in whom ye trufted, neglecting my power and fatherly care; apply, therefore, to them in your adverfity, and, if they are able, let them fave you, and deliver you out of my hard.

But how different is the fituation of the man who is able to fay, with the noble confidence of the apostle, "I know in whom I "have believed, and I am perfuaded, that "he is able to keep that which I have com"mitted unto him!" Wherever I am, or whatever I do, I know that I am still under the watchful care of God's Providence, which is able to preserve me from all dangers. And though fometimes his footsteps are hid in darkness, and his ways paft finding out, I will yet acquiefce in his difpenfations, nor pretend with mortal eye to measure the heights of infinity. He is a God, I am but a worm: is it, therefore, to be wondered at that I cannot always difcover the reafons of his administration? But my paft experience. of his mercy and protection, and the general harmony apparent in the government of the world, proclaim him wife, and just, and good. I will, therefore, fubmit to his will

VOL. II.

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with reverence: "It is the Lord, let him do "what feemeth good." If his Providence scatters the bleffings of life around me, I will receive them with thankfulness: if it rains down afflictions upon me, I will bear them with fubmiffion: in every event of life, mine shall be the humble language of Job, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken 66 away, bleffed be the name of the Lord."

May this holy spirit be in the breast of every one that heareth me this day! May we love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our foul, with all our might, and with all our ftrength! May his will be done in earth, as it is in heaven! May all the scattered nations of the world acknowledge his kingdom, and adore his power! May the lowest look up to him with confidence and comfort: for he is the friend of the friendless, the comforter of the poor and needy. And may the highest bow down to him with fubmiffive fear and filial reverence: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; he is King of kings, and Lord of lords.

SER

SERMON XXV.

PSALM CXXXVii. 5, 6.

If I forget thee, O Jerufalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerufalem above my chief joy.

HIS pfalm is, with great reason, sup

THIS

pofed to be the compofition of a Jewish Levite, after the return from the Babylonish captivity; though the great oracle of infidelity, Voltaire, ignorantly afcribes it to David, who was dead four hundred years before this event and the afflicted author most pathetically describes in it the calamities and indignities which his countrymen fuffered during that long and unfortunate period. There is fomething fingularly affecting, as well as truly poetical, in the exordium of it." By the "rivers of Babylon;" on the folitary banks of the Euphrates, which we were compelled

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to inhabit; that we might give the freer vént to our forrows, being unable to yield thee any other teftimony of our affection, "we fat

down and wept, when we remembered thee, "O Sion;" when we compared thy former glory and prosperity with the low and deplorable ftate to which thou waft then fallen. As for our harps, having now no farther call for them, either for our own amusement, or for the folemn fervices of the temple, we hanged them upon the willows which overfpread the banks, that they might be fo many fad mementos of the happiness we had loft, and that they might not be profaned at the pleasure of our impious tyrants. "For there, "they that carried us away captive," the deftroyers of Jerufalem, the authors of all our grief and mifery, most infultingly required of us mirth in our forrow, and melody in our heavinefs:"Come," faid they, "fing us one "of the fongs of Sion;" one of thofe facred hymns which you ufed to fing in the temple

of

your God. Ye abfurd, ye impious tyrants! "how fhall we fing the Lord's fong in a "ftrange land?" Ye may fetter and enflave our captive bodies, but ye cannot bend or debafe our free-born fouls to fervile compliance.

How,

How, think ye, can we celebrate the worship of our God in any other place than that which He himself has appointed? Can ye expect thofe fongs of praise and thanksgiving, which were compofed in honour of the great Jehovah, the God of Ifrael, to be vilely prostituted to the followers of Baal, and the worshippers of ftocks and ftones? No; "if I forget thee, "O Jerufalem," and the defolations brought upon thee by these cruel oppreffors, " let my " right hand forget her cunning: if I do not "remember thee, let my tongue cleave to "the roof of my mouth." May I from that moment be deprived of my sweetest delight! May my tongue lofe all its powers of melody, and my right hand be unable to touch the harp with its accustomed skill! May this and much more befal me, if ever I prefer not Jerufalem above my chief joy; if the love of thee, my country, ever ceases to be the ruling paffion of my foul.

From the words of the text thus opened and introduced, I fhall make fome short remarks upon the love of our country; a subject to which our attention is naturally called, both from our prefent fituation, and from a E 3

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