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evil, that he said he would do unto them, and he did it not.” But why should I multiply examples? "God is not a man that he should lie," and he hath given us express assurances of the efficacy of humiliation and amendment, to turn away his wrath. With the text before us, we can need no other quotations; "At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy them; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil, that I thought to do unto them."

I have detained you too long, my hearers, upon these impor tant topics, to be able, without wearying you, to dwell upon the many instructive inferences which they would sustain. You will indulge me, however, with observing that they place before you, in a striking view, the propriety of that act of your Chief Magistrate, which has assembled us in this holy place; and that they offer you the most powerful inducements to keep such a fast as the Lord hath chosen. Our age seems to be an awful era, in which the Almighty hath spoken, "to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy" many nations of the earth. Our country has not had little cause to be alarmed, lest of the cup of his wrathful displeasure, she also should be called to drink. The skirts of those clouds which darken Europe, have been seen rising on the edge of our horizon. Thunders, and earthquakes, and great noises, storms and tempests, and the flame of devouring fire, those ministers of alarm, which come from the Most High in mercy, as well as in judgment, have been, in an unusual manner, visiting our land. And "the voice of his word" has proclaimed in our temples, his standing admonitions, that though "he is gracious and long-suffering, he will by no means clear the guilty." Of the strange events, both in the natural and moral world, which mark this age, we should make the use to which rational beings, and especially Christians, should convert them; to lead us to religious reflection and godly fear; to check us in our inconsiderate practices, and turn us from the error of our ways "unto the wisdom of the just." It is not,

however, by the formality of a day's humiliation that we shall recommend ourselves to God, but by minds purified by faith, and lives distinguished for virtue. Let us then bring every one his erroneous principles, his vicious dispositions, his criminal practices, and his dissolute manners, and sacrifice them on the altar of his country's preservation. Let us, in the several spheres of our influence, discountenance the profanation of the Sabbath, the neglect of the institutions of Christianity, and all that corruption of sentiment and manners, which is as little promotive of man's present happiness, as it is sure to produce his everlasting destruction. Let us unbend the heavy burdens, and deal our bread to the hungry, and cover the naked with a garment, and not hide our face from our own flesh. Above all, as we love our own safety, and the happiness of posterity, and the honour of our God and Redeemer, let us endeavour to check the extension of those skeptical tenets and habits, which are like the overflowings of ungodliness, which made David afraid. While we see the Almighty shaking the earth in his majesty, making bare his arm in the sight of all the nations, and stretching out the rod of his power over this guilty world, let us hearken to the words, which, as he bends to execute his judg ments over the creatures of his hand, do yet proceed from his gracious lips; "O, that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever!"

VOL. II.-18

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"Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful unto him, and bless his name."

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E are assembled to-day, at the call of our civil rulers, to offer an annual tribute of praise and thanksgiving to the ever blessed God. "Very meet and right" it is, "and our bounden duty," thus, as a people, to adore and magnify the great and benevolent author of our national, domestic, and individual privileges. Blessings which we socially enjoy require a social acknowledgment. Mercies which are publicly bestowed demand a public expression of praise. This you have learned from the Scriptures. Your reason and the authority of your Church approve it. And you are met together, I trust, with that undissembled gratitude which may perfume the incense that is at this moment rising from so many altars in this part. of our common country.

In no way can I more properly lead your meditations, or more fully set before you our obligations to honour and praise the Almighty, than by enlarging upon the blessings set forth in the proclamation as requiring our grateful and devout acknowledg

ments.

In the first place, we are called upon to render thanks to "the

* Preached at Newport, Rhode Island, previous to 1809.

author and giver of every good gift," that our country has enjoyed peace and freedom, and their happy fruits, while the nations of the earth have been convulsed by wars and violence, and deluded and oppressed by the cupidity and ambition of wicked men. Peace and freedom are among the choicest blessings which heaven can bestow upon a nation. Alas! What people have justly appreciated them till they were gone? Without them, small is the enjoyment of any other blessing. Property is not safe, improvement languishes, the smiles of comfort and the carrols of joy cease; the endearing charities of life yield not their customary delight; humanity loses its bland control over the hearts of men when the peace and freedom of a country are destroyed. Even the kind voice of religion is lost in the din of contention, and her benevolent hand palsied in the manacle of servitude. War and slavery! They are among the sores and curses which an angry God inflicts upon the earth when he would chastise its degenerate inhabitants. In its preservation from these evils, our country has hitherto been peculiarly favoured by the Almighty. We live in an eventful period of the world. Our age is an age of tribulation to a great part of the earth. We have seen a war of uncommon terror, spring from monstrous parents, and uncontrolled by any principle of honour or right, sent forth to ravish the most civilized portions of the globe. Early it fed upon the ruins of everything great and sacred. It demolished the weak and dismayed the powerful. It prowled for plunder even into the hallowed abodes of religion. It spared not the peaceful recesses of the arts. It had at length returned to the den from which it came, spiteful as a wounded tiger, and covered with the blood of innocence and virtue. The humane were wishing that there it might expire, either of its surfeit or of its dreadful exertions. But it is again let loose. Europe trembles at its approach. The nations of the earth observe its movements with wonder. Grown stronger by rest, and more ravenous by confinement, who can foresee the extent and end of its devastations. They are known only to that omniscent God, who "maketh peace, and createth

war," and by whom alone the remainder of wrath can be restrained.

Melancholy, in the course of this tumultuous period, has been the fate of many happy and interesting people. The great and splendid nation with whom these confusions originated relinquished her hold on all her ancient establishments in an infatuated pursuit, through the blood of the best and worst of her sons, after what the unprincipled and aspiring had persuaded her was Liberty. But she mistook a cloud for the goddess; and, for her rashness, has been doomed, as yet, to turn unceasingly in a mazy wheel. Nor is her loss of freedom to be chiefly deplored. Unfortunate Belgium, ill-fated Poland, unhappy Swiss, deluded Genoese, we mourn more for you. The genius of your countries is fled, we know not whither! Your fortunes will be remembered by nations, in far distant ages, as solemn cautions to trust no friend who has discarded all principle, and rely upon no earthly power which promises to give what it must first destroy.

While we are thus led by the proclamation to advert to the dealings of providence towards the nations of the earth, the contemplation of their calamities should increase our gratitude for the peace and civil privileges which we are permitted to enjoy. If we have in our country any hard-earned wealth which might be plundered if there be any virtue which might be oppressed —or infancy and age which might unresistingly bleed—if there be any chastity which might be ruined, or domestic joys which might be torn from us--if we have any altars which might be demolished, or temples which might be defiled-then have we reason to bless and adore the sovereign Ruler of the universe that our nation has not been involved in the horrors and miseries of the war which has desolated, and still threatens to desolate, the most populous parts of the globe. The skirts of its clouds have once and again been curling towards our shores, but his gracious breath hath turned them away. How long this shall be the case we are unable to say. But this we know, that his good providence can restrain the provocations and injuries of

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