the countenance. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made."

It appears by the history, that the king's notice of Nehemiah's countenance, and his observations upon it, had for the time great effect of distress on his mind; for he said," then I was very sore afraid, and said unto the king, let the,king live for ever. Why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire? Then the king said unto me, for what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven!" Let not the reader overlook the very blessed instruction, couched under what is here said. The poor servant saith, that on the king's observations and demand, he was sore afraid. And he did all that his mind dictated for him to do, in making answer to the king. But his sheet anchor was in the Lord. "So I prayed (said he) to the God of heaven." He secretly looked up in prayer to the Lord, while his heart was agitated with conflicting passions before the king.Such do the people of God upon a thousand occasions. Such are their exercises when having committed all their cares to God, they wait the issue of what the Lord shall appoint by man.

It is very blessed to look on and observe the issue of things. Nehemiah four months before had interested the Lord in behalf of Jerusalem. And the time of answer came. A prayer-hearing, and a prayer-answering God, was now come forth, to do even more than his servant had required. "Then the king said unto me, for what dost thou make request? And I said unto the king, if it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it. unto me, (the queen also sitting by) for how long shall thy journey be? and when wilt thou return? So it

And the king said

pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time. Moreover I said unto the king, if it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over, till I come into Judah. And a letter unto Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace, which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me according to the good hand of my God upon me."

Here I pause to take breath; and not only to breathe over this relation, but with Nehemiah, to ponder well as he did, the good hand of God upon him. Let the reader look at the history from the beginning. What a deplorable account was brought to the court of Persia of the desolation of Jerusalem? what affliction overwhelmed the faithful servant of the Lord at the relation! what a state of mind was he in, when he poured out his heart unto God! what distressing apprehensions in the court of a despotic monarch had he, what the event might be. And as Israel had by transgressions, justly excited the Lord's displeasure, might not Nehemiah have feared, that the Lord might have left this people to a yet greater punishment! but see the issue. The king was disposed to do more than Nehemiah could, in the first moment of his request have conceived. And who, or what was it, that prompted him? Who doth not, or who will not, see the Lord's hand in this wonderful history?

Children of God! (for to you do I speak) let not such a relation of God's dealings with his people pass by you unnoticed. Of this whole history, as far as we have proceeded with these memoirs of Nehemiah, every circumstance carries with it a proclamation of that scripture: "this also cometh forth from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in

working." Isa. xxviii. 29. Oh! did the people of God but know, and rightly value their interest at the court of heaven, how would they besiege the mercy-seat day and night with their petitions, and give the Lord no rest, " until he had established, and until he had made Jerusalem a praise in the earth." Isa. lxii. 7. Time hath been when the prayers of the Lord's people could stop the clouds of heaven that "it should not rain: and again open them as if under the controul of man." James v. 17. Joshua did but say, "sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon; and the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves of their enemies." Josh. x. 12. Nay it was but for David to say unto the Lord in a critical time of danger, when a counsellor of great eminence was giving advice for David's ruin; "Lord," (said he)" I pray thee turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness," and it was done. 2 Sam. xv. 31. The Lord hath said, as a universal encouragement to a dependance upon him in all dangers and difficulties of his people, it shall come to pass, that before my people call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." Isa. lxv. 24. Yea to such a wonderful extent the Lord graciously carries this assurance of his readiness to help them, and to manifest himself for them, that he throweth the reins of government into their hands, and saith; "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the Holy One of Israel and his Maker, ask me of things to come, concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.” Isa. xlv. 11.

We left Nehemiah standing before the king, his master, having obtained his request, and found favour for the accomplishment of his wishes, to repair the walls of his beloved Jerusalem. Nothing is said in the history of what passed in his mind upon this occasion. Indeed it was not possible for a stander by to know his feelings.

"

But we may suppose, that the gracious influence which wrought in him in one and the same moment to lift an eye to heaven, while supplicating the monarch on the earth, gave him similar impressions when his boon was answered. What a wonderful provision the Lord hath formed in the spiritual faculties of his people for reserving an unremitting attention on himself to wait the issue of prayer, while, according to human appearances, the event looked for seems altogether to depend upon an arm of flesh! The psalmist, after long and beautiful recital of the divine watchfulness over his Israel, hath closed the statement in the same strain of acknowledgment, "whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord!" Psalm cvii. 43.

I pause here to remark (for it is a remark highly becoming gracious souls to have in view, when at any time they are pondering the conduct of the ungodly and profane) how the Lord operates upon the minds of such as know him not, to be useful to those who do: yea, and not unfrequently thereby to accomplish the very reverse of what they themselves intend. The king of Persia, like the other monarchs which succeeded each other in the government of the world, had but one object in design in all he said or did, namely, to aggrandize and greaten his kingdom. The giving permission to Nehemiah to build the walls of Jerusalem, was, in the first face of things, as if strengthening Persia, which then was under his own authority and tributary to him. He little dreamt, that the time would come when she that now sat in the dust should have an Almighty Sovereign, "whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions should serve and obey him." Dan. vii. 27. And the same or similar events are continually occurring in private life, which the Lord's people should treasure up in their memories. Scarce a day can pass in the common circumstances of a child of God, but if

his eyes are enlightened by spiritual perspective to behold a divine ordination in them, like the prophet's vision, he will discover One in the midst of the throne regulating all. Ezek. i. 26. And this attention to the Lord's government is, if possible, more needful for the Lord's chosen to mark under, what may at first sight seem frowning providences than in the sunshine of the prosperous. Cloudy dispensations only appear in our atmosphere, between the great luminary of the day and the earth: they who live above have no intervening medium to obstruct vision; but the Lord's people, from the weakness of spiritual sight, have proportioned weakness of faith. When the patriarch Jacob was called to the exercise of having his children detained from him, though this was in the Lord's arrangement for the salvation of the father and his whole household from famine; losing sight of God himself in these providences, his heart lost sight with it for awhile of all confidence. The poor father cried out, "Me have ye bereaved of my children! Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and will ye take Benjamin away? all these things are against me!" Gen. xlii. 36. But did Jacob in the after-stage of life think so, when the Lord brought him down to Egypt? It would be well for the Lord's tried family always to wait the upshot of things. Depend upon it, that promise hath never failed in a single instance, and never can, we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Rom. viii. 28.

I cannot pass on to the prosecution of Nehemiah's memoirs, until that I have requested the reader to take with him another observation, very much connected with, and congenial to the former; namely, how the Lord the Holy Ghost, the Almighty Author of scripture, hath made records concerning the history of those kingdoms, which but for their interspersion here and there with the annals of the church, would never have