the uninfected community, they were allowed to congregate without the city.

But it is not in sickness only that we own the succour of that gracious Being whose will we are so prone to forget, and even wilfully disobey. Many, if not most persons must acknowledge His compassion towards them, not solely in their recovery from bodily anguish. or prostration, but in their escape from impending death by fire, flood, or other instrument of terror and destruction; or, it may be, in their extrication from a concurrence of calamitous events, enclosing them on every side, confounding and threatening to overwhelm them. Some who could with difficulty recall any signal deliverance, or propitious change in their condition, are indebted to the Giver of all good for having hitherto granted them a comparative exemption from suffering, both bodily and mental: an immunity of large import, of incalculable value, though rarely or but carelessly noted in the memory of God's beneficence. And some there may be, who, notwithstanding the catalogue and magnitude of human sufferings, have found their life to be little else than a state of happiness; a course of successful exertion, or of prosperous enterprise; or a succession of pleasures

obtained without toil, varied without end, and continued with scarcely any interruption a stream of enjoyment flowing into the soul from unnumbered fountains in the sensible, the intellectual, and the moral life.

Now it cannot, in the smallest degree, diminish the claim of the Almighty on our gratitude, that any deliverance or exemption from suffering which we experience, or any good which we enjoy, is not the effect of his miraculous agency-is not the consequence of a departure from those ordinary modes of his operation, which we call the laws of nature; and by adhering to which, he establishes a regularity in the succession of the natural phenomena; imparts an uniformity to the experience of mankind; and thereby, it may be added, gives existence to human science, and lays the foundation of intellectual improvement. For a supernatural manifestation of the power of God cannot imply a more observant attention, a superadded design-an afterthought of the Deity. It cannot presuppose any conceivable change in the Omniscient mind," the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."* "Known unto God," said the

James i. 17.

Apostle, "are all his works"-whether to our apprehension they take the form of miracles or not-" known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.” *

Nor would any of us, it may be presumed, deliberately refer to chance or accident any event which has contributed to our welfare; meaning thereby to except it from God's foreknowledge and overruling purpose; or to omit it in the recital of his goodness towards us. And surely none of us would make the smallest deduction from the debt we owe Him, on the presumption that any benefit which he confers upon us is ascribable to a general, in contradistinction to a particular providence for the general providence of God, whereby, in a manner inscrutable to our faculties, he accomplishes his own will in conformity with the constitution of our nature as intelligent and accountable beings, must necessarily imply his superintendence over the lot of every one of his creatures, and over every particular event relating to them. But this may be taken for granted, and, on the whole, it may be assumed that any benefit derived to us in the ordinary course of events,

or by the action of natural laws

*Acts xv. 18.

M

every

instance, for example, of restoration to healthis as certainly attributable to the gracious purpose of God, as the cure of the lepers at the word of Christ. Otherwise, indeed, the story of their ingratitude would have been delivered to distant generations to little purpose. The instruments of healing may be indefinitely varied, and the remedial process quickened or retarded; but it is God, who, in the words of the Psalmist, "healeth our diseases, and redeemeth our life from destruction."

But if the goodness of the Almighty, conveyed to us through its wonted channels, brings with it an equal claim to praise and thanksgiving with a miraculous interference in our behalf-inasmuch, we mean, as it affords as distinct and infallible a proof of his benevolent intention towards us-why, it may be asked, should we single out the lepers as examples of more than the common ingratitude of mankind? Why should the cure of their malady at the word of our Saviour, be assumed to have laid them under a stronger obligation "to give glory to God," than is imposed upon ourselves in our recovery from disease, by medicine, diet, climate, or any other means dictated by the human intel

lect? seeing that that intellect is but an efflux from his own intelligence the light by which he guides our footsteps into the recesses of creation, as into a vast repository, in which he has laid an ample provision wherewith to assuage our pains, to retard or mitigate the doom of mortality. Restoration from sickness is that particular display of the divine goodness suggested by the account of the lepers; but, as we have intimated, it may fitly represent any other instance of deliverance, preservation, or benefaction received from the Giver of all good.

If we inquire into the cause of our comparative insensibility to the goodness of God, as it is manifested towards us in the order nature, we may discern a just foundation for our opinion concerning the lepers. That insensibility is scarcely explained by remarking our proneness to confine our attention to sensible appearances, or "to stop at second causes" in our estimate of things: indeed, this is merely stating in a different phraseology, the fact proposed for explanation; namely, our forgetfulness of the Original Cause of all good, the sole creating, restoring, and sustaining Power in the universe. The question returns in another form-Why are we prone to confine