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the dearest object to our hearts, is dishon-
oured by them.

I think this nation may be considered as the
Israel of the New Testament, both with re-
spect of his goodness to us, and our perverse
returns to him. He has been pleased to se-
lect us, as a peculiar people, and to show
amongst us, such instances of his protection,
his favour, his grace, and his patience, as can-
not be paralleled in the annals of any other
nation.

We have no certain account when the name of Jesus the Saviour was first known in this island; it was probably at an early period of the Christian æra. know, that after the long dark night of But we do superstition and ignorance which covered Christendom for many ages, the dawn of returning gospel light was first seen amongst as. From the time of Wickliff, the morningstar of the Reformation, the true gospel has been known, preached, received, and perpetuated to this day. There have been times when they who loved this gospel have suffered for it. They were preserved faithful, in defiance of stripes, fines, imprisonment, and death itself. But those times are past. We enjoy not only light, but liberty, and the rights of conscience and private judgment, in a degree till of late unknown.

We have likewise been long favoured with peace, though often principals in wars, which have been very calamitous, both to our enemies, and to the nations which have taken part in our affairs. Our intestine broils at different times have contributed to form and establish our present happy constitution. We breathe the air of civil liberty. Our insular situation, and naval force, by the blessing of God, have preserved us from foreign invasions; and when such have been attempted, the winds and seas have often fought our battles. Our wide-spreading and flourishing commerce has raised us to a pitch of opulence, which excites the admiration and envy of other nations.-Great Britain and Ireland appear but as small spots upon a globe or map; but our interests and influence extend, in every direction, to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Will not the Lord's words to Israel apply with equal propriety to us? What could have been done to my vineyard, that I have not done? Wherefore, when I looked for grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? Isa. v. 4.

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who reject, despise, or dishonour it, I fear a bitter hatred, and exert all their influence they are very few. Too many hate it with to oppose and suppress it. The great doctrines of the Reformation are treated with contempt; and both they who preach, and they who espouse them, are considered as visionaries or hypocrites, knaves or fools. The gospel of God is shunned as a pestilence, or complained of as a burden, almost whereever it known.

dren, Luke vii. 35. The gospel is the power Wisdom is indeed justified of all her chilof God to the salvation of them that believe, wickedness, and from misery, guides their Rom. i. 16. It recalls them from error, from feet into the ways of peace, and teaches them to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world, Titus ii. 12. But in the number of those who profess to receive it, there are too many who confirm and increase the prejudices of those who speak against what they know not.-Alas! what extravagant opinions, what fierce dissensions, what loose conversations, what open offences, may be found amongst many who would be thought professors of that gospel which only breathes the spirit of holiness, love, and peace!

What then must be the state of those who need not enlarge upon this painful subject, avowedly live without God in the world? I which forces itself upon the mind, if we only walk the streets, or look into the newspapers. It is not necessary to inform my hearers that infidelity,licentiousness, perjury, profaneness. the neglect and contempt of God's sabbaths, and worship, abound. The laws of God, and the laws of the land, so far as their object is to enforce the observance of his commands, are openly and customarily violated in every rank of life. In a day when the Lord of hosts calls to weeping and mourning, thoughtless security, dissipation, and riot, are the characteristics of our national spirit, ls. xxii. 12, 13. The loss of public spirit, and that impatience of subordination, so generally observable, so widely diffused, which are the consequences of our sins against God, are, in themselves, moral causes sufficient to ruin behalf. the nation, unless his mercy interposes in our

share I have formerly had in that unhappy I should be inexcusable, considering the business, if, upon this occasion, I should omit How is the blessed gospel improved among rank this amongst our national sins; because to mention the African slave-trade. I do not us? This would be a heavy day to me, if I I hope and believe, a very great majority of did not believe, and know, that there are the nation, earnestly long for its suppression. those among our various denominations, who But, hitherto, petty and partial interests preprize and adorn it. If these could be all as- vail against the voice of justice, humanity, sembled in one place, I hope they would be and truth. This enormity, however, is not found a very considerable number: and for sufficiently laid to heart. If you are justly their sakes, and in answer to their prayers, I shocked by what you hear of the cruelties humbly trust that mercy will still be afforded practised in France, you would perhaps be But compared with the multitudes, shocked much more, if you could fully con

to us.

It is but a brief and faint outline I have attempted to give of the present state of this nation, in the sight of Almighty God, and of the sins for which we are this day assembled to humble ourselves before him.

ceive of the evils and miseries inseparable When the apostle Paul wrote to the former, from this traffic, which, I apprehend, not and when our Lord indited his epistles to the from hearsay, but from my own observation, latter, most of them were in a prosperous are equal in atrocity, and perhaps superior state. If there ever was a time when the in number, in the course of a single year, to commendations given to them were applicaany or all the worst actions which have been ble to professors of the gospel in our land, I known in France since the commencement fear we can hardly claim them at present. of their revolution. There is a cry of blood Can it be justly said of us, that our faith and against us; a cry accumulated by the acces- love are every where spoken of, and that we sion of fresh victims, of thousands, of scores are examples to all that believe? That our of thousands, I had almost said of hundreds works, and service, and faith, and patience, of thousands, from year to year. are known, and the last to be more than the first? Rom. i. 8; 1 Thess. i. 7; Rev. ii. 19. Or rather, may it not be said of too many, that while they profess to believe in God, in works they deny him? Titus i. 16.-That they are neither hot nor cold-That they have a name to live, and are dead-That they have at least forgotten their first love! Rev. iii. 1, 15; ii. 4. When these defects and declensions began to prevail in the first churches, the Lord admonished and warned them; but instead of watching and repenting, they gradually became more and more remiss. At length their glory departed, and their candlesticks were removed out of their places. Many regions which once rejoiced in the light of the gospel, have been long overspread with Mahomedan darkness; and the inhabitants are wretched, ignorant slaves.

II. Have we not therefore cause to say, with the Ninevites, Who can tell?-Is it not a peradventure! Is there more than a possibility, that we may yet obtain mercy?

If our sins are no less numerous, no less of a scarlet dye, than those of other nations, and exceedingly aggravated beyond theirs, by being committed against clearer light, and the distinguished advantages we have long enjoyed: if we have not only transgressed the laws of God in common with others, but daringly trampled upon the gracious tenders of his forgiveness, which he has long continued to propose to us, with a frequency and energy almost peculiar to ourselves: if all the day long he has stretched out his hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people, (Rom. x. 21.) and, hitherto, almost in vain: if neither the tokens of his displeasure, nor the declarations of his love, have made a suitable impression upon our minds,-who can tell if he will yet be entreated? May we not fear, lest he should say, My Spirit shall strive with them no more: They are joined to their idols, let them alone: Hosea, iv. 17. When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my face from you; when you make many prayers, I will not hear! Isa. i. 15.

Let us not trust in outward privileges, nor rest in a form of godliness destitute of the power. It will be in vain to say, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we, (Jer. vii. 4,) if the Lord of the temple should depart from us. When the Israelites were afraid of the Philistines, they carried the ark of the Lord with them to battle. But God disappointed their vain confidence. He delivered the ark of his glory into the hands of their enemies; (1 Sam. iv. 5, 11;) to teach them, and to teach us, that formal hypocritical worshippers have no good ground to hope for his protection.

Alas! then, who can tell?-Appearances Where are now the mighty empires, which are very dark at present. Besides what we were once thought rooted and established as may expect or fear from the rage and madthe everlasting mountains? They have dis-ness of our foreign enemies, we have much appeared like the mists upon the mountain- to apprehend at home. A spirit of discord tops. Nothing of them remains but their names. They perished, and their memorials have almost perished with them, Ps. ix. 6. The patience of God bore with them for a time, and until the purposes for which he raised them up were answered; but when the measure of their iniquity was full, they passed away, and were dispersed, like foam upon the waters. What security have we from such a catastrophe! Or what could we answer, if God should put that question Shall not I visit for these things? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" Jer. v. 9.

to us,

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Where are now the churches which once flourished in Greece, and in the Lesser Asia!

has gone forth. Jeshurun has waxed fat, and kicked, Deut. xxxiii. 15. Many Britons seem weary of liberty, peace, and order. Our happy constitution, our mild government, our many privileges, admired by other nations, are despised and depreciated amongst ourselves: and that not only by the thoughtless and licentious, by those who, having little to lose, may promise themselves a possibility of gain, in a time of disturbance and confusion; but they are abetted and instigated by persons of sense, character, and even of religion. I should be quite at a loss to account for this, if I did not consider it as a token of the Lord's displeasure. When he withdraws his blessing, no union can long subsist.

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miseries of those who know him not. But if You do well to mourn for the sins and you make him your fear and your dread, he will be a sanctuary to you, and keep your hearts in peace, though the earth be removed, and the mountains cast into the midst of the sea, Is. viii. 13, 14. Ps. xlvi. 2.

"Because thou servedst hot the Lord thy | 10, 11;) so, with equal ease, he can still the God, with joyfulness, and with gladness of madness of the people, Ps. lxv. 7. heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies, whom the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness and in the want of all things," Deut. xxviii. 47, 48. These words of Moses to rebellious Israel emphatically describe the former and the present state of many of the French nation, who have been despoiled, insulted, and glad if they could escape (great numbers could not so escape) with the loss of their all, and at the peril of their lives, to a more hospitable shore. May their sufferings remind us of our deserts! Who can tell if the Lord may yet be merciful unto us, and exempt us from similar calamities!

III. But though we have much cause to mourn for our sins, and humbly to deprecate deserved judgments, let us not despond. The Lord our God is a merciful God! tell but he may repent, and turn from the Who can fierceness of his anger, that we perish not? If the professed business of this day be not confined to a day, but if, by his blessing it may produce repentance not to be repented of, then I am warranted to tell you, from his word, that there is yet hope. You that tremble for the ark, for the cause of God, whose eyes affect your hearts, who grieve for sin, and for the miseries which sin has multiplied upon the earth, take courage. Let the hearts of the wicked shake, like the leaves of the trees when agitated by a storm; (Isa. vii. 2;) but be not you like them. The Lord God is your refuge and strength, your resting place, and your hiding place; under the shadow of his wings you shall be safe, Ps. xlvi. 1; xc. 1; cxix. 114.

1. He who loved you, and died for your sins, is the Lord of glory. All power in heaven and in earth is committed unto him, Matt. xxviii. 18. The Lord reigneth, let the earth be never so unquiet. Ps. xcix. 1. All creatures are instruments of his will. The wrath of man, so far as it is permitted to act, shall praise him, shall be made subservient to the accomplishment of his great designs; and the remainder of that wrath, all their projected violence, which does not coincide with his wise and comprehensive plan, he will restrain, Ps. lxxvi. 10. In vain they rage, and fret, and threaten. They act nder a secret commission, and can do no more than he permits them. If they attempt it, he has a hook and a bridle in their mouths, 2 Kings xix. 28. When the enemies would come in like a flood, he can lift up a standard against them, Is. lix. 19. As he has set bounds and bars to the tempestuous sea, beyond which it cannot pass, saying, Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed; (Job xxxviii.

pray-Let us pray for ourselves, that we 2. Your part and mine, is to watch and may be found waiting, with our loins girded up, and our lamps burning, (Mark xiii. 35; xiv. 38,) that we may be prepared to meet his will in every event. Let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for his church, which is dear to him, as the pupil of his eye, for the his kingdom, till his great name be known spread of his gospel, and the extension of and adored from the rising to the setting of the sun, and the whole earth shall be filled prophecies are yet unfulfilled: and he is with his glory, Mal. i. 11. Many splendid now bringing forward their accomplishment. Light would undoubtedly arise out of this darkness. Let us earnestly pray for a blessing from on high, upon our beloved King and his family, upon the counsels of government and parliament, and upon all subordinate authority in church and state-that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty, that religion and good order may be established, and iniquity be put to shame and silence. Thus we may dope to be secured, by the sure, though secret mark of divine protection, Ezek. ix. 4. The Lord will be our shield, though many should suffer or fall around us. heads are numbered, Matt. x. 30. Or if, for The very hairs of our of his grace, he should permit us to share in the manifestation of our faith, and the power common calamities, we may rely upon him to afford us strength according to our day, Deut. xxxiii. 25. He is always near to his people, a very present help in the time of trouble; and he can make the season of their greatest tribulations, the season of their sweetest consolations, 2 Cor. i. 5.

member what great things the Lord has dorre 3. And let us pray in faith. Let us re in answer to prayer. When sin had given Sennacherib rapid success in his invasion of Judah, he did not know that he was no 'more than an axe or a saw in the hand of God, Isa. x. 15; xxxvii. 14-36. He ascribed his victories to his own prowess, and thought himself equally sure of Jerusalem. But Hezekiah defeated him upon his knees. He spread his blasphemous letter before the Lord in the temple, and prayed, and the Assyrian army melted away like snow. When Peter was shut up, and chained in prison, the chains fell from his hands, the locks and bolts gave way, and the iron gate opened, while the

church was united in earnest prayer for his | selves true friends to your country, by beardeliverance, Acts xii. 5-13.

And as we have heard, so have we seen. God has signally answered the prayers of his people, in our own time. Much prayer, both public and private, was offered for our beloved King, during his late illness; and how wonderful, how sudden, how seasonable was his recovery! Surely this was the finger of God! When he thus removed our apprehensions, we were like them that dream, Psalm cxxvi. 1.

I believe prayer was no less efficacious, towards the end of the year 1792. I know many people treated the idea of danger at that time as chimerical, because the Lord was pleased to avert it. But I hope we have not quite forgotten the language we heard, and the persons we daily met with in the street, the many daring cabals which were held in this city, and the threatenings which were written in large characters upon the walls of our houses, at almost every corner. But the hearts of men were turned like the tide in the critical moment. Then I think the interposition of the Lord was evident! Then we had a repeated proof that he hears and answers prayer!

ing your testimony, and exerting your iufluence against sin, the procuring cause of all our sorrows, and, by standing in the breach, and pleading with God for mercy, in behalf of yourselves, and of the nation. If ten persons, thus disposed, had been found even in Sodom, it would have escaped destruction, Gen. xviii. 32.

IV. There may be some persons in this assembly, who are little concerned for their own sins, and are of course incapable of taking a proper part in the service of the day. Yet I am glad that you are here; I pity you, I warn you. If you should live to see a time of public distress, what will you do? To whom will you look, or whither will you flee for help? All that is dear to you may be torn from you, or you from it.-Or, if it please God to prolong our tranquillity. you are liable to many heavy calamities in private life. And if you should be exempted from these; death is inevitable, and may be near. My heart wishes you the possession of those principles which would support you in all the changes of life, and make your dying pillow comfortable. Are you unwilling to be happy? or can you be happy too soon! Many persons are now looking upon you. who once were as you are now. And I doubt not, they are praying that you may be as they now are. Try to pray for yourself; our God is assuredly in the midst of us. His gracious ear is attentive to every supplicant. Seek him while he is to be found. Jesus died for sinners, and he has said, Him that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out, John vi. 37. He is likewise the author of that faith, by which alone you can come rightly to him. If you ask it of him, he will give it you; if you seek it in the means of his appointment. you shall assuredly find, Matt. vii. 7. If you refuse this, there remaineth no other saYou, who have access to the throne of crifice for sin, Heb. x. 22, 27. If you are grace, whose hearts are concerned for the not saved by faith in his blood, you are lost glory of God, and who lament not only the for ever. O kiss the Son, lest he be angry. temporal calamities attendant upon war, but and you perish from the way, if his wrath the many thousands of souls who are yearly be kindled, yea but a little. Blessed are precipitated by it into an eternal, unchange- all they that put their trust in him, Psalm able state,-you, I trust, will show your-ii. 12.

The present likewise is a very important crisis. All that is dear to us as men, as Britons, as Christians, is threatened. Our eneinies are inveterate and enraged. Our sins testify against us. But if we humble ourselves before God, forsake our sins, and unite in supplications for mercy, who can tell but he may be entreated to give us that help which it would be in vain to expect from man? yea, we have encouragement to hope that he will be for us, (Rom. viii. 31,) and then none can prevail against us. But without his blessing our most powerful efforts, and best concerted undertakings cannot succeed.

MOTIVES TO HUMILIATION AND PRAISE;

A SERMON

PREACHED IN THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. MARY WOOLNOTH,

ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1797.

THE DAY OF GENERAL THANKSGIVING TO ALMIGHTY GOD FOR OUR LATE NAVAL VICTORIES.

How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim? My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God, and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee.-Hosea xi. 8, 9.

expostulation, why he would still exercise Two reasons are assigned, in his pathetic long-suffering towards those who so justly deserved to perish: 1. I am God, and not man.

THE most High God, in the revelation of | overthrew the cities in the plain of Jericho, his will to men, adapts his language to the Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, weakness of our conceptions. truths are represented by images taken from ed for a respite, and prevailed. O Ephraim, Heavenly Deut. xxix. 23. But Mercy interposed, pleadearthly things, John iii. 12. of eyes and hands are used in the scriptures but how shall I, how can I give thee up? The metaphors O Israel, justice calls aloud for vengeance, to raise our thoughts to some due apprehen- No, I cannot, I will not, my heart is turned sion of his infinite knowledge, his omnipre- within me, my repentings are kindled. sence, and his almighty power, 1 Pet. iii. 12; Ps. lxxxix. 13. He is likewise spoken of, as deliberating, repenting, rejoicing, and grieving; yet we are sure that passions like those of which we are conscious in ourselves, cannot in strict propriety be ascribed to the holy and blessed God. No attentive and serious mind can be misled by this figurative analogy. We learn from the same scriptures of truth, that God is sovereign; that with him there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning, (James i. 17,) that his counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure, (Is. xlvi. 10;) and that all his works are perfectly known to him, from the beginning of the world, Acts xv. 18. The more familiar modes of expression are designed to teach us, not what he is in himself, but how it becomes us sinful creatures to be affected towards him.

creature, would have been overcome long The patience of man, or of any mere ago by the perverseness of Israel; but he who made them, and he only, was able to bear with them still. 2. I am the Holy One in the midst of thee. In that dark and degenerate day, when the bulk of the nation was in a state of revolt and rebellion, there were a hidden remnant who feared and worshipped the Lord, and who mourned for the abominations which they could not prevent, Ezek. ix. 4, 6. Of these the Lord was mindful, and for the sake of these, deserved judgments were suspended from falling upon the

rest.

Thus, though the purpose of God concerning Israel was fixed and unalterable, yet, to state of hard bondage, and were severely opThe people of Israel were for a time in a impress us with a sense of his inflexible dis-pressed in Egypt. The Lord brought them pleasure against sin, and at the same time to out from thence with a mighty hand, and a leave open the door of hope and encourage- stretched-out arm. ment for penitent sinners, we read of a de- Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea; but he He afterwards drowned bate, as it were, between his justice and his led Israel safely through the deep as upon mercy. Justice demanded that Israel should dry land. In the barren wilderness he fed be given up, delivered up to vengeance, to them with manna, and brought them water such a destruction as that by which God out of the rock. In the pathless wilderness VOL. II. 31 433

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