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SERMON IV.

ISAIAH XLVI. 4.

Even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.

THERE is, perhaps, nothing which strikes us so much in the reading of the Old Testament, as the contrast between the faithfulness of God, and the infidelity of the Jewish people. And, perhaps, nothing so forcibly shews the respective characters of God and man, as the forbearance and lovingkindness of the former, and the perverseness and wickedness of the latter, which are so faithfully delineated by the inspired penmen of holy writ.

History is nothing more than a collection of experimental facts upon human nature, which at different times, and under different circumstances, have been made upon mankind. It is by these experiments that the nature of man is discovered; and as, in chemistry, the same results invariably attend the same trials, a uniformity of principle, with a slight

variation of detail, will be found to govern individuals and families, and the aggregate mass of civil, society, in all ages and all generations. A bare knowledge of historical facts tends rather to impoverish than enrich the mind, and a jejuneness of ideas and knowledge of principles, will inevitably result from the correctest acquaintance with history, unless the powers of the reflective faculty receive a correspondent extension with the materials stored up in the mind. To possess the most varied information in history, without reflection, is to possess the rules of arithmetic without power to apply them, and to be present at the most delicious repast, with the means of sustenance placed before us, but without appetite to feed, and power to digest, the food. A reflective mind is like a chamber covered with mirrors; nothing can be placed in it without being reflected in a thousand different ways, and represented in a thousand different shapes. The object being viewed in an infinite variety of aspects, according to the position of each mirror, the relation of all its parts is thoroughly investigated, and its nature understood. The stream of history flows with a tolerably even and unvaried tide, though its waters receive various tinges according to the soil and country through which it passes; and although, from incidental causes, a fresh impetus and direction may be given to it, it soon returns to its natural and easy course,

and exhibits the same distinguishing features in all ages, climes, and countries.

As the daily occurrences of life for the most part exhibit an unbroken uniformity, the same even tenor of action and passion will be found to prevail in the more enlarged extension of civilized society, under the form of families and neighbourhood. And as countries are composed of lesser communities, which are themselves formed of associated parcels of vicinage, families, and individuals; we may with the justest reason of probability and analogy expect, that a similar uniformity of animating principles and occurrences will be found to prevail in the histories of men, under the most enlarged form of society, embodied as kingdoms, nations, countries, and republics.

What reason thus dictates, experience proves. One century is found to be but the echo of another. Time introduces on the stage of this world nothing new; no character can make his appearance whom his fellow has not preceded; and no plot can ever be fabled, which has not been exemplified in the warm realities of life. The course of human affairs, as has been remarked by an ancient poet, are as constant, though inconstant, as the courses of the stars of heaven. The leaves of the forest pass away, only to give place to others of the same

Soph. Trach. 130.

beauteous verdure, and the same decaying nature. The flower blooms and is plucked, only to make way for others, that, with an unvaried freshness and beauty, may again blossom on the stalk, and again fade and wither on the breast. "All things pass away, that they may return again; I see nothing new."

While the laws, or principles, which govern and sway the human breast, like those of Nature, are immutable; the actions or issues of those principles are, with the same unchangeable continuity which pervades the operations of Nature, invariable. The principles which govern mankind, are perpetuated to posterity with an undeviating certainty; and history too clearly furnishes us with a corresponding detail of facts, illustrative of their nature, and confirmatory of their truth.

Perhaps no nation upon earth exhibits a fairer illustration of these observations than the Jewish people. The uniformity of principle which governs the human breast, begets a uniformity of action. We cannot read the Jewish history, with any reflection, without being deeply impressed with the depravity of humanity, and the alienation of the soul from God. While the fall of man satisfactorily accounts for all the perverseness of Israel, the uniform wickedness of the Jews confirms and illustrates this most lamentable and awful truth. To find the same people, under the government of

Moses, the Judges, and Kings, acting with unvaried rebellion towards God, in opposition to the plainest miraculous interposition of Providence, must naturally create an investigation into the causes of a perverseness so untoward, and conduct so inexplicable. These delinquencies, be it remembered, were not sudden aberrations from rectitude, but confirmed and habitual rebellions, and compose the characteristic feature of the Jewish people. We are not to regard them as excrescences, but as component parts of the body. They are not foreign and extraneous plants, but indigenous productions, and inherent in the soil. They were principles, not casualties; habits, not accidents; not partial, but universal. Their virtues were rather exceptions to their vices, than their vices to their virtues. An averseness to God was the characteristic of their nature, which was fostered and engendered in the most cheering prosperity and sunshine of God's favour, and subsequently heightened by the acuteness of affliction, and acrimony of despair. The various dispensations of Providence, which may be collected under the two heads of prosperity and adversity, seem to have excited the uniform exhibition of this evil principle, which the wrath of an offended Deity did not suppress, nor love remove.,

The dealings of Providence in the case before us bear, as it respects the result, the closest analogy

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