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from forsaking our sins, we have increased them.I will not attempt to enumerate them: their num ber baffles computation, and their foulness shocks. the memory. Indeed there is no need to mention them; for our iniquities are not only marked before the Lord, but they are every where so public, and so abounding, that all the world must see them.The luxury of the great, and the profaneness of the vulgar, were never more flagrant.

Hitherto, indeed, God hath corrected us in measure; and in the midst of judgment hath remembered mercy: but he will have all the world to know, that with Him is terrible majesty. If what we have, already felt be not sufficient to make us sensible of it, he can set the whole frame of nature against us: he can make the heavens as brass, and the earth as iron he can make the air infectious, and the sea tempestuous, and all the elements ministers of vengeance, He can deliver us over to the hands of our enemies, whose tender mercies are cruelty; and easily disperse that fleet which is our glory and defence. He may be provoked, by our contempt of the Gospel, and ungrateful forgetfulness of former mercies: he may make us bow down, that our proud and blood-thirsty enemies may go over us; as he brought the Chaldeans of old to punish his own people, when by their sins they had brought this awful sentence upon themselves; "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore will I punish you for your iniquities."

Hitherto we have been as Gideon's fleece,-mois tened with the dew of heaven, while all around us hath been parched and withered. They have been suffering all the ravages of war-their houses plun,

dered, their churches converted into magazines or hospitals, and all their substance too little to satisfy the demands of raging extortion;-while we have sat quiet and safe under our own vines and under our own fig-trees, and enjoyed most of the blessings of peace, amidst the frightful din of war. But now things aré come to such a crisis, that we must either destroy this rod of God's anger, or be ourselves destroyed by it.-It makes one shudder, to think of the horrors and devastations that would be the unavoidable consequence of their bringing the war home to our own country!-for wherever those devourers come, like the plague of locusts, though it were as the garden of Eden before them, all behind them will be as a desolate wilderness. And, yet, even this we may provoke the Almighty to permit, as a just punishment for our ingratitude and rebellion :: and this happy spot; this vineyard of the Lord of hosts; this garden, which the Lord hath planted and watered with so much tenderness and care; this land of light and liberty; this land of our nativity, endeared to us by every consideration that can make a country dear 'to a free and favoured people-I say, this happy spot may become an Aceldama, a field of blood; or a Golgothu, a place of skulls !--In a word, he may deliver us, and the king he hath set over us, into the band of a strange nation: and because we have not served the Lord our God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, in the abundance of all things, be may make us serve our enemies, whom he shall send against us, in hunger and thirst, and in nakedness, and in the want of all things; and put a yoke of iron upon our necks, until he hath utterly destroyed us

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I have now faithfully set before you your sin, your danger, and your duty. You wonder and complain that the war hath been hitherto so unsuccessful: you here see the cause of it. You are eagerly waiting and wishing for peace: you now see the way to hasten it. Cease to do evil, and learn to do well, and your prospects will soon brighten. Do you put away your sins, and God will lay aside his rod.-You may think that it signifies nothing what such an inconsiderable number as we do;' but you are mistaken. Do you not remember what God said, in answer to Abraham's intercession for Sodom? "I will not destroy it for ten's sake." (Gen. xviii. 22.) Do you not remember what Christ said to the angel of the church in Sardis?"Thou hast a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy." (Rev. iii. 4.)-Whether you shall live to see the end of this uncommon shaking of the nations, and to see the "Desire of all nations" come, and the Jews called home, and the fulness of the Gentiles brought in, and universal peace proclaimed, and the latter-day glory begin: this is more than I can promise; but it seems highly probable that some of the younger ones among us may at least see the dawn of that blessed day.-But, be that as it may, this I may venture to assure you, that if you are sincere and serious in the work of the day, your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. "Wash ye, make ye clean, put away the evil of your doings,' and never more return to folly; and then, depend upon it, whatever becomes of your country, it shall go well with you." And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst

of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and that cry, for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said, in my hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark." (Ezek. ix. 4.)-Therefore, "O Earth! Earth! Earth! hear the word of the Lord."

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COURAGE! my fellow-travellers. Did I not tell you, that the way of the Lord was strength to the upright? and now you find it so. The further you advance, the better it is difficulties vanish, or you no longer mind them. The last Sabbath you knew not how to be thankful enough to the only wise God our Saviour, who had directed and enabled you to choose the way of truth, and who had engaged to keep you from falling; and you thought, that if the Lord would but be pleased to do that, if he would only support you, so that you might be able to walk on steadily and securely, though it were never so slowly, you should have nothing more to ask. But here, as in a thousand other instances, he prevents you with the blessings of his goodness: you only prayed for strength to walk, and here he promises that you shall run without tiring.

In our way through the wilderness we are often called to endure t ials, that require the utmost exertion-and all lit tle enough. We feel ourselves feeble and faint; and, with a peevishness bordering

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