SERM. able to us, to be always entertained VI. with a fair and clear atmosphere, with cloudless skies, and perpetual sunshine : while yet, in fuch climates as we have moft knowlege of, the earth, were it always to remain in fuch a state, would refuse to yield its fruits; and in the midst of our imagined fcenes of beauty, the starved inhabitants would perifh for want of food.Let us therefore quietly fubmit to Nature and to Providence. Let us convince this life, of whofe evils we fo often complain, to be the winter of our existence, Then the rains muft fall, and the winds muft roar around us. But, fheltering ourselves, as we can, under a good confcience, and under faith and trust in God, let us wait till the fpring arrive. For a fpring, an eternal spring, awaits the people of God. In the new heavens and the new earth no ftorms fhall any more arise, nor any unpleafing vicisfitudes of feafon return. It fhall then at laft appear how former fufferings have produced their effect; how the proper effect; V. tempefts of life have tended to bring $ ER M. on an everlasting calm; in fine, how all things have wrought together for good `to them that love God, and who are the called ac cording to his purpose. SERMON VI. On the Love of our Country. [Preached 18th April 1793, on the day of a National Faft appointed by Government, on occafion of the War with the French Republic.] SERM. VI. PSALM CXXII. 6, 7, 8, 9. Pray for the peace of Jerufalem; they Shall profper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and profperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and com panions' fake, I will now fay, Peace be within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will feek thy peace. I T is one of the infirmities belonging to human nature, that continued enjoyment of the higheft bleffings is apt to depreciate them VI. them in our esteem. This unhap- SER M. py weakness shows itself, not only with refpect to the light of the fun, and the beauties of nature, which we have been long accustomed to behold, but also with refpect to health, peace, religion, and liberty. Let any one of those bleffings have been long familiar to us; let a tract of time have effaced the remembrance of the diftrefs which we fuffered from the want of it; and it is furprifing how lightly men are ready to prize the the degree of happiness which they continue to poffefs. In midst of that peaceful and fecure ftate which the inhabitants of this land have long enjoyed; furrounded with the chief bleffings that render life comfortable, how few have any juft fenfe of the gratitude they owe to Heaven for fuch fingular felicity? Nay, is it not much to be lamented that there should have fprung up among us an unaccountable fpirit of discontent and disaffection, feeding itself with ideal grievances and visionary projects of reformation, till it has gone nigh to light up the torch of fedition? VI. SER M. fedition?When government hast now, for wife and proper reafons, called us together in a religious affembly, our thoughts cannot be more fuitably employed than in reviewing the grounds on which, as good Chriftians and faithful citizens, we have reafon to entertain the warmeft affection for our native country, and to put a juft value on that constitution of government, civil and facred, under which it is placed.In the words of the text, you fee with what zeal the heart of the pious Pfalmift glowed for the profperity of his country. By the accumulation of expreffions which he employs, and the variety of topics he fuggefts, you fee the fervour with which this fubject animated his heart. It will be proper to confider, firft, the grounds on which love for our country refts; and next, the duties to which this affection naturally gives rife. BUT, before entering on any of those topics, it may be proper the fpeculations of fome pretended philo fophers, |