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EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

OCTOBER 7, 1860,

THE WET SUMMER.

1 ST. PETER V. 6, 7.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.

THE persons to whom St. Peter wrote these words were in a state of great trouble, and affliction. They were the scattered church of the Jewish Christians, persecuted for their faith in Christ, by the unbelieving world around them, men, as he describes them in this Epistle -in heaviness through manifold temptations, whose faith was being tried with fire-who were spoken against as evil doers-For conscience towards God, called upon to endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

To these so persecuted brethren, St. Peter addresses many seasonable words of exhortation, and among them the words before us.-He bids them humble themselves under the mighty hand of God; bow with patience to the

afflicting rod, that He might in His good time take it off them: might lift them up from their low estate, and give them a favourable issue out of all their troubles-and further, to put courage into their sinking hearts, to provide them with a sure refuge, he urges them to cast all their care upon God, considering His care for them.

That appears to be the connection of my text with the argument of the Epistle; and it will be easy to see how applicable such a text is to ourselves-how needful it is for us to be reminded in a time of trouble and anxiety, of both these duties-the humbling ourselves before God, and the casting all our care upon Him.

For, brethren, that the present is a time of trouble and anxiety, will hardly be questioned. The long continued rains of the past summer, the great delay and damage thereby caused to the harvest, has naturally given rise to many misgivings: filled our hearts with much anxious care about the means of our subsistence.

There may have been, perhaps, a too great readiness to despond, an impatience under our trial, an overestimate of the harm done by the weather. But allowing this, we cannot hide from ourselves the fact, that in many parts of the country, the crops have been spoiled, and much loss and hurt thereby inflicted on the cultivators of our fields.

Before the late blessed change last week, the prospect was still more gloomy. And even now—even should the weather continue fine, the food grown this year in England fit for human use, will, it is feared, fall considerably below our accustomed harvests, and entail a high price of bread throughout the winter.

It is then as I said, to all of us a time of anxiety-to many of us a season of loss and suffering-and therefore, a season that especially calls for the exercise of what the text commends to us-humiliation, and entire trust in God.

For to what are we to attribute the late "plague of rain and waters ?" Some will say to natural causes only -to the weather paying its debts-to the making up for former dry summers. But if we look to the Bible, if we take that for our guide in the matter, we shall hardly be contented with such an answer. We shall find many passages there, which speak of a failure in the harvest, or unusual weather in harvest as a token of God's displeasure with a nation's sin.

For mark these words, brethren-Is it not wheat harvest to-day? I will call upon the Lord and He shall send thunder and rain that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, (1 Sam. xii. 17). And these, in the lesson from Exekiel last Sunday, (Ezek. xiv. 13). The Word of the Lord cume unto me saying, Son of man when the land sinneth against Me, by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof and will send famine upon it.—And these in Psalm cvii-a fruitful land maketh He barren for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.

Now can we read these plain statements out of God's Word-and I could add many more to them-and not admit that seasons of death, tempestuous weather, and the like, are set down there to God's displeasure with men for sin ?

I know indeed, that such a plain reading of Scripture is out of fashion-I know that it is common now-a-days, in explanation of seasons like this, to talk of natural laws that cannot be broken-to put God quite out of sight in our calculations of the weather.-But while the Bible is our recognised guide, our sole guide to the knowledge of Him, I can not, for one, think that this is right. Surely. it were better, more consistent with true piety, to do as our fathers did-to see God's hand in all that befalls us, to see and confess that nothing is so fixed but that at His will it may be changed-yes and is sometimes changed-to see in the wind and in the rain, in the sunshine and in the dew, servants of His that do His pleasure which are sent, or not sent, as He wills, and in order to the carrying out of His behests-to punish or bless, to chastise or comfort according to the counsels of His godly wisdom.

Regarding then, as I think we must, the present disastrous season as a chastisement from God-our duty becomes clear-it is surely this-to humble ourselves under the mighty Hand that is upon us, that He may exalt us in due time.

And the humiliation should not be outward humiliation, but humiliation of the heart-the bowing down before God in secret, confessing our sins, and stedfastly purposing, with His Spirit's aid, to lead better lives.

Let us, one and all, brethren, thus humble ourselves before God. We may differ as to our interpretation of the season, but we must all feel that we have done much to deserve His punishment. We must all feel that we have lived too unworthily, too unthankfully before Him.

We have only to look, each to what his own heart will shew him, to be convinced that we have been in a great trespass before God.

For surely, brethren, the wickedness so rife in this land, is not to be set down to a few chief evil-doers. The murders, the adulteries, the drunkenness, the gross acts of fraud and dishonesty which week by week fill our newspapers, and shock our ears, are at the head of the nations sin.-But below this there is a long list of lesser offences to which we have ourselves contributed. Each of us, doubt it not, each of us has added some drop to the cup of provocation, wherewith we have provoked the Lord's anger! Then let God hear from each of us the acknowledgment of our several guilt; and let that acknowledgment be followed by an earnest effort after a stricter obedience, by a surrender of ourselves, our souls and bodies, to serve Him faithfully, and to seek His glory in our vocation, with thanksgiving!

But again. Besides this of humiliation, a second duty is put before us in the text-a duty also to which our circumstances at this moment seem to invite us, and that is-to cast all our care upon God.

What a relief to us would it bring could we but only do this! Could we but take our anxiety, our thoughts about to-morrow's bread, and fears for the coming winter, together with all our many harassing cares and troubles, and cast them in one heap-where we are invited to cast them-upon God!

There is only one great bar to our doing this, and that is, our want of faith.-We are all too slow of heart to believe the love which God hath toward us! too

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