February 11

They found in the wilderness, providing grace. And have not you? The cup of some of you has been running over. You have had all things richly to enjoy. Others have been more sensibly dependant. Yet he has not suffered you to want. In his feeding and clothing you, there has been less of miracle, but not less of reality, than in feeding and clothing the Jews. You have not had the widow's cruise of oil and barrel of meal; but your supplies have not failed you. Ravens have not sustained you; but you have had relief from the most unlikely characters. You have also had comfort in your temporal blessings; you have tasted the love of God in them. He has blessed your bread and your water; and hence the little you have had, has been better than the riches of many wicked.

They found in the wilderness, pardoning grace. And have not you? It was said of them, "How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again." And has not this been your case? In many things you have offended, and in every thing come short of the glory of God. How ungrateful, forgetful, distrustful, incorrigible, have you been! Reflect for a moment on the sins of your holy things; review your sabbaths, your communions, your omissions of duty, and the imperfections of your motives when your actions have been materially right—Has he dealt with you according to your desert? Has he not spared you according to the greatness of his mercy?

They found in the wilderness, conducting grace. And have not you? They had a fiery cloudy pillar to go before them, to determine all their journeyings, and which left them not, till it had guided them to the rest which the Lord their God gave them. And you know the way of man is not in himself. How ignorant, how short sighted, how easily imposed upon, have you been! How mistaken have you been, when most confident! How deceived have you been in your hopes and fears! How often have you wished to escape things which have proved a blessing; and to obtain things which would have proved your bane! Into what embarrassments would you have fallen, had you been left to lean to your own understanding! But he has fulfilled the promise, "I ain the Lord thy God, that teacheth thee to profit, and that leadeth thee in the way that thou shouldest choose." And he will be your guide even unto death.

They found in the wilderness, preserving grace. As he led them about and instructed them, so he kept them as the apple of his eye. And have you not found the same grace? Why have not your enemies, so superior in every respect to yourselves, triumphed over you? The Lord has been on your side. You have been kept by the power of God.

They found in the wilderness, assisting grace. What was said of Asher applied to them all; "as thy days, so shall thy strength be." He made them equal to their travels and their trials. He gave them his Sabbaths. He sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam before them. They had the services of the Priests; the messages of the

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