vitude and oppreffion;-miracles of fo ftupendous a nature, that I take delight to offer them, as often as I have an opportunity, to your devouteft contemplation. - This, you would think as high and as complicated an aggravation of their fins as could be urged.This was not all;—for befides God's goodness in first favouring their miraculous escape, a series of fucceffes, not to be accounted for from fecond causes, and the natural course of events, had crowned their heads in fo remarkable a manner, as to afford an evident proof, not only of his general concern for their welfare, but of his particular providence and attachment to them above all people upon earth.— In the wilderness he led them like sheep, and kept them as the apple of his eye:—he suffered no man to do them wrong, but reproved even kings for their fake.-When they entered into the promised land,—no force was able to ftand before them;-when in poffeffion of it,-no army was able to drive them out; -and in a word, nature, for a time, was driven backwards to serve them; and even the

Sun itself had flood ftill in the midst of heaven to fecure their victories.

A people with fo many teftimonies of God's favour, who had not profited thereby, so as to become a virtuous people, must have been utterly corrupt;-and fo they were. And it is likely, from the many fpecimens they had given, in Mofes's time, of a difpofition to forget God's benefits, and upon every trial to rebel against him,-he forefaw they would certainly prove a thanklefs and unthinking people, extremely inclined to go aftray and do evil;-and therefore, if any thing was likely to bring them back to themselves, and to confider the evils of their mifdoings,-it must be the dread of fome temporal calamity, which, he prophetically threatened, would one day or other befal them:-hoping, no doubt,— that if no principle of gratitude could make them an obedient people,—at least they might be wrought upon by the terror of being reduced back again by the fame all-powerful hand to their firft diftreffed condition;-which, in the end, did actually overtake them.-For at length, when neither the alternatives of pro

mifes or threatenings,-when neither rewards. or corrections,-comforts or afflictions, could foften them;-when continual inftructions,warnings,-invitations,-reproofs,-miracles, -prophets and holy guides, had no effect, but instead of making them grow better, apparently made them grow worse,—God's patience at length withdrew,-and he fuffered them to reap the wages of their folly, by letting them fall into the state of bondage from whence he had first raised them;—and that not only in that partial instance of thofe in Samaria, who were taken by Hofea, but, I mean, in that more general instance of their overthrow by the army of the Chaldeans;—wherein he fuffered the whole nation to be led away, and carried captive into Nineveh and Babylon. -We may be affured, that the history of God Almighty's juft dealings with this froward and thoughtless people—was not wrote for nothing;—but that it was given as a loud call and warning of obedience and gratitude, for all races of men to whom the light of revelation fhould hereafter reach :-and therefore I have made choice of this fubject, as it seems

likely to furnish fome reflections seasonable for the beginning of this week,-which should be devoted to fuch meditations as may prepare and fit us for the folemn faft which we are fhortly to obferve, and whofe pious intention. will not be answered by a bare affembling ourfelves together, without making fome religi ous and national remarks suitable to the occafion.-Doubtlefs, there is no nation which ever had fo many extraordinary reasons and supernatural motives to become thankful and virtuous, as the Jews had;-which, befides the daily bleffings of God's providence to them, has not received fufficient bleffings and mercies at the hands of God, fo as to engage their beft fervices, and the warmest returns of gratitude they can pay.

There has been a time, may be, when they have been delivered from fome grievous calamity, from the rage of peftilence or famine, -from the edge and fury of the sword, from the fate and fall of kingdoms round them ;they may have been preserved by providential discoveries of plots and defigns against the wellbeing of their ftates, or by critical turns and

revolutions in their favour when beginning to fink. By fome fignal interpofition of God's providence, they may have rescued their liberties, and all that was dear to them, from the jaws of fome tyrant;-or may have preferved their religion pure and uncorrupted, when all other comforts failed them.-If other countries have reafon to be thankful to God for any one of these mercies,―much more has this of ours,—which, at one time or other, has received them all;-infomuch that our history, for this last hundred years, has scarce been any thing but the hiftory of our deliverances and God's bleffings;—and these in fo complicated a chain, such as were scarce ever vouchfafed to any people befides, except the Jews;-and with regard to them, though inferior in the ftupendous manner of working, yet no way fo-in the extenfive goodness of their effects, and the infinite benevolence and power which must have wrought them for us.

Here then let us stop to look back a moment, and enquire what great effects all this has had upon our fins, and how far worthy we have lived of what we have received.

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