxious concern
about the supply of our temporal wants, since the Lord is so careful in
feeding the fowls of the air, and clothing the lilies and the grass of
the field, says,--"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." By this,
however, we are not to understand that the Lord will give us every
earthly blessing which we _desire_. We are so short-sighted as often to
wish for things which would prove positively injurious to us. But we are
to understand that he will give us all that he sees best for us. And
surely we ought to be satisfied with this; for he who sees the end from
the beginning must know much better than we what is for our good. The
Scriptures abound with similar promises. "O fear the Lord, ye his
saints; for _there is no want_ to them that fear him. The young lions do
lack and suffer hunger; but they that seek the Lord _shall not want any_
good thing." "Trust in the Lord, and do good, and _verily thou shall be
fed_. I have been young and now am old; yet have I not seen the
righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." "_No good thing will he
withhold_ from them that walk uprightly." "But my God shall _supply all
your need_, according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."
"Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the _life
that now is_, and of that which is to come." It must, then, be a sinful
distrust of the word of God, to indulge in anxious fears about the
supply of our necessities. If we believed these promises, in their full
extent, we should always rest in them, and never indulge an anxious
thought about