January 4

JANUARY.—“Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away; all these things are against me.”—Genesis 42:36.

This was a very sorrowful conclusion; but no part of it was founded in truth. “Joseph is not”—yes he is—and not only alive—but riding in the second chariot of Egypt. “And Simeon is not”—yes he is—and only detained for a while as an hostage for the return of his brethren. “And ye will take Benjamin away,”—yes—but not to be destroyed—but to prove a deliverer—and to bring every thing to a favourable issue. Let the lad go—and no evil shall befall him—and supplies for thyself and family will soon be brought—and the wagons shall accompany them, sent by Joseph, to carry thee and thy household down into Goshen—where he will nourish thee—and after the storms of the morning and afternoon of life, thou shalt enjoy a calm and clear evening—and rejoice in the development of a series of dispensations beyond all that thou couldest ask or think. And what say you now, Jacob? “I have spoken once, but I will proceed no further. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. So foolish was I, and ignorant. I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless I am continually with thee; thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Just and true are all thy ways, O thou King of saints!—He hath done all things well.”

The inference here so groundlessly drawn is not peculiar to Jacob. Nothing is more common than to hear the subjects of Divine grace exclaim, “All these things are against me,” when yet “all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth;” and “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” Whence does it proceed? Sometimes they judge under a morbid physical influence. We are not only fearfully, but wonderfully made; and there are many things which would hardly appear credible were they not confirmed by frequent experience. How will a change of weather, or a redundancy or increase of some secretion, or fluid, affect not only our feelings, but our views! How tenderly are some to be pitied! How much they constantly suffer from corporeal causes! They see every thing through an injured medium; and there is no persuading them often but that the discolourations of the glass are the hues of the objects themselves.

They often err from a deficiency of knowledge with regard to the subject itself. It is not easy to determine what is against us or for us. “Who knoweth what is good for a man in this life?” Can we always distinguish between appearances and realities? between the beginning and the end of things? Do we perfectly know ourselves? Or what effects untried things will have upon our minds or our condition? We go forward into futurity with our present views and feelings, not reflecting that other events will produce other views and feelings, and that by circumstances we may become a kind of new creatures, which, could they be presented to us in prospect, would occasion more than our wonder. This was the case with Hazael: he abhorred in imagination what he became in reality, by a transition from a private to a public station. What miseries did Lot entail upon himself in choosing the vale of Sodom,