Year: 1866

motion the congregation unanimously
voted to request its publication.


GoD's SOVEREIGNTY GROUND OF JOY.


/. "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoics'-
Psalm 81: 1.


We come together to-day, according
to a long established custom, to ac-
knowledge the Providence that has
crowned with blessings another year
To this acknowledgment we are urged,
not only by the Proclamations of the
Chief Magistrate of our State and of our
Nation. but by the claims of christian
duty. 1t is we'll for us to rest for the
day from the engrossing engagements
and cares of ordinary life and, review
ing the experience of the past, to count
up the manifest tokens of the divine
favor towards US during the year. Just
ly do we owe, and gratefully should we
pay our Thanksgiving and Praise to
God" for it is he ''who crowneth the
year with His goodness, whose paths
drop fatness upon the pastures of the
wilderness, and who causeth the hills
to rejoice on every side" We have re-
mained another year IN the enjoyment
of civil and religious liberty; the scourge
of terrible war has been removed; and
though the plague has been in our land,
it has not been suffered to come nigh
our dwellings; all our departments of
business and industry have been pros
pered; and our rich soil has gladdened
and rewarded the husbandman with
abundant harVests.


1t is important that we should keep
alive this great truth, that there is a
divine agency in human affairs, by pub
lie and formal recognition of it, as well
as by private and personal acknowledg-
ments. There is too much proneness,
among the mass of men, to ascribe the
changes, the successes and the failures
in human life, TO mere proximate
causes-to forget the unseen power be-
hind the machinery that weaVes in the
web and wool of human experience-to
ignore the great fact, that


There's divinity. that shapes our ends.


Rough-heW them how we will"


that, somehow, harmonizing with one
agency, and helping it in willing and
working to good ends, il is after all true,
that it is "God who uorketh in US both
to will and do of his good pleasure"
and, "who maketh even the wrath of
man to praise him." This is consider
alton that should excite our gratitude
and praise, not only in the days of our
prosperity, but in days of adversity also.
While our voyage of life will not always
be over smooth waters and with favor
ing winds, yet when we anticipate or
experience the danger of storms, or
sunken rocks, or hostile cruizers, we
may rejoice in the fact that we have a
competent navigator in command, and
one well skilled in ordering the battle.


THE Lord reigneth let the earth rejoice"


l have selected this subject as fit one
for our consideration to-day: The Soy
ereignty of God a reason for joyful Thanks
giving.


That there is Supernatural agency
that controls the affairs of our world, is
not doctrine peculiar to christianity.
Christianity adopts it, gives greater
clearness to it, ard frees it from gross
excressences and superstitions but it
is found in the earlier revelation of the
Jews affirmed with equal positiyeness
it is alike the basis of heather worship
and the inspiration of heather genius
antedating all written, or oral, revela,
ton, it is found impressed on the very
nature of man; like the conviction of
Gods existence, it is so necessary a
truth, that it finds expression on every
object of the natural world, and in the |
instructive promptings of every heart. |
Men may differ with regard to the ex-
tent and application of the agency, but
only the fool, who secretly denies the |
existence of a God, will deny his inhu-
ence in the world He has made.
. The occasion does not require form
al statement or an extended discussion |
of the doctrine of the text. As Chris
tisns we are all ready to admit its
truth. And yet, while we admit that
God reigns, we too often fail to recog-
nize the important nature and conse-
quences of the fact. We do not so hold !