is making so dreadful a progress; but though | sentiments of terror and awe: this is the second our horizon is not yet infected, though the disposition of a fast. If we examine their origin breath of our hearers is not yet corrupt, and and cause, we shall be softened with sentiments though our streets present not yet to our view of sorrow and repentance: this is the third disheaps of dead, whose mortal exhalations, position of a fast. If we, lastly, discover the threaten the living, and to whose burial, those remedies and resources, we shall be animated who survive are scarcely sufficient, we are with the sentiments of genuine conversion: this nevertheless under the hand of God; I would is the fourth disposition of a fast. It is by resay, under his avenging hand; his hand already flections of this kind that I would close these uplifted to plunge us into the abyss of national solemn duties, and make, if I may so speak, the ruin. What else are those plagues which applications of those energetic words addressed walk in our streets? What is this mortality to us by the servants of God on this day. of our cattle which has now continued so many years? what else is this suspension of credit, this loss of trade, this ruin of so many families, and so many more on the brink of ruin? "O Lord, thou hast stricken them." The first part then is but too awfully accomplished in our country.

I should deem it an abuse of the liberty allowed me in this pulpit, were I to say, without restriction, that the second is likewise accomplished; "but they have not grieved." The solemnity of the day; the proclamation of our fast; the whole of these provinces prostrated today at the feet of the Most High; so many voices crying to Heaven, "O thou sword of the Lord, intoxicated with blood, return into thy scabbard;" all would convict me of declamation, if I should say, "O Lord thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved."

But, my brethren, have we then no part in this reproach? Do we feel as we ought, the calamities that God hath sent? Come to-day, Christians; come and learn of our prophet to hearken to the voice of God. What voice? the voice strong and mighty; the voice which lighteneth with flames of fire; the loud voice of his judgments. "Hear ye the rod, and him who hath appointed it."

My brethren, on the hearing of this voice, what sort of requests shall we make? Shall we not say, as the ancient people, "Let not the Lord speak to us lest we die?" No, let us not adopt this language.-O great God, the contempt we have made of thy staff, when thy clemency caused us to repose in green pastures, renders essential the rod of thy correction. Now is the crisis to suffer, or to perish. Strike, strike, Lord, provided we may be converted and saved. Speak with thy lightning; speak with thy thunder; speak with thy flaming bolts; but teach us to hear thy voice. "Speak, Lord, for thy servants hear." And you, my brethren, "Hear ye the rod, and him who hath appointed it." Amen.

This, in substance, is,

I. To feel the strokes of God's hand:

I. "Hear ye the rod:" feel the strokes with which you are already struck. There is one disposition of the mind which may be confounded with that we would wish to inspire. The sensation of these calamities may be so strong as to unnerve the understanding, and overspread the mind with a total gloom and dejection. The soul of which we speak, feasts on its grief, and is wholly absorbed in the causes of its anguish. The privation of a good once enjoyed, renders it perfectly indifferent as to the blessings which still remain. The strokes which God has inflicted, appear to it the greatest of all calamities. Neither the beauties of nature, nor the pleasures of conversation, nor the motives of piety, have charms adequate to extinguish, nor even assuage anguish which corrodes and consumes the soul. Hence those torrents of tears; hence those deep and frequent sighs; hence those loud and bitter complaints; hence those unqualified augurs of disaster and ruin. To feel afflictions in this way, is a weakness of mind which disqualifies us for supporting the slightest reverses of life. It is an ingratitude which obstructs our acknowledging the favours of that God, who, "in the midst of wrath, remembers mercy," and who never so far afflicts his creature, as to deprive him of reviving hope.

The insensibility we wish to prevent, is a vice directly opposed to that we have just decried. It is the insensibility of the man of pleasure. He must enjoy life; but nothing is more strikingly calculated to correct his notions, and derange the system of present pleasure, than this idea: the sovereign of the universe is irritated against us: his sword is suspended over our heads: his avenging arm is making awful havoc around us: thousands have already fallen beneath his strokes on our right, and ten thousand on our left, Ps. xci. 7. We banish these ideas: but this being difficult to do, we repose behind intrenchments which they cannot penetrate; and by augmenting the confusion of the passions, we endeavour to divert our attention from the calamities of the public.

The insensibility we wish to prevent, is a phi

II. To trace their consequences and connex-losophical apathy. We brave adversity. We ions:

III. To examine their origin and causes. IV. To discover their resources and remedies. This is to comply with the exhortation of Micah; this is to shelter ourselves from the charge of Jeremiah; this is especially to comply with the design of this solemnity. If we feel the strokes of God's hand, we shall shake off a certain state of indolence in which many of us are found, and be clothed with the sentiments of humiliation: this is the first duty of the day. If we trace the consequences and connexion of our calamities, we shall be inspired with the

fortify ourselves with a stoical firmness. We account it wise, superior wisdom to be unmoved by the greatest catastrophes. We enshroud the mind in an ill-named virtue; and we pique ourselves on the vain glory of being unmoved, though the universe were dissolved.

The insensibility we wish to prevent is that which arises from a stupid ignorance. Some men are naturally more difficult to be moved than the brutes destitute of reason. They are resolved to remain where they are, until extricated by an exterior cause; and these are the very men who resist that cause. They shut

their eyes against the avenues of alarm; they | on Judah and Israel, and those he has sent on harden their hearts against calamities by the us. We exhort you to sensibility concerning mere dint of reason, or rather by the mere in- the visitations of Providence: four ministers of stinct of nature; because if seriously regarded, the God of vengeance address you with a voice some efforts would be required to avert the vi- more loud and pathetic than mine. These misitation. nisters are, the tempests; the murrain; the plague; and the spirit of indifference.

the depths of hell a commission like that granted | transient satisfaction; but a state of violence to the spirit mentioned in the first Book of cannot be permanent. Each passion offers vioKings. "The Lord said, who shall persuade lence to some faculty of the soul, to which that Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth- faculty is abandoned. The happiness procured Gilead? And there came forth a spirit, and said, by the passions is founded on mistake: the moI will persuade him. And the Lord said, Yea, ment the soul recovers recollection, the happithou shalt persuade him, and prevail," xxii. 20. ness occasioned by error is dissipated. The 22. Yea, a spirit who has sworn the overthrow happiness ascribed to avarice is grounded on of our families, the ruin of our arts and manu- the same mistake: it is couched in this princifactures, the destruction of our commerce, and ple, that gold and silver are the true riches: the loss of our credit, this spirit has fascinated and the moment that the soul which establishus all. He seizes the great and the small, the ed its happiness on a false principle becomes court and the city. But I abridge my intentions enlightened; the moment it investigates the on this subject; I yield to the reasons which for- numerous cases in which riches are not only bid my extending to farther detail. To feel the useless, but destructive, it loses the happiness strokes of God's hand, is most assuredly the first founded on mistake. We may reason in the duty he requires. Hear ye the rod, and who same manner concerning the other passions. hath appointed it." There is then in the soul of every man a harmony between happiness and virtue, misery and crime.

2. This harmony is equally found in the great circles of national society. I am not wholly unacquainted with the maxims which a false polity would advance on the subject. I am not ignorant of what Hobbes, Machiavel, and their disciples, ancient and modern, have said. And I frankly confess, that I feel the force of the difficulties opposed to this general thesis, of the happiness of nations being inseparable from their innocence. But notwithstanding all the difficulties of which the thesis is susceptible, I think myself able to maintain, and prove, that all public happiness founded

II. This rod requires us, secondly, to trace the causes and the origin of our calamities. Micah wished the Jews to comprehend that the miseries under which they groaned were a consequence of their crimes. We would wish you to form the same judgment of yours. But here the subject has its difficulties. Under a pretence of entering into the spirit of humiliation, there is danger of our falling into the puerilities of superstition. Few subjects are more fertile in erroneous conclusions than this subject. Temporal prosperity and adversity are very equivocal marks of the favour and displeasure of God. If some men are so wilfully blind as not to see that a particular dispensation of Providence is productive of certain pun-on crime, is like the happiness of the individual ishments, there are others who fancy that they every where see a particular providence. The commonest occurrences, however closely connected with secondary causes, seem to them the result of an extraordinary counsel in him who holds the helm of the world. The slightest adversity they regard as a stroke of his angry arm. Generally speaking, we should always recollect that the conduct of Providence is involved in clouds and darkness. We should form the criterion of our guilt or innocence not by the exterior prosperity or adversity sent of God, but by our obedience or disobedience to his word; and we should habituate ourselves to see, without surprise in this world, the wicked prosperous, and the righteous afflicted.

But notwithstanding the obscurity in which it has pleased God to involve his ways, there are cases, in which we cannot without impiety refuse assent, that adversity is increased by crimes. It is peculiarly apparent in two cases: first, when there is a natural connexion between the crimes you have committed, and the calamities we suffer: the second is, when the great calamities immediately follow the perpetration of enormous crimes. Let us explain:

just described. It is a state of violence, which cannot be permanent. From the sources of those same vices on which a criminal polity would found the happiness of the state, proceeds a long train of calamities which are evidently productive of total ruin.

Without encumbering ourselves with these discussions, without reviving this controversy, the better to keep in view the grand objects of the day, I affirm, that the calamities under which we groan are the necessary consequence of our crimes; and in such sort, that though there were no God of vengeance who holds the helm of the universe, no judge ready to execute justice, our degeneracy into every vice would suffice to involve our country in misery.

Under what evils do we now groan? Is it because our name is less respected? Is it because our credit is less established? Is it because our armies are less formidable? Is it because our union is less compact? But whence do these calamities proceed? Are they the mysteries of "a God, who hideth himself?" Are they strokes inflicted by an invisible hand? Or are they the natural effects and consequences of our crimes? Does it require miracles to First, we cannot doubt that punishment is a produce them? If so, miracles would be requiconsequence of crime, when there is an essen-site to prevent them. Men of genius, protial tie between the crime we have committed, found statesmen, you who send us to our books, and the calamity we suffer. One of the finest and to the dust of our closets, when we talk proofs of the holiness of the God, to whom all of Providence, and of plagues inflicted by an creatures owe their preservation and being, is avenging God, I summon your speculation and derived from the harmony he has placed be- superior information to this one point; tween happiness and virtue. Trace this har-destruction is of ourselves:" and the Judge of mony in the circles of society, and in private the universe has no need to punish our crimes life. 1. In private life. An enlightened mind but by our crimes. can find no solid happiness but in the exercise of virtue. The passions may indeed excite a

our

I have said, in the second place, that great calamities following great crimes, ought to be

regarded as their punishment. And shall we | with which we are struck, is to develop their refuse, in this day of humiliation, ascribing to consequences and connexions. Some calamithis awful cause the strokes with which we are ties are less formidable in themselves than in afflicted? Cast your eyes for a moment on the the awful consequences they produce. There nature of the crimes which reproach these pro- are "deeps which call unto deeps at the noise vinces. All nations have their vices, and vices of God's water-spouts," Ps. xlii. 8; and to sum in which they resemble one another; all nations up all in one word, there are calamities whose afford the justest cause for reprehension. Read distinguished characteristic is to be the forethe various books of morality; consult the ser- runners of calamities still more terrible. Such mons delivered among the most enlightened was the character of those inflicted on the kingnations, and you will every where see that the dom of Judah and of Israel in Micah's time, as great are proud, the poor impatient, the aged is awfully proved by the ruin of both. covetous, the young voluptuous, and so of Is this the idea we should form of the plagues every class. Meanwhile all sorts of vice have with which we are struck? Never was question not a resemblance. Weigh a passage in Deu- more serious and interesting, my brethren; and, teronomy in which you will find a distinction at the same time, never was question more delibetween sin and sin, and a distinction worthy cate and difficult. Do not fear, that forgetting of peculiar regard. "Their spot," says Moses, the limits with which it has pleased God to "is not the spot of the children of God,” xxxii. circumscribe our knowledge, we are about with 5. There is then a spot of the children of God, a profane hand to raise the veil which conceals and a spot which is not of his children. There futurity, and pronounce with temerity awful are infirmities found among a people dear to predictions on the destiny of these provinces. God, and there are defects incompatible with We shall merely mark the signs by which the his people. To receive the sacrament of the prophet would have the ancient people to unEucharist, but not with all the veneration re-derstand, that the plagues God had already inquired by so august a mystery; to celebrate days of humiliation, but not with all the deep repentance we should bring to these solemnities; these are great spots; but they are spots common to the children of God. To fall, however, as the ancient Israelites, whose eyes were still struck with the miracles wrought on their leaving Egypt; "to change the glory of God into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass; and to raise a profane shout. These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt," is a spot, but not "the spot of the children of God," Exod.

xxxii. 8.

flicted were but harbingers of those about to follow. Supply by your own reflections, the cautious silence we shall observe on this subject: examine attentively what connexion may exist between calamities we now suffer, and those which made the ancient Jews expect a total overthrow. And those signs of an impending calamity are less alarming in themselves, than the dispositions of the people on whom they are inflicted.

1. One calamity is the forerunner of a greater, when the people whom God afflicts have recourse to second causes instead of the first cause; and when they seek the redress of their Now, my brethren, can you cast your eyes calamities in political resources, and not in reon these provinces, without recognising a num-ligion. This is the portrait which Isaiah gives ber of sins of the latter class? In some fami- of Sennacherib's first expedition against Judea. lies, the education of youth is so astonishingly The prophet recites it in the twenty-second neglected, that we see parents training up their chapter of his book. "He discovered the cochildren for the first offices of the republic, for vering of Judah, and thou didst look in that offices which decide the honour, the fortune, day to the armour of the house of the forest. and the lives of men, without so much as initi-Ye have seen also the breaches of the city of ating them into the sciences, essentially requisite for the adequate discharge of professional duties. Profaneness is so prevalent, and indifference for the homage we pay to God is so awful, that we see people passing whole years without ever entering our sanctuaries; mechanics publicly follow their labour on the sabbath; women in the polished circles of society choose the hour of our worship to pay their visits, and expose card-tables, if I may so speak, in the sight of our altars. Infidelity is so rife, that the presses groan with works to immortalize blasphemies against the being of God, and to sap the foundation of public morals. How easy would it be to swell this catalogue! My brethren, on a subject so awful, let us not deceive ourselves; these are not the spots of the children of God; they are the very crimes which bring upon nations, the malediction of God, and which soon or late occasion their total overthrow.

III. To feel the calamities under which we now groan, and to trace their origin is not enough: we must anticipate the future: the third sort of regard required for the strokes

David, that they are many: and ye gathered together the waters of the lower pool. And ye have numbered the house of Jerusalem, and the houses have ye broken down to fortify the wall. Ye made also a ditch between the two walls, for the water of the old pool; but ye have not looked unto the Maker thereof, neither have ye had respect unto him that fashioned it long ago. And in that day did the Lord God of Hosts call to weeping and to mourning, and to plucking of the hair, and to girding with sackcloth. And behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink for to-morrow we shall die. And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of Hosts, surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you."

Whe

It belongs to you to make the application of this passage; it belongs to you to inquire what resemblance our present conduct may have to that of the Jews in a similar situation. ther it is to the first cause you have had recourse for the removal of your calamities, or whether you have solely adhered to second causes? whether it is the maxims of religion

you have consulted, or the maxims of policy? whether it is a barrier you have pretended to put to the war, to the pestilence, and famine; or whether you have put one to injustice, to hatred, to fornication, and to fraud, the causes of those calamities!

2. One calamity is the forerunner of greater calamities, when instead of humiliation on the reception of the warnings God sends by bis servants, we turn those warnings into contempt. By this sign, the author of the second Book of Chronicles wished the Jews to understand that their impiety had attained its height. "The Lord God of their fathers sent unto them by his messengers, rising up betimes and sending; because he had compassion on his people: but they mocked the messengers of God; they despised his word, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, so that there was no remedy," xxxvii. 15, 16.

My brethren, it is your duty to inquire how far you are affected by this doctrine. It is your duty to examine whether your present desolating calamities are characterized as harbingers of greater evils. Do you discover a teachable disposition towards the messengers of God who would open your eyes to see the effects of his indignation; or, do you revolt against their word? Do you love to be reproved and corrected, or do you resemble the incorrigible man of whom the prophet says, "thou hatest instruction," Ps. 1. 17. What a humiliating subject, my brethren, what an awful touchstone of our misery!

this is a subject already decided rather than a question of investigation.

4. Not wishful to multiply remarks, but to comprise the whole in a single thought, one plague is the forerunner of greater plagues when it fails in producing the reformation of those manners it was sent to chastise. Weigh those awful words in the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus. "If ye will not hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; then I will walk contrary also unto you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins." The force of these words depends on those which proceed. We there find a gradation of calamities whose highest period extends to the total destruction of the people against whom they were denounced. "If you will not hearken," Moses had said in behalf of God, verse 14, "I will even appoint over you terror, the consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you, and ye shall flee when none pursueth you." Immediately he adds, "If ye will not for all this hearken," and these words occur at the eighteenth verse, "If ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then will I punish you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass. And if ye walk contrary to me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins. And I will send the wild beast 3. One calamity is the forerunner of great- against you, and they shall rob you of your er calamities, when the anguish it excites pro- children, and make you few in number, and ceeds more from the loss of our perishable your highways shall be desolate." Then he riches than from sentiments of the insults of denounces a new train of calamities, after fered to God. This sign, the prophet Hosea which the words I have cited immediately folgave to the inhabitants of Samaria, "Though low. "If ye will not be reformed by all these I have redeemed them," says he, speaking for things, but will walk contrary unto me, then God, "they have not cried unto me with their will I also walk contrary unto you in fury, and heart, when they howled upon their beds." will punish you yet seven times for your sins. It was for corn and wine, that they cut them- And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and selves when they assembled together; or as the flesh of your daughters. And I will demight be better rendered, when they assem- stroy your high places, and cut down your bled for devotion.* Examine again, or rather images, and cast your carcase upon the carcacensure a subject which presents the mind with ses of your idols. And I will make your cities a question less for inquiry than for the admis-waste, and bring your sanctuary unto desolasion of a fact already decided. We would interrupt our business; we would suspend our pleasures; we would shed our tears; we would celebrate fasts on the recollection of our crimes, provided we could be assured that God would remit the punishment? We "cut ourselves; we assemble to-day for wine and wheat;" because commerce is obstructed; because our repose is interrupted in defiance of precaution; because the thunderbolts fallen on the heads of our neighbours threaten us, and our friends, our brethren, and our children; or is it because that those paternal regards of God are obscured, which should constitute our highest felicity, and all our joys? I say again,

The original word is so translated in the French bibles, Ps. lvi. 7; lix. 4. The French version, in regard to the former phrase, They cut themselves, seems to harmonize better with the scope of the passage than the English, They rebel, because it follows, Though I had bound and strengthened their arms, meaning their wounded arms.

tion."

Make, my brethren, the most serious reflections on these words of God to his ancient people. If in the strictest sense, they are inapplicable to you, it is because your present calamities require less than sevenfold more to effectuate your total extermination. Do I exaggerate the subject? Are your sea-banks able to sustain sevenfold greater shocks than they have already received? Are your cattle able to sustain sevenfold heavier strokes? Is your commerce able to sustain a sevenfold greater depression? Is there then so wide a distance between your present calamities, and your total ruin?

IV. Let us proceed to other subjects. Hitherto, my dear brethren, we have endeavoured to open your eyes, and fix them steadfastly on dark and afflictive objects; we have solicited your attention but for bitter reproaches, and terrific menaces. We have sought the way