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with a sober and manly religion operating upon national morals, sanctifying all the virtues with the seal of Divine authority, bringing the Deity into the common intercourse of life, and making men'sober, just, and merciful, not only because it is their interest here, but because it is the voice of God.

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Success and prosperity are fatal corruptérs of national piety. The higher ranks are then apt to become thoughtless and dissipated; and the lower too readily imitate the bad example. Sensual indulgence gradually diffuses itself from the top to the bottom of the society. This world, with its circle of gross enjoyments, clouds all their views and prospects, and the pure beams of Heaven find not their way through the smothering gloom. Different delusions pervade the different orders of men ; and sometimes one delusion spreads over all.

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Some sets of men begin to reason and speculate; and think themselves very wise when they have discovered, that nature may exist without an author,-that man is little better than a brute, and that death is an eternal sleep. Others grow witty upon such subjects, and laugh every thing like seriousness and decency out of countenance. A creed so acceptable to the passions of men becomes fashionable, is supported by the great, the learned, and the fair, the poison steals from the palace of the nobleman into the cottage of the peasant,-and a general insensibility to the highest interests of man benumbs the devoted nation.

What now is to be done? Will the Great Governor of Nations destroy or reform? Will he "correct with judgment," or "bring to nothing in his anger?" His long-suffering and loving-kindness, we

VOL. II.

may humbly believe, will first incline him to the gentler method; and reducing the people to some extremity which may terrify and alarm, he will make them feel that all the wealth on which they prided themselves, and which ministered to their corruption, may speedily vanish into other hands, that their power is fleeting and unsubstantial,-that their armies and navies may avail them nothing,-and

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that their "kingdom may be divided and given to the Medes and Persians." Such an awful crisis will restore men's minds, if they are not lost to all thought and reflection: the temples of God will again be frequented,―the admonitions from his holy Word will be listened to with reverence, -the plain unassuming wisdom of Religion will efface the wandering dreams of sophists and declaimers, the nation will be delivered" from the hand of strange "children, whose mouth speaketh va

"nity, and their right hand is a right "hand of falsehood;" its "sons will be as

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plants grown up in their youth, and its "daughters as corner-stones, polished "after the similitude of a palace."

From these general reflections on the improvement which a nation may derive from the correcting hand of God, let us proceed to apply them to our own case, to that visitation which we at present experience, and consider in what manner we may profit by it,-and what hopes we can entertain of deliverance.

-The situation itself is full of alarm. After many years of war, in which the nations of Europe have successively been baffled and defeated, we are again, after a short and fallacious peace, opposed to our proud enemies, headed by their greatest and most fortunate Commander. Having already spread devastation over the fairest regions of the earth, their hatred

and fury are now concentrated against us : -their numerous armies are drawn up against our shores ;-the instruments of invasion are prepared ;-and in their vain thoughts they have already divided the spoil!

Is this situation of peril without design? No, my brethren; it is the correction of God; from which we may profit; from which, I trust, we have profited. There was need of the correction. Even in this favoured land, the seat of rational and manly freedom, there were many wandering spirits, who, forgetful of the glory of their ancestors, and the inheritance to which they were born, looked with eager and admiring eyes to the extravagant and delusive schemes of our neighbours. We had, in many respects, lost sight of the blessings which Heaven had poured upon us; and were eager to snatch, through right and wrong, the vain

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