A SERMON,

PREACHED SEPTEMBER 20тн, 1793,

A DAY SET APART

IN •

THE CITY OF NEW YORK,

FOR

PUBLIC FASTING, HUMILIATION

AND

PRAYER,

ON ACCOUNT OF

THE YELLOW FEVER IN THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA.

How is it that ye do not discern this time? Luke xii 56. I have sent among you the pestilence; your young men have I slain by the sword; and have taken away your horses; yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

Amos iv. 10.

SERMON II.

DIVINE JUDGMENTS.

HAB. II. 3.

O Lord-in wrath remember mercy.

AT the time when our prophet directed to the throne of grace that sublime and affecting petition of which our text is a part, the circumstances of his country were calamitous, and her prospects alarming. The most high God, provoked at her unfaithfulness, had withdrawn the smiles of his countenance, and the protection of his arm. To make her know, by sad experience, that it is indeed an evil thing and bitter to depart from God, he commissioned his servant Habakkuk to foretell the speedy invasion of the Chaldeans, and to declare that he would yield her a helpless prey to this fierce and unpitying foe. The posterity of Abraham, like all other sinners, were the authors of all the woes which they felt or expected. Regardless of the first principle of sound policy, that

righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people," the generality of the Jews had abandoned the God of their fathers, and turned aside like a deceitful bow. Not only were they blind to the typical nature of their economy, and the spiritual sense of their peculiar observances; but they threw off the restraint of moral principle, and indulged, with unblushing impudence, their criminal passions. To such an awful height had impiety and profligacy risen, that they were chargeable with transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing from their God; speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving, and uttering from the heart, words of falsehood. Yea judgment was turned away backward, and justice stood afar off; for truth was fallen in the street, and equity could not enter; yea truth failed, and he that departed from evil, made himself a prey. In vain did God warn by his providence; in vain remonstrate by his prophets these sons of rebellion and obstinacy persisted in their crimes, till "the sin of Judah," no longer tolerable, was "written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond." Abused patience aggravated, and hastened, the doom of this guilty people. Since they hardened their hearts against mild expostulation, and gentle correction, the Lord God thundered his threatenings, and in terrible indignation said,

Shall I not visit for these things? And shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" Pious Habakkuk, who clearly saw the impending ruin, wept, in secret, over the infatuation of his countrymen; acknowledged the justice of Jehovah's controversy; and wrestled, in fervent prayer, for devoted Israel. "O Lord, I have heard thy speech," the sentence which thou hast denounced against my people, " and was afraid: O Lord," we indeed deserve all the evils to which it condemns us: yet cast us not, I pray thee, out of thy sight, but "revive thy work in the midst of the years," these years of trouble which are coming upon us; "in the midst even of these years, make known" thyself, and thy tender compassions: "in wrath," merited wrath, "remember," and testify, unmerited" mercy."

The words wrath, mercy, remember, which occur in the text, must be understood, and explained in a sense which will not militate against the purity and simplicity of the divine nature. It would be both ignorant and impious to ascribe to Jehovah those emotions which agitate the bosom of a mortal. In the uncreated mind, there is, properly speaking, neither passion, nor affection, but all is pure act. The wrath of God, then, as it respects himself, in his holy determination to punish sin; and, as it