ture to say, that none other can have a sufficient efficacy for the general safety. And here no thought more readily occurs, than the necessity of endeavouring to curb that taste for luxury and pleasurable expence, which has done so much to enervate, disgrace, and impoverish us. One would imagine, that the degree to which our finances must necessarily have been exhausted during so long and expensive a war, should enforce a prudent frugality on all who have any regard for the public good. But instead of this, were we to judge from the glaring objects which every where strike us, a considerate man would be tempted to suspect, that the whole nation, if it acted on any scheme at all, was fallen into the unhappy artifice whereby so many particular persons have been undone; I mean, that of fancying a credit may be established among their neighbours, by making a gay figure, when there is least to support it. True prudence would certainly teach us, to endeavour to retrieve our affairs, while there is a possibility of doing it, by imposing on ourselves those sumptuary laws, if I may be allowed the expression, which the indulgence of our superiors spares us; that a vain parade, and an excessive delicacy in the articles of food and dress, of furniture and equipage, may not melt down our spirits, and increase our necessities; and so make us the more accessable to corruption, the more averse to those labours and dangers, which if we know not how resolutely to face, we shall in consequence of that be forced to meet, and perhaps the sooner when we turn our backs upon an enemy to avoid them. * Permit me farther to observe, of how great importance it is, that a wise and steady care be taken in the education of youth, that they may be Trained up in the way in which they should go a care to form them betimes, to strenuous resolution and industry, to activity and self-denial, to reverence for laws and obedience to just and equitable government, and in a word, to every generous sentiment with regard to the public good and the liberty of their country; that they may take an honest pleasure and pride, if I may be permitted to say it, in sacrificing to that every personal interest which may seem to oppose it. The more elevated and distinguished the station of any one in question may be, the more important will these precautions be found, and the more solicitously should such principles be inculcated: But even in lower life this care is necessary; that if those whose prerogative it is to set the fashion should *Prov. xxii. 6. fail, as amidst their strong temptations they so generally do, all may not be carried away by the torrent. The like consideration calls us, to exert ourselves for the execution of those wholesome laws, which are enacted for the suppression of profaneness and vice, but which are so frequently violated, and audaciously insulted. Associations of worthy and public spirited men are in this view very desirable; especially for restraining that licentiousness, which if not carried into an army, is so frequently brought out of it, even where it has in the main been well disciplined; and which in civil life, to which disbanded soldiers must return, is pregnant with many grievous and fatal consequences. I might enlarge here; but these are hints of advice, easily suggested by one destitute of all religion, and which no prudent atheist would oppose or neglect. It becomes the servants of the living God, the ministers of the everlasting gospel, to lead your thoughts much farther on such an occasion: I must therefore add, VII. Let us all be engaged by the survey we have been taking, to repose ourselves on God, and to seek his protection and favour in the way he has graciously appointed. We well know him to be the great Disposer of all events, who Speaks at pleasure, with an efficacious voice, concerning a nation, as well as a family, to plant, or pluck up, to build or destroy it. Our highest wisdom must therefore consist in securing his favour, by a most grateful reception of his gospel, and a faithful and constant compliance with its great and blessed design. And indeed it is, as the apostle insinuates, absolutely necessary, that virtue should be grafted on faith † in order to its flourishing. Permit me therefore this day, solemnly to renew the exhortation I have so often given you, that you submit to the authority of the word, and of the Son of God, and that you endeavour religiously to conform yourselves to the christian institution; acting as in the presence of that holy majesty of heaven, who registers all our actions, and penetrates our hearts; feeling at all times the deepest and most affectionate sense of your infinite obligations to redeeming grace; and considering yourselves as continually on the borders of an eternal state, where happiness or misery awaits you complete and perpetual. These are motives and considerations, suited to produce that consistency, that uniformity, that elevation of goodness, which must never be expected on any other foundation. And what glorious hopes might we not form for our dear country, if sentiments like these were generally to prevail ! "Oh Britain, thou nation saved and favoured of the Lord! If God hath so powerfully rescued thee again and again, plunged as thou art into so many excesses and enormities; if his arm has been thus made bare in thy defence, whilst many who boast the most ancient hereditary honours, or whose atchievments for their country's good have ennobled their line, deem it no stain to their greatness, to shew their contempt of religion, and to teach every rank below them, to profane his sabbaths, to neglect his ordinances, or to affront them yet more by their irreverent attendance, and by every other method to dishonour and outrage that tremendous name, which is the awe of heaven, and the terror of hell;-if he not only spare, but by signal interpositions deliver and bless thee, while profaneness and riot walk through thy villages and cities uncontrolled, and almost unreproved too; and so many of thy watchmen themselves sleep over their charge, where they do not by false principles or scandalous examples cause their people to err,-what mightest thou not expect were a general reformation to prevail! What prosperity, what felicity would not attend thee, if thy princes and thy nobles appeared indeed to reverence the God of heaven, if his sabbaths were religiously observed, his name honoured, his worship devoutly celebrated, in the family as well as in the sanctuary; if pastors, to the strength of argument and the fervour of exhortation, Publickly and from house to house *, added the sanction of a blameless, a holy, an edifying example; and in consequence of this there were a general solicitude in those under their ministry, however they varied in opinions and in forms, to unite in Adorning the doctrine of God their Saviour in all things +!” Surely the consequence must be, that a nation thus truly christian, though far less distinguished by natural advantages than ours, would appear at once amiable and awful; or in Solomon's sublime language, Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners ‡. Our neighbours would revere us; our God would protect us, and shower down his blessings upon us; the blessings of peace and plenty, which being traced up to their true source, being also moderately used, and equitably and generously distributed to those that were real and proper objects of compassion, would be far sweeter than ever. When our counsellors were faithful, and * Acts xx. 20. + Tit. ii. 10, + Cant. vi. 10. knew no interest of their own to be compared with that of the public; when our leaders, like that excellent man who so lately fell in our defence, feared to sin but not to die *; and there was in the breast of every soldier a calm resignation to the will of God, a noble ambition of securing his approbation, a well grounded confidence in his favour, whether for time or eternity; what could we reasonably dread? Surely, bad as the world is, the enemies of such a people would be few; and God, their guardian, would make such enemies to know that He who touched them, touched the apple of his eye +. Whose heart does not kindle at such a representation? Who that loves his country, would not form the most ardent wishes, that this may be its character, and its felicity? May the repose God hath been pleased to give us, be subservient to this blessed end! and now that our public counsellors are eased of many burdens which the exigencies and operations of the war must occasion, may their thoughts be directed to the happiest measures, whereby immoralities may be farther curbed, and pure, genuine, catholic christianity most effectually promoted and established among us! And may they who stand in the first rank of the ministers of Christ, be animated to lead the way, with a courage, magnanimity, and zeal, which may transmit their names with glory to the remotest ages, and through the grace of the gospel entitle them to more distinguished honours in the church above, than any constitution or prince upon earth can confer! To conclude all, the mention of what in this connection may easily present itself to our mind, VIII. Let the occasion of this day's assembly lead our thoughts to that universal peace of the church, which we expect in the latter day, and to the complete peace of the heavenly world. How delightful is it to think, that whatever blemishes we for the present lament in churches, whatever desolations in states and kingdoms, there is a time approaching when all shall be remedied; a glorious long expected time, for the manifestation of which The whole creation seems to travail and be in paint; when The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the channel of the sea §, and the world shall learn by happy experience, what christianity is, and what the invaluable blessings with which it is pregnant. Let us See Col. Gardiner's Life, §. 11. ‡ Rom. viii. 22. + Zech. ii. 8. § Hab. ii. 14. cheer our hearts with the lovely and glorious prospect of that day of grand and final pacification, when, once for all, those who have been armed for the destruction of each other, Shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruninghooks, when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more *, having so cordially learnt the gospel of peace. Glorious period, when the religion of Jesus. shall universally prevail over the whole human race, and disarm their fierce passions, and regulate their exorbitant desires, and inspire the most benevolent and generous sentiments! When men shall regard their fellow-men of all nations as their brethren, and desire to see all around them as happy as themselves; forgetting, with a nobleness of heart which nothing but the gospel of Christ can inspire, every personal, yea I will add, every national interest, which appears inconsistent with the happiness of the whole human species! But Who shall live, when God doth this +? When this great miracle shall close the scene of wonders, which the christian revelation has opened? Probably a distant generation, by whom our names shall be forgotten, though the event itself be as certain as the divine oracles can render it. We will at least, with the first-fruits of a temper which shall then so universally prevail, rejoice in the expected happiness of those, who shall not so much as know that we ever existed. And if some regard to personal engagements will, as it is so natural and so just, mingle themselves with sentiments like these, let me on this good occasion call your thoughts to the much nearer and more important prospects of the eternal world; prospects, which I hope are familiar to the minds of many among us, and to which so many sad spectacles as daily present themselves here, concur to lead us. It is painful to a truly benevolent spirit, especially to one who considers the remoter consequences of things, to look round on what is generally the state of the present world, and to look back on the history of mankind in preceding times, ancient or modern. There is no branch of science, with respect to which it may be so truly said, He who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow in proportion to it. In this respect, they seem to have the greatest advantage, who know only the story of their own personal and domestic afflictions, and those of a little circle of near neighbours. Yet so is our nature constituted, that we delight and wish to know, how it fares, and has fared with others, though at the expence * Isa. ii. 4. Num. xxiv. 23. Eccl. i. 18. |