The Sentiments Proper to the Present Crisis

I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done’? every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle.

1 HOUGH we are well assured the Divine Being is attentive to the conduct of men at all times, yet it is but reasonable to believe he is peculiarly so whilst they are under his correcting hand. Ashe does not willingly afflict the children of men, he is wont to do it slowly, and at intervals, waiting, if we may so speak, to see whether the preceding chastisement will produce those sentiments which shall appease his anger, or confirm his resolution to punish. When sincere humiliation and sorrow for past offences take place, his displeasure subsides, he relents and repents himself of the evil. Tims he speaks by the mouth of Jeremiah: wit what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck ujy, and to pulldown, and to destroy it, 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.

We are this day assembled at the call of our Sovereign, to humble ourselves in the presence of Almighty God, under a sense of our sins, and to implore his interposition, that we may not be delivered into the hands of our enemies, nor fall a prey to the malice of those who hate us. It is surely, then, of the utmost consequence to see to it, that our humiliation be deep, our repentance sincere, and the dispositions we cherish, as well as the resolutions we form, suitable to the nature of the crisis, and the solemnity of the occasion j such, in a word, as Omniscience will approve.

In the words of the text, the Lord reproaches the people of Israel with not speaking aright, and complains that, while he was waiting to hear the language of penitential sorrow and humiliation, he witnessed nothing but an insensibility to his reproofs, an obstinate perseverance in guilt, with a fatal eage’ness to rush to their former course. He hearJcened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented himself of his iniquity nor said, WJiat have I done P hut every one rushed to his course, as the horse rasheih into the battle.

As the principles of the divine administration arc invariable, and the situation of Great Britain at this moment, not altogether unlike that of Israel at the time this portion of prophecy was penned, perhaps “We cannot better improve the present solemnity, than by taking occasion from the words before us to point out some of those sentiments and views which appear in the present crisis not to be ris;ht, and after exploding these, to endeavour to substitute more correct ones in their stead.

1. They who content themselves with an attempt to trace national judgments to their natural causes, without looking any higher, entertain a view of the subject very inadequate to the demands of the present season. When you have traced to the efl’ccts of an unparalleled convulsion on the continent, to the relative situation of foreign powers, to the turbulent passions and insatiable ambition of an individual, the evils which threaten us, whatJmve you done to mitigate those evils? What alleviation have yon aiforded to perplexity and distress? They still exist in all their force. Far be it from me U> attempt to discourage political enquiry. An enquiry into the sources of great events, an attempt to develope the more hidden causes which influence, under God, the destiny of nations, is an exercise of the mental powers more noble than almost any other, inasmuch as it embraces the widest field, and grasps a chain whose links are the most numerous, complicated, and subtile. The most profound political speculations, however, the most refined theories of government, though they establish the fame of their authors, will be found, perhaps, to have had very little influence on the happiness of nations. As the art of criticism never made an orator or a poet, though it enables us to judge of their merits, so the comprehensive speculation of modern times, which has reviewed and compared the manners and institutions of every age and country, has never formed a wise government or a happy people. It arrives too late for that purpose, since it owes its existence to an extensive survey of mankind, under a vast variety of forms, through all those periods of national improvement and decay, hi which the happiest efforts of wisdom and policy have been already made. The welfare of a nation depends much less on the refined wisdom of the few, than on the manners and character of the many; and as moral and religious principles have the chief influence in forming that character, so an acknowledgment of the hand of God, a deep sense of his dominion, is amongst the first of those principles. While we attend to the operation of second causes, let us never forget that there is a Being who is placed above them, who can move and arrange them at pleasure, and in whose hands they never fail to accomplish the purposes of his unerring counsel. The honour of the Supreme Ruler requires that his supremacy should be acknowledged.

his agency confessed; nor is there any thing which he more intends by his chastisements than to extort this confession, or any thing he more highly resents, than an attempt to exclude him from the concerns of his own world. Woe unto them (saith Isaiah) that rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink, that continue till night, until wine inflame them: and the harp, and the viol, and the tabret, and the pipe are in their feasts; hut they regard not the work of the Lord neither consider the operation of his hands — Isaiah v. 11. The same prophet complains, that while the hand of Jehovah was lifted up they would not see; but he adds, they shall see. If lighter chastisements will not suffice, he has heavier in reserve; if they despise his reproofs, he will render his anger with fury, his rebukes with flames of fire: he is resolved to overcome; and what must be the issue of a contest with Omnipotence, it is as easy to foresee as it is painful to contemplate.

S. They speak not aright, who, instead of placing their reliance on God for safety, repose only on an arm of flesh. The perfect unanimity which prc-Tails, the ardour to defend every thing dear to us, which is expressed by all classes, the sacrifices cheerfully made, the labours sustained, and the mighty preparations by sea and land, which the vigilance of government has set on foot to repel the enemy from our coasts, or insure his discomfituie should he arrive, must be highly satisfactory to eveiy well disposed mind. They afford, as far as human means can afford, a well founded prospect of success. Though there is, on this account, no room to despond, but much on the contrary to lead us to anticipate a favourable issue to the contest; yet, nothing, surely can justify that language of extravagant boast, that proud confidence in our national force, without any acknowledged dependence upon God, which, however fashionable it may be, is as remote from the dictates of true courage as of true piety. True courage is firm and unassuming: true piety serious and humble. In the midst of all our preparations, we shall, if we are “wise, repose our chief confidence in him who has every element at his disposal; who can easily disconcert the wisest councils, confound the mightiest projects, and save when he pleases, by many or by few. While the vanity of such a pretended reliance on Providence as supersedes the use of means, is readily confessed, it is to be feared we are not sufficiently careful to guard against a contrary extreme, in its ultimate effects not less dangerous. If to depend on the interposition of Providence without human exertion, be to tempt God, and to confide in an arm of flesh, without seeking his aid, is to deny him; the former is to be pitied for its weakness, the latter to be censured for its impiety: nor is it easy to say which affords the worst omen of success. Let us avoid both these extremes; availing ourselves of all the resources which wisdom can suggest, or energy produce; let us still feel and acknowledge our absolute dependence apon God. With humble and contrite hearts, with filial confidence and affection, let us flee to his arms that thus we may enjoy the united supports of reason and religion, and every principle, human and divine, may concur to assure us of our safety. Thus shall we effectually shun the denunciations so frequent and so terrible, contained in his holy word, against the vanity of human confidences. Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm.

3. Their conduct is not to be approved, who, in the present crisis, indulge in wanton and indiscriminate censure of the measures of our rulers. I say wanton and indiscriminate because the privelege of censuring, with moderation and decency, the measures of government, is essential to a free constitution; a privilege which can never lose its value in the eyes of the public, till it is licentiously abused. The temperate exercise of this privelege, is a most useful restraint on those errors and excesses, to which the possession of power supplies a tempp tation. The free expression of the public voice is capable of overawing those who have nothing beside to apprehend; and the tribunal of public opinion is one, whose decisions it is not easy for men, in the most elevated stations, to despise. To thi«i we niJij’ add, that the unrestrained diseussion of national affairs, not only gives weight to the senti= ments but is eminently adapted to enlighten the minds of a people, and, consequently, to increase that general hind of talent and information, from which the accomplishments even of statesmen themselves must be ultimately derived. While, therefore, we maintain this privilege with jealous care, let us be equally careful not to abuse it. There is a deference and respect, in my apprehension, due to civil governors on account of their office, which we are not permitted to violate, even when we are under the necessity of blaming their measures. When the apostle Paul was betrayed into an intemperate expression of anger against the Jewish High Priest, from an ignorance of the station he occupied, he was no sooner informed of this, than he apologized, and quoted a precept of the Mosaic Jjaw, which says, TJioii shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people; in agreement with which, the New Testament subjoins to the duty of fearing God, that of honouring the king; and frequently and emphatically inculcates submission to civil rulers, not so much from a fear of their power, as from a respect for their office.

The ancient prophets, it is true, in the immedi ate discharge of their functions, appear to have treated kings and princes with no sort of ceremony. But before we establish their style into a precedent.

let us recollect they were privileged persons, speak, ing expressly in the name of the Most High, who gave them his words, and invested them for the moment with a portion of his majesty.

Apart from the personal characters of rulers, which are fluctuating and variable, you will find the apostles continually enjoin respect to government as government f as a permanent ordinance of God, susceptible of various modifications from human wisdom, but essential, under some form or other, to the existence of society; and affording a representation, faint and inadequate, it is true, but still a representation of the dominion of God over the earth. The wisdom of resting the duty of submission on this ground is obvious. The possession of ofiRce forms a plain and palpable distinction, liable to no ambiguity or dispute. Personal merits, on the contrary, are easily contested, so that if the obligation of obedience were founded on these, it would have no kind of force, nor retain any sort of hold on the conscitMice; the bonds of social order might be dissolved by an epigram or a song. The more liberal sentiments of respect for institutions being destroyed, nothing would remain to insure tranquillity but a servile fear of men. In the total absence of those sentiments, the mildest exertion of authority would be felt as an injury: authority would soon cease to be mild; and princes would have no alternative but that of governing their subjecti with the severe jealousy of a master ovejr slaves impatient of revolt: so narrow is the boundarj which separates a licentious freedom from a ferocious tyranny. How incomparably more noble, salutary, an»l just, are the maxims the apostles lay down on this subject. Let eveyy soul be subject unto the Jiigher powers: for there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God: whosoever resisteth therefore the power, resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not he afraid of the power? Bo that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is the vfiinister of God to thee for good. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. We shall do well to guard against any system which would withdraw the duties we owe to our rulers and to society from the jurisdiction of conscience; that principle of the mind, whose prerogative it is to prescribe to every other, and to pronounce that definitive sentence from which there is no appeal. A good man is accustomed to acquiesce in the idea of his duties as an ultimate object, without inquiring at every step why he should perform them, or amusing himself with imagining cases and situations in which they would be liable to limitations and exceptions. Instead of being curious after these (for I do not fleny that such exceptions exist) let the great general duty of submission to civil aMthority be engraven on our hearts, wrought into the very habit of the mind; and made a part of our elementary morality.

At this season especially, when unanimity is so requisite, every endeavour to excite discontent, by reviling the character or depreciating the talents of those who are entrusted with the administration, is highly criminal. Without suspicion of flattery, we may be permitted to add, that the ardor of their zeal in the service of their country cannot be questioned; that the vast preparations they have made for our defence claim our gratitude; and that if, in a situation so arduous, and in the management of affairs so complicated and difficult, they have committed mistakes, they are amply entitled to a candid construction of their measures.

Having been detained by these reflections somewhat longer than was intended, it is high time to return to those religious considerations which are more immediately appropriate to the present season. I therefore proceed to add,

4. That they appear to entertain mistaken sentiments, who rely with too much confidence for success on our supposed superiority in virtue to our enemies. Such a confidence betrays inattention to the actual conduct of Providence. Wherever there is

14a

conscious guilt, there is room to apprehend punishment; nor is it for the criminal to decide where the merited punishment shall first fall. The cup of divine displeasure is presented successively to guilty nations, but it by no means invariably begins with those who have run the greatest career in guilt. On the contr^Lvy, judgment often begins at the house of God; and he frequently chastises his servants with severity, before he proceeds to the destruction of his enemies. He assured Abraham, his seed should be afflicted in Egypt for four hundred years, and that after their expiration, the nation that afflicted them he would judge. The Assyrian Monarchs, blind and impious idolaters, were permitted for a long period to enslave and oppress the chosen people; after which, to use his own words, he punished the fruit of the proud heart of the king of Babylon, and having accomplished his design in their correction, cast the rod into the fire. His conduct, on such occasions, resembles that of a parent, who full of solicitude for the welfare of his children, animadverts upon faults in them, which he suifers to pass without notice in persons for whom he is less interested. Let us adore both the goodness and severity of God. The punishments, which are designed to amend, are inflicted with comparative vigilance and speed; those, which are meant to destroy, are usually long suspended, while the devoted victimi pass on with seeming impunity.

But, independent of this consideration, that superiority in virtue which is claimed, may be neither so great nor so certain as we are ready at first to suppose. To decide on the comparative guilt of two individuals, much more of two nations, demands a more comprehensive knowledge of circumstances than we are usually able to obtain. To decide a question of this sort, it is not enough barely to inspect the manners of each; for the quality of actions, considered in themselves is one thing, and the comparative guilt of the persons to whom they belong is another. Before we can determine such a question, it is necessary to weigh and estimate the complicated influences to which they are exposed, the tendency of all their institutions, their respective degrees of information, and the comparative advantages and disadvantages under which they are placed. And who is equal to such a survey, but the Supreme Judge, to whom it belongs to decide on the character both of nations and individuals?

Our enemies it is true, in the moments of anarchy and madness, treated the religion of Jesus with an ostentation of insult, but it was not till that religion had been disguised, and almost concealed frotn their view under a veil of falsehoods and impostures. The religion they rejected, debased by foreign infusions, mingled with absurd tenets, trifling superstitions, and cruel maxims, retained scarce any traces of the truth as it is in Jesus. The best of men

14^j

were compelled to flee their country to avoid Us per secutiiig fury, while the souls under the altar were employed day and night in accusing it before God. Religious inquiry was suppressed, the perusal of the word of God discountenanced, or rather prohib«- ited, and that book, to loose whose seals the Lamb condescended to be slain, impiously closed by those who styled themselves its ministers. In this situation it is less surprising if the body of the people,* misled by pretended philosophers, lost sight of the feeble glimmerings of light which shone in the midst of so much obscurity. How far these considerations may extenuate, before the Searcher of hearts, the guilt of our enemies, it remains with him to determine. It is certain, our guilt is accompanied with no such extenuation. With us the darkness has long been past, and the true light has arisen upon us. We have long possessed the clearest display of divine truth, together with the fullest liberty of conscience. The mysteries of the gospel have been unveiled, and its sanctifying truths pressed on the conscience by those who havhig received such a ministry, knew it to be their duty to use great plainness of speech.

The language of invective, it is acknowledged, should be as carefully avoided in dispensing the

‘The author beg-s this remark may be understood to appl)’ to the French people only, and not by any means to their infidel leaders. Of the iiifidcliiy nf the latiev, there needs no other solution to be given than word of God as tba,t of adulation; but may we not, without apprehension, ask whether it is not a melanc’.ioly trulli, that many of us have continued in the midst of all this light unchanged and impenitent; that if our enemies, with frantic impiety, renounced the forms of religion, we remain destitute of the power; and (hat if they abandoned the christian name, the name is nearly the whole of Christianity to which we can pretend? Still we are ready, perhaps, to ex. claim with the people of Israel in the context, JVe are wisp, and the laic of the Lord is with us. Let us hear the prophet’s reply: Surely in vain hath he made it; the pen of the scribes is in vain. That law is most emphatically in vain, which is the subject of boast without being obeyed. That dispensation of religion, however perfect is in vain, which cherishes the pride, without forming the manners of a people. Were we, indeed, a religious people, were the traces of Christianity as visible in our lives as they are in our creeds and confessions, we might derive solid support from the comparison of ourselves with others; but if the contrary be the fact, and there are with us. even with us, sins against the Lord our God, it will be our wisdom to relinquish this plea, and instead of boasting our superior virtue, to lie low in humiliation and repentance.

the Sci’ipUire one: The-i hted darkness rather than Ught, beeaiiso they doedn -irrrp PZ’if

5. General lamentations and acknowle(l£:iMentp of the corruptions of the age, be they ever so well-founded, fall very short of the real duties of this season. It is not difficult, how ever painful to a good mind, to descant on the luxury, the venality, the impiety of the age, the irreligion of the rich, the immorality of the poor, and the general forgetfulness of God which pervades all classes. Such topics it would be utterly improper to exclude. But to dwell on these alone, answers very little purpose. The sentiments they excite are too vague and indistinct to make a lasting impression. To invest ourselves with an imaginary character, t« represent the nation to which we belong, and combining into one group the vices of the times, to utter loud lamentations, or violent invectives is aa easy task.

But this, whatever it be, is not repentance. After bewailing in this manner the sins of others, it is possible to continue quite unconcerned about our own. He who has been thus employed, may have been merely acting a part; uttering confessions in which he never meant to take a personal share. He would be mortally offended, perhaps, to have i suspected that he himself had been guilty of any one of the sins he has been deploiytig, or that he had contributed, in the smallest degree, to draw down the judgments he so solemnly deprecates. All hag been transacted under a feiined character. Instead ef repenting himself of his iniquity, or saying. What have I done? He secretly prides himself on his exemption from the general stain; and all the advantage he derives from his humiliations and confessions, is to become more deeply enamoured of the perfections of what he supposes his real character. To such I would say, you are under a dan. gerous delusion, and the manner in which you perform the duties of this season completes that delusion Your repentance, your feigned, your theatrical repentance, tends to fix you in impenitence, and your humiliation to make you proud. Whatever opinion you may entertain of the character of others, your chief concern is at home. When you have broken ff your own sins by righteousness, you may, with a more perfect propriety, deplore the sins of the nation; you may intercede for it in your prayers, and, within the limits of your sphere, edify it by your example; but till you have taken this first, this necessary step, you have done nothing; and should the whole nation follow your example, and eopy the spirit of your devotion, we should after all, remain an impenitent, and finally, a ruined people.

Allow me here, though it may seem a digression, ,io endeavour the correction of a mistake, which appears to me to have greatly perplexed, as well as abridged, the duties of similar seasons to the present. The mistake to wliicli T allude, respects the true idea of national sins. Many seem to take it for granted, that nothing can justly he deemed a national sin, but what has the sanction of the legislature, or is committed under public authority. “When they hear, therefore, of national sins, they instantly revolve in their minds something which they apprehend to be criminal in the conduct of public affairs. That iniquity, when established by law, is more conspicuous, that it tends to a more general corruption, and by poisoning the streams of justice at their source, produces more extensive mischief, than under any other circumstances, it is impossible to deny. Jn a country, moreover, where the pe<>ple have a voice in the government, the corruption of their laws must first have inhered, and become inveterate in their manners. Such corruption is therefore not so much an instance as a monument of national degeneracy; but it by no means fallows that this is the only just idea of national sins. National sins are the sins of the nation. The system which teaches us to consider a peojile as speaUiug and rcfing merely through the meditim of its prince or legislature, however useful or necessary to adjust the intercourse of nations with each other, is too technical, too artificial, too much of a compromise with the imperfection essential to human affairs, to enter into the view s. or regulate the conduct of the Supreme Being. He sees things as they are; and as the greater part of the crimes committed in every

U9

country are perpetrated by its inhabitants in their individual character, it is these, though not to the exclusion of others, which chiefly provoke the divine judgments.

To consider national sins as merely comprehending the vices of rulers, or the iniquities tolerated by lavr, is to place the duties of such a season as this in a very invidious and a very inadequate light. It is to rpud<’r them invidious: for upon this principle our chief business on such occasions is, to single out for attack those whom we are commanded to obey, to descant on public abuses, and to hold up to detestation and abhorrence the supposed delinqu<ncies of the government under w hich we are placed. How far such a conduct tends to promote that broken and contrite heart w liich is heaven’s best sacrifice, it requires no great sagacity to discover.

It is moreover, to exhibit a most inadequate view of the duties of this season. It coniincs iiumiliatiou and confession to a mere scantlins: of the sins which pollute a nation. Under the worst governments (to say nothing of our own) the chief perversions of right are not found in courts of justice, nor the chief outrages on virtue in the law s, nor the greatest number of atrocities in the public administration. Civil government, the great antidote which the wisdom of man has applied to the crimes and disorders that spring up in society, can scarcely ever become, in no free country at least, is it possible for it to become, itself the chief crime and disorder. It may, on occasion, prescribe particular things that are wrong, and sometimes reward where it ought to punish; but unless it bent its force, for the most part, to the encouragement of virtue and the suppression of vice; unless the general spirit of its laws were in unison with the dictates of conscience, it would soon fall to pieces from intestine weakness and disorder.

A last appeal, in all moral questions, lies to the Scriptures, were you will invariably find the prophets, in their boldest paintings of national vice, in their severest denunciations of divine anger, are so far from confining their representation to the conduct of rulers, that they are seldom mentioned in comparison of the people. Their attention is chiefly occupied in depicting the corruptions which prevailed in the several classes of the community, among which the crimes of princes and judges are most severely reprehended not as representatives, but as parts of the whole. They know nothing of that refinement, by which a people are at liberty to transfer their vices to their rulers. To confirm this remark, by adducing all the instances the prophecies afford, would be to quote a great part of the Old Testament: it is sufficient to refer you to the twenty second chapter of Ezekiel, where, after pourtrayiug the manners of the age with the pecui9i

liar reheraence of style which distinguished that holy prophet, he closes his description with these remarkable words: And I sought for a man amo7ig them that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gup before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.

Let us not deceive ourselves with vain words. Th* just displeasure of God, as it will by no means spare the great when they are criminal and impenitent, so neither is it excited by thei,r wickedness alone. It is afire supplied from innumerable sources, to which every crime contributes its quota, and which every portion of guilt, wherever it is found, causes to burn with ausimented violence.

‘S’

1 Having thus endeavoured to expose those grounds of confidence which appear replete with danger, it will not be necessary to dwell long on the remaining part of the subject. To be aware of the several wrong paths into which we are liable to be misled, is the principal requisite to the finding out that which is alone the true and right one.

The first duty to which our situation summons us, is a devout acknowledgment of the hand of God. To this, whatever be the instruments employed, religion instructs us ultimately to refer national calamities as well as national blessings. That the Lord reigns, is one of those truths which lie at the very ids

basis of piety; nor is there any more consoling. It fills the heart, under a right impression of it, with a cheerful hope, and unruffled tranquillity amidst the changes and trials of life, which we shall look for in vain from any other quarter. It is this chiefly which formed and distinguished the character of those who are emphatically said to have walked with God. Important as this disposition is under all circumstances, it is what more especially suits the present crisis, and which the events we have witnessed are so eminently calculated to impress. The Psalmist accounts for the wicked’s refusing to seek after God, from their having no changes; and certainly an uninterrupted series of prosperity, is not favourable to piety. But if ire forget God, we cannot plead even this slight extenuation; for the times that Me passing over us, in the solemn phrase of Scripture, are eventful beyond all former example or conception. The fearful catastrophies, the strange vicissitudes, the sudden revolutions of fortune, which, thinly scattered heretofore over a long tract of ages, poets and historians have collected, and exhihited to the terror and the commiseration of mankind, have crowded upon us with so strange rapidity, and thickened so fast, that they have become perfectly familiar, and are almost numbered among ordinary events. Astonishment has exhausted itself; and whatever occurs, we cease to be surprised. In short, every thing around us, in tlic course of a few years, is so changed, that did not the permanenee and stability of the material, form a contrast to the fluctuations of the moral and political world, we might he tempted to suppose we had been removed to another state, or that all those things that have happened, were but the illusions of fancy and the visions of the night. How consoling, at such a season, to look up to that Being, who is a very present help in trouble, the dwelling place of all generations; who changes all things, and is himself unchanged! And independent of its impiety, how cruel is that philosophy which, under pretence of superior illumination, by depriving us of this resource, would leave us exposed to the tossings * of a tempestuous ocean, without compass, without solace, and without hope!

But besides this acknowledgment of the general administration of the Deity, it behoves us to feel and confess, in national calamities, the tokens of his displeasure. The evils which overtake nations are the just judgments of the Almighty. I am perfectly aware of the disadvantages under which we labour, when we insist on this topic, from its being 80 trite and familiar. Instead of troubling you with a general, and I fear, unavailing descant on the manners of the age, I shall therefore content myself with calling your attention to a very few of what appear to me the most alarming syiftptoms of national degeneracy. Here we shall, not insist so much on the progress of infidelity (though much to be deplored) as on an evil to which, if we are not greatly mistaken, that progress is chiefly to be ascribed: I mean a gradual departure from the peculiar truths, maxims, and spirit of Christianity. Christianity, issuing perfect and entire from the hands of its Author, will admit of no mutilations nor improvement: it stands most secure on its own basis; and without being indebted to foreign aids, supports itself best by its own internal vigour. When under the pretence of simplifying it, we attempt to force it into a closer alliance with the most approved systems of philosophy, we are sure to contract its bounds, and to diminish its force and authority over the consciences of men. It is dogmatic; not capable of being advanced with the progress of science, but fixed and immutable. We may not be able to perceive the use or necessity of some of its discoveries, but they are not on this account the less binding on our faith: just as there are many parts of nature,* whose purposes we are

* “We ought not,” says the great Bacon, ‘* to attempt to draw down or jubmit the mysteries of God to our reason, but on the contrary, to raise and advance our reason to the divine truth. In this part of knowlcdg’c, touching divine philosophy, 1 am so far from noting any deficiency, that I rather note an excess; whereto I have digressed, becraise of the extreme prejudice, which both religion and philosophy have received from being commixed together, as that which undoubtedly will make an heretical religion and a fabulous philosophy.”

This observation appears to me to deserve the most profomid meditation; and kat my remarks on this sulijcct should appear presumptuous fi’om so inconsiderable a person, I thoug-ht it requisite to fortify myself by so great an authority.

at a loss to explore, of winch, if any person were bold enough to arraign the propriety, it would be sufficient to reply that God made them. They are both equally the works of Grod: and both equally partake of the mysteriousness of their Author. This integrity of the christian faith has been insensibly impaired; and the simplicity of mind with which it should be embraced, gradually diminished. While tlte outworks of the sanctuary have been defended with the utmost ability, its interior has been too much neglected, and the fire upon the altar suffered to languish and decay. The truths and mysteries which distinguish the christian from all other religions, have been little attended to by some, totally denied by others; and while infinite efforts have been made by the utmost subtlety of argumentation, to establish the truth and authenticity of revelation, few have been exerted in comparison, to shew what it really contains.’ The consequence has been such as might be expected — an increase of profaneness, immorality, and irreligion.

The traces of piety have been wearing out more and more, from our conversation, from our manners, from our popular publications, from the current literature of the age. In proportion as the maxims and spirit of Christianity have declined, infidelity has prevailed in their room: for infidelily is, in reality, nothing more than a noxious spawn (pardon the metaphor) bred in the stagnant marshes of Christianity.

A lax theology is the natural parent of a lax morality. The peculiar motives, accordingly, by which the inspired writers enforce their moral lessons, the love of God and the Redeemer, concern for the honour of religion, and gratitude for the inestimable benefits of the christian redemption, have no place in the fashionable systems of moral instruction.* The motives almost exclusively urged are such as take their rise from the present state, founded on reputation, on honour, on health, or on the tendency of the things recommended to promote, under some form or other, the acquisition of worldly advantages. Thus even morality itself, by dissociating it from “Veligion, is made to cherish the love of the world, and to bar the heart more effectually against the approaches of piety.

Here I cannot forbear remarking a great change which has taken place in the whole manner of reasoning on the topics of morality and religion, from what prevailed in the last century, and as far as my information extends, in any preceding age. This which is an age of revolutions, has also produced a strange re-

* If the reader wishes for a further statement and iUustratlon of these melancholy facts, he may find it in Mr. Wilberforce’s celebrated Look on religion, a work which has, perhaps done more than any other to rouse the insensibility and augment the piety of the aye.

volution in the method of viewing these subjects, tht most important by far, that can engage the attention of man. The simplicity of our ancestors, nourished by the sincere milk of the word, rather than by the tenets of a disputatious philosophy, were content to let morality remain on the firm basis of the dictates of conscience and the will of God. They considered virtue as an ultimate thing, and as bounding the mental prospect. They never supposed for a moment there was any thing, to which it stood merely in the relation of a meansy or that within the narrow confines of this momentary state, any thing great enough could be found to be its end or object. It never occurred to their imagination, that that religion wliieh professes to render us superior to the world, is in reality nothing more than an instrument to procure the temporal, the physical good of individuals or of society. In their view, it had a nobler scope and destination: it looked forward to eternity; and if ever they appear to have assigned it any end or object beyond itself, it was a union with its author, in the immortal fruition of God. They arranged these things in the following order: Religion comprehending the love, fear, and service of the Author of our being, they placed first: social morality, founded on its dictates, confirmed by its sanctions, next; and the more physicial good of society they contemplated as subordinate to both. Every thing is now reversed. The pyramid is inverted: the first is last, and the last first. Religion is degraded from its pre-eminence, into the mere handmaid of social morality; social morality into an instrument of advancing the welfare of society; and the world is all in all. Nor have we deviated less from the example of antiquity than from that of our pious forefathers. The philosophers of antiquity in the absence of superior light, consulted with reverence the permanent principles of nature, the dictates of conscience, and the best feelings of the heart, which they employed all the powers of reason and eloquence to unfold, to adorn, to enforce; and thereby formed aluminous commentary ok lie law written on the heart. The virtue which they inculcated, grew out of the stock of human nature: it was a warm and living virtue. It was the moral man, possessing in every limb and feature, in all its figure and movements, the harmony, dignity, and variety, which belong to the human form: it was an effort of unassisted nature to restore that image of God, which sin had mutilated and defaced. Imperfect, as might be expected, their morality was often erroneous, but in its great outlines it had all the stability of the human constitution, and its fundamental principles were coeval and coexistent with human nature. There could be nothing fluctuating and arbitrary in its more weighty decisions, since it appealed every moment to the man within the breast: it pretends to nothing more, than to give voice and articulation to the inward sentiments of the heart, and conscience echoed to its oraeleg.

This, wrought into different systems, and under various modes of illufetration, was the general form which morality exhibited, from the creation of the world till our time. In this state revelation found it; and, correcting what was erroneous, supplying what was defective, and confirming what was right by its peculiar sanctions, superadded a number of supernatural truths and holy mysteries. How is it, that on a subject on which men have thought deeply, from the moment they began to think, and where, consequently, whatever is entirely and fundamentally new, must be fundamentally false; how is it, that in contempt of the experience of past ages, and of all precedents human and divine, we have ventured into a path which no eye had explored, no foot had trod, and have undertaken, after the lapse of six thousand years, to manufacture a morality of our own, to decide by a cold calculation of interest, by a ledger-book of profit and of loss, the preference of truth to falsehood, of piety to blasphemy, and of humanity and justice to treachery nd blood?

In the science of morals, We are taught by this system to consider nothing as yet done; we are invited to erect a fresh fabric on a fr^sh foundation. All the eliments and sentiments which entered into the essence of virtue before, are melted down, and cast into a new mould. Instead of appejiling to any internal principle, every thing is left to calculation, and determined by expediency. In cxecnting this plan, the jurisdiction of conscience is abolished; her decisions are classed with those of a superannuated judge, and the determination of moral causes is adjourned from the interior tribunal to the noisy forum of speculative debate. Every thing, without exception, is made an affair of calculation; under which are comprehended, not merely the duties we owe to our fellow-creatures, but even the love and adoration w hich the Supreme being claims at our hands. His claims are set aside, or suffered to lie in abeyance, until it can be determined how far they can be admitted on the principles of expedience, and in what respect they may interfere with the acquisition of temporal advantages. Even here, nothing is yielded to the suggestions of conscience, nothing, to the movements of the heart. All is dealt out with a sparing hand, under the stint and measure of calculation. Instead of being allowed to love God with all our heart, and all our strength, the first and great commandment, the portion of love assigned him is weighed out with the utmost scrupulosity, and the supposed excess more severely censured than the real deficiency.

Thus, by a strange inversion, the indirect influence of Christianity, in promoting the temporal good of mankind, is mistaken for its pr’incipal end; the skirts of her robe are confounded with her body, and the foicer of the world to come, instead of raisins our thoughts and contemplations from earth to heaven, from the creature to the Creator, are made solely subservient to the advancement of secular intt*rests and passions. How these sentiments accord with the dictates of inspiration, the most unlettered christian may easily decide. Love not the tcorld, said the disciple who leaned on the breast of his Lord, neither the things that are in the world; for if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. And the world passeth aicay, and the lusts thereof; hut he that doeth the will of God abidethfor ever. Such was the idea entertained by an inspired apostle of christian virtue. Let us now turn to the modern philosopher. Virtue, he will inform us, (including the whole sum of our duties) is merely an expedient for promoting the interests and advantages of the present world, of that very world, that is, which, in the eyes of John, was passing away, and whose value he so solemnly depreciates. What admirable consistency! what elevated theology! If we can suppose this holy apostle acquainted with what passes on earth, what satisfaction it must afford his gloriiied spirit, to find bis sentiments so well understood, and so faithfully interpreted.

In former times it was supposed, one of the most effectual means of improvement in virtue was, the moral culture of the heart: to keep it with all diligence, because out of it are the issues of life, was thought an advice deserving the most serious attention. To examine frequently the state of the conscience, and to check the first risings of disorder there, was judged to be of the last importance.

It is easy to see how this moral discipline must fare under the doctrine of expediency, a doctrine which teaches man to be looking continually abroad; a doctrine which not only justifies, but enjoins, a distrust of the suggestions of the inward monitor; which will not permit the best feelings of the heart, its clearest dictates, its finest emotions, to have the smallest influence over the conduct; and instead of yielding any thing to their direction, cites them at its bar.

As this fashion of reducing every moral question to a calculation of expedience is a most important innovation, it would be strange if it had not produced a change in the manners of society. In fact, it has produced an entirely new cast of character, equally remote from the licentious gaiety of high life, and the low profligacy which falls under the lash of the law; a race of men distinguished by a calm and terrible ferocity, resembling Csesar in this only, that as it was said of him, they have come with sobriety to the ruin of their country. The greatest crimes no longer issue from the strongest passions, but from the coolest head. Vice and irapiety have made a new conquest, and have added the regions of speculation to their dominion. The patrons of impurity and licentiousness have put on the cloak of the philosopher: maxims the most licentious have found their way into hooks of pretended morality, and have been inculcated with the airs of a moral sage.* The new doctrine having withdrawn the attention from all internal sentiments, as well as destroyed their authority’, distinction between right and wrong was easily lost sight of; the boundaries of vice and virtue confounded, and the whole substance of morals fell a prey to contending disputants. Nor is this the only or the worst consequejice which has followed, A callous indifference to all moral distinctions is an almost inseparable effect of the familiar application of this theory. Virtue is no longer contemplated as the object of any particular sentiment or feelings but solely with regard to its effects on society: it is what it produced. not what it is, that is alone considered, just as an accountant is indifferent to the shape and appearance of the figures, and attends simply to their amount. Crimes and virtues arc equally candidates for approbation, nor must the heart betray the least preference, which would be to prejudge the cause; but must maintain a sacred neutrality, till expedience, whose hand never trembles in the midst of the greatest horrors, has weighed in her impartial balance their consequences and effects. In the

“The unholy speculations of Godwin were founded rnUroly on thif, b-fsit.

mean time, they are equally candidates, we repeat it again, for our approbation, and equally entitled to it, providing the passions can be deceived into an opinion, and this is not difficult, that they will come to the same thing at the foot of the account. Hence that intrepidity in guilt, which has cased the hearts of the greatest adepts in this system, as with triple brass. Its seeds were sown by some of these with an unsparing hand, in France, a congenial soilj where they produced a quick vegetation. The consequences were soon felt. The fabric of society tottered to its base; the earth shook under their feet, the heavens were involved in darkness, and a Yoice more audible than thunder called upon them to desist. But, unmoved amidst the uproar of elements, undismayed by that voice which astonishes nature and appals the guilty, these men continued absorbed in their calculation. Instead of revering the judgments, or confessing the finger of God, they only made more haste (still on the principle of expediency.) to desolate his works, and destroy his image, as if they were apprehensive the shades of a premature night might fall and cover their victims.

But it is time to conclude this discussion, which has, perhaps, already fatigued by its length. I cannot help expressing my apprehension, that this desecration of virtue, this incessant domination of physical over moral ideas, of ideas of expedience over those of right; having already dethroned religion, and displaced virtue from her ancient basis, will, if it is suffered to proceed, ere long shake the foundation of states, and endanger the existence of the civilized world. Should it ever become popular; should it ever descend from speculation into common life, and become the practical morality of the age, we may apply to such a period the awful words of Balaam; Who shall live when God doth this? No imagination can pourtray, no mind can grasp its horrors; nor when the angel in the Apocalypse, to whom the keys are entrusted, shall be commissioned to open the bottomless pit, will it send forth a thicker cloud of pestilential vapour. If the apparent simplicity of this system be alleged in its favour, I would say, it is the simplicity of meanness; it is a simplicity which is its shame; a day-light which reveals its beggary. If au air of obscurity, on the contrary, is ’ objected against that of better times, let it be remem bered that every science has its ultimate questionSf boundaries which cannot be passed, and that if these occur earlier in morals than in other inquiries, it is the natural result of the immensity of the sui)ject, which, touching human nature in every point, surrounding it on all sides, renders it difficult, or rather impossible, to trace it in all its relations, and view it in all its extent. Meanwhile, the shades which envelope, and will, perhaps, always envelope it in some measure, are not without their use, since they teach the two most important lessons we can learn — the vanity of our reason, txi’A the grandeur of our destiny. It is not improbable some may be offended at the M’armth and freedom which accompany these remarks: my apology, however, rests on the infinite importance of the subject, my extreme solicitude to impress what appear to me right sentiments respecting it, together with the consideration, that the confidence which ill becomes the innovators of yesterday, however able, may be pardoned in the defenders, however weak, of a system which has stood the test and sustained the virtue of two thousand years.* Let us return, then, to the

* The system which founds morality on utility, an utility, let it be ahvays remembered, confined to the purposes ‘of the present world, issued with ill omen from the school of infidelity. It was first broached, I believe, certainly first brought into general notice, by Mr. Hume, in his Treatise on Morals, which he himself pronounced incomparably the best he ever wrote. It was incomparably the best for his purpose; nor is it easy to imagine a mind so acute as his did not see the effect it would have in setting morality and religion afloat: and substituting for the stability of principle the looseness of specuhttion and opinion. It h.is since been rendered popular by a succession, of eminent writers; by one especially (I doubt not with intentions very foreign from those of Mr. Hume) whose great services te religion in other respects, tog’cthcr with my high reverence for his talents, prevent me from naming. This venerable author, it is probable, little suspected to what lengths the principle would be carried, or to what purposes it woul4 be applied in other hands. Had he foreseen this, I cannot but imagine he v. ould have spared this part of his acute speculations.

We have happily, preserved to us two complete Treatises on Morals, in which the authors professed to give us a complete view of our duties; the one composed by the greatest master of reason, the other of eloquence, the world ever saw. The fii-st of these has distinguished, classified and arranged the elements of social nwrality, which is all he could reach in the absence of revelation, with that acuteness, subtilt)’, and presafe and sober paths of our aaccfstors; adhering, in all moral questions, to the dictates of conscience, regulated and informed by the divine word; happy to enjoy, instead of sparks of our own kindling, the benefit of those luminaries which, placed in the morcision, for which he was so eminently distlnguislied. AVhocver attentively peruses his Treatise, on the Nicomachian Monils I mean, will find a perpetual reference to the inward sentiments of the breast. He builds every thing on ihc human constitution. He all along takes it for granted, that tlicre is a proud impress on tlle mind, to which, without looking abroad, we may safcl)” appeal. In a word, Aristotle never lost the moralist in tlle accountant. He ha.s been styled the Interpreter of Nature, and has certainly shown himself a most able commentator on the laxc ivrltten on the heart. For Cicero, in all lpis philosophical works, as well as in his offices, where he treats more directly on these subjects, he shows the most extreme solicitude, as though he had a prophetic glance of what was to happen, to keep the irtoral and natural world apart, to assert the supremacy of virtue, and to recognize those sentiments and vestige;* from which he educes, with the utmost elevation, the contempt of human things. How humiliating the consideration! that with such superior advantages, our moral systems should be infinitely surpassed in warmth and grandeur bj’ those of Pagan times, and that the most jejune and comfortless that ever entered the mind of man, and the most abhorrent from the spirit of religion, should have ever become popular in a christian country. This departure from the precedents of antiquity, will not, by those that are capable of forming a judgment, be easily imputed to the superiority of our talents; it is rather the result of that ten<lency to degvadation which has long marked our progress. Along with the simplicity of faith and h reverence for the Scriptures, our resjicct for the dignity (rightly understood) of human nature, and tenderness for its best interests, have been gradually impaired. A fearlessness of consequences, a hardihood of mind, a disposition to sacrifice every thing to originality, or to a pi-etcnded philosophical precision, have succcedetl in their place. This, in my humble opinion, lias been the great bane of modern speculation, and has rendered so much of it wild, ferocious, and destructive.

al firraamont by a parent hand, have guided the church from the beginning, in her mysterious sojourn to eternity. Stand in the way, and see, and ask for the old path, which is the good icay and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.

Instead of demolishing the temple of christian virtue, from a presumptuous curiosity to inspect its foundations, let us rejoice they are laid too deep for our scrutiny. Let us worship in it; and along w’lih the nations of them that are saved, walk in its light.

Having endeavoured to point out the source of our degeneracy, in a departure from the doctrines and spirit of Christianity, I hasten to dispatch the remainder of this discourse; nor will it detain you long.

Whoever has paid attention to the manners of the day, must have perceived a remarkable innovation in the use of moral terms, in which we have receded more and more from the spirit of Christianity. Of this, the term employed to denote a lofty sentiment of personal superiority supplies an obvious instance. In the current language of the times, pride is scarcely ever used but in a favourable sense. It will, perhaps, be thought the mere change of a term is of little consequence; but be it remembered, that any remarkable innovation in the use of moral terms, betrays a proportionable change in the ideas and feelings they are intended to denote. As pride has been transferred from the list of vices to that of virtues, so humility, as a natural consequence, has been excluded, and is rarely suffered to enter into the praise of a character we wish to commend, although it was the leading feature in that of the Saviour of the world, and is still the leading characteristic of his religion. There is no vice, on the contrary, against which the divine denunciations are so frequent as pride. Our conduct, in this instance, is certainly rather extraordinary, both in what we have embraced, and in what we have rejected: and it will surely be confessed, we are somewhat unfortunate, in having selected that vice as the particular object of approbation, which God had already selected as the especial mark at which he aims the thunderbolts of his vengeance.

Another symptom of degeneracy appears in the growing disregard to the external duties of religion; the duties more especially of the Lord’s day and of public worship. It is supposed by such as have the best means of information, that throughout the kingdom, the number who regularly assemble for worship is far inferior to those who neglect it; that in our great. towns and cities they are not one-fourth of the people, and in the metropolis a much smaller proportion. It is easy to fore-see how the leisure afforded by the christian Sabbath will be employed by those who utterly forget the design of its institu-S3 tion. It is somewhat remarkable, that here the extremes meet, and that the public duties of religion are most slighted by the highest and the lowest classes of society; by the former, 1 fear, from indolence and pride; by the latter, from ignorance and profligacy.

Too many of the first description, when they do attend, it is in such a manner as makes it evident they esteem it merely an act of condeseensiotj, to which they submit as an example to their inferiors, who, penetrating the design, and imitating their indilft’rence rather than their dovotion, are disgusted with a religion which they perceive has no hold on their superiors, and is only imposed upon themselves as a badge of inferiority and a muzzle of restraint. Could the rich and noble be prevailed upun for a momont to attend to the instructions of their Lord, instead of making their elevated rank a reason for neglecting these duties, they would learn that there are none to whom they are so necessary, since there are none whose situation is to perilous, whose responsibility is so great, and whose salvation is so arduous.

Here fidelity compels me to advert to a circumstance, which I mention with sincere reluctance, because it implies something like a censure on the conduct of those whom it is our duty to respect. You are, probably, aware I mean the assigning part of the Sunday to military exercises. “When we consider how important an institution the christian Sabhath is, how essential to the maintenance of pnhlic worship, which is itself essential to relifijion, and what a barrier it opposes to the impiety and immorality of the age, is it not to be lamented that it should ever have been, in the ,smallest degree, infringed by legislative authority? The rest of the Sabbath had been already too much violated, its duties too much neglected; but this is the first instance of the violation of it being publicly recommended and enjoined ;* at a time too, when we are engaged with an enemy, whose very name conveys a warning against impiety. Our places of worship have been thinned by the absense of those who have been employed in military evolutions, and of a still greater number of gazers, whom such spectacles attract. Nor is the time lost from religious duties so much to be considered, as that tumult and hurry of mind, utterly incompatible with devotion, which are inseparable from military ideas and preparations. It could surely never be the intention of the legislature, though such has been the effect, to detach the defenders of their country from the worshippers of God: nor is it to be supposed they adverted to the iniluenee which a precedent of such high authority must have, in divesting the Sabbath of its sanctity in the eyes of the people, and of es-

* The book of Sports in Cliurles the Second’s iiifn, is not an excep’ lion, as this, lhoii;^h sufficiently censurable, was not considered as a violation of the n-st of the Sabbih, tablisliiug the fatal epoch, whence it was no longer to be revered as the ordinance of heaven. They had, we will believe, no such intention; but the innocence of the intention abates nothing of the mischief of the precedent.

As it is foreign from my purpose to make a complete enumeration of national sins, which would not only be a most painful task in itself, but quite incompatible with the limits of this discourse, I shall content myself with the mention of one more proof of the degeneracy of our manners. This proof is found in that almost universal profaneness which taints our daily intercourse, and which has risen to such a height as to have become a melancholy characteristic of our country. In no nation under heaven, probably, has the profanation of sacred terms been so prevalent as in this christian land. The name even of the Supreme Being himself, and the words he has employed to denounce the punishment of the impenitent, are rarely mentioned but in anger or in sport; so that were a stranger to our history to witness the style of our conversation, hs would naturally infer we considered religion as a detected imposture, and that nothing more remained than, in return for the fears it had inspired, to treat it with the insult and derision due to a fallen tyrant. To view this practice in the most favourable light, it indicates, as has been observed by a great writer,*

* Dr. Faley.

‘^ a mind over which religious considerations have little influence.” It also sufficiently accounts for that propensity to ridicule piety, which is one of our national peculiarities. It would be unfair to suppose, that at the best times there was ever more piety on the continent than here: be this as it may, it never appears to have exposed its possessors to contempt; nor was the sublime devotion of Fenelon and of Pascal ever considered as forming a shade to their genius — the reverence for religion had not been worn away by the f:i!niliar abuse of its peculiar terms.

It will be expected something should be said on the slave-trade. Its enormity no words can express. But here we must feel a mixture of satistion and regret; of satisfaction, at finding it has excited such general indignation among the people; of regret, that notwithstanding this, it should still be continued. By the most earnest and unanimous remonstrances, addressed to those who alone could abolish it, the people have purged themselves from this contamination. Their application was unsuccessful. The guilt and turpitude of this traffic now rests on the heads of those who sanction, and of those who conduct it. From some recent events in the western colonies, it seems not uuliitely the Deity is about to take this affair into his own hands, and to accomplish by his interposition what has been denied to the prayer of the nation.

It is far from being a pleasing employ; it is painful, it is distressing to dwell on such topics; but it is necessary. Our disease has gone too far to ad. mit of palliatives; our wounds are too tep to be healed, till they are searched and probed to the bottom. The only safe expedient which remains to be adopted, is an immediate return to God; to forsake every one his evil way, and the violence that is in his hands, and cry mightily to him: and who can tell, if God will turn and repent, and turn away his fierce anger from us. At the same time let it be remembered, that repentance is a personal concern. Instead of losing ourselves in a crowd, and resting in general confessions, we ougy)-t each one to examine his own ways and turn from his own iniquity. We shall not fail, if we have a spark of piety, to lament the prevalence of sin around us, but we can repent only of our own: and how ever in the present mixed and imperfect state, we may share in the judgments and calamities which other men’s sins draw down, it is those we commit ourselves which alone can do us ultimate injury. Our continuance here is but for a short time, after whiei), as many as are purified and made white, will remove into another world, be placed under a higher economy, and be put in possession ofakingdom that cannot he moved. We need be under no apprehension, lest the cherishing the sentiments we have recommended should lead to despondency.

We have an High Priest, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God. In the midst of the deepest humiliation, we are invited to look up to him, with a humble reliance on the efficacy of his blood, which cleanses from all sin, and to entrust our prayers and our duties, disordered and imperfect at best, into his hands, that he may mingle them with the incense of his intercession, and present them with acceptance before God.

As a people, the most certain means of ensuring lasting prosperity, and of enabling us to transmit, unimpaired to those who shall succeed us, the rich inheritance devolved from our ancestors, will be a speedy return to the spirit and practice of the Gospel. We shall ill consult the true interests of revelation by disguising its peculiarities, in hope of conciliating the approbation of infidels, and of adapting it more to their taste — a mistaken and dangerous policy, by which we run imminent risque of catching their contagion, without imparting the benefit of its truths. Let us not for a moment blench from its mysteries: they are mysteries of godliness; and however much they may surpass human reason, bear the distinct impress of a divine hand. We rejoice that they are mysterious, so far from being ashamed of them on that account; since the principal reason why they are, and must ever continue such; is derived from their elevation, from their unsearchable riches, and undefinable grandeur. Ill fine, let us draw our religion and morality entirely from the word of God, without seeking any deeper foundation for our duties than the will of the Supreme Being, an implicit and perfect acquiescence in which is the highest virtue a creature can attain.

Amidst many unfavourable symptoms of the state of morals amongst us, there are others of a contrary nature. We may hope, infidelity has nearly run its length. In truth, its sophistry, in the eyes of men of sense, has been much discredited by the absurdity of its tenets; and if any have been in danger of being seduced by the talents of its advocates, they have commonly found a sufficient antidote in their lives. — We have learned to prize revelation more than ever, since we have seen the ludicrous mistakes, as well as serious disasters, of those mystics of impiety, who choose rather to walk by an internal light, than enjoy the benefit of its illumination. They have edified us much, without intending it: they have had the effect which critics assign as the purpose of the tragic muse,* that of purifying the heart by pity and terror. Their zeal has excited an equal degree of ardour in a better cause, and their efforts to extirpate religion have been opposed by contrary efforts, to diffuse its influence, at

Tfw allmion tx, the tragic musk, should have been marked as a quotation, though the author knows not with certainty to irhom to ascribe it. He Relieves it fell from t-he elegant pen of an illustrious female, Mrs. Moore.

home and abroad, to a degree unexampled in modern times. A growing unanimity has prevailed among the good in different parties, who finding a centre of union in the great truths of revelation, and in a solicitude for its interests, are willing to merge their smaller differences in a common cause. The number of the sincerely pious, we trust, is increasing among us, whose zeal, so far from suffering abatement from the confidence of infidelity, has glowed with a purer and more steady flame than ever. These are pleasing indications that the presence of the Holy One uf Israel is still in the midst of us.

How it may please the Ruler of the universe to dispose the destinies of the two most powerful nations of the earth, which are at this moment laid in the balance, it is impossible for us with certainty ’ to say. — But when we consider how many of his sincere worshippers, how large a portion of his church, together with how rich a fund of wisdom, of talents, and of all those elements of social order which he must approve, are inclosed within the limits of this highly-favoured land, we cannot believe lie intends to give it up a prey to its enemies. Our insular situation is favourable, our resources prodigious, and the preparations which have long been making, apparently every way equal to the danger of the crisis; but still we would place our ultimate reliance on Him who abases the proud,

S3 and exalts the lowly. It would be presumption to imagine it in my power to add any thing to those considerations, which have already produced such a general movement in defence of our liberties. The cause speaks for itself: it excites feelings which words are ill able to express; involving every object and motive which can engage the solicitude, affect the interests, or influence the heart of man. After a series of provocations and injuries, reciprocally sustained and retaliated, the dispute betwixt us and our enemies is brought to a short issue: it is no longer which of the two nations shall have the ascendant, but which shall continue a nation: it is a struggle for existence, not for empire. It must surely be regarded as a happy circumstance, that the contest did not take this shape at an earlier period, while many were deceived by certain specious pretences of liberty into a favourable opinion of our enemies’ designs. The popular delusion is past; the most unexampled prodigies of guilt have dispelled it: and, after a series of rapine and cruelty, have torn from every heart the last fibres of mistaken partiality. The crimes of those with whom we have to contend, are legible in every part of Europe. There is scarcely a man to be found who is not most perfectly acquainted with the meaning of that freedom they profess to bestow; that it is a freedom from the dominion of laws to pass under the yoke of slavery, and from the fear of God to plunge into crimes and impiety; an impious barter of all that is

^ood for all that is ill, through the utmost range and limits of moral destiny. Nor is it less easy to develope the character of our principal enemy. A man bred in the school of ferocity, amidst the din of arms and the tumult of camps; his element, war and confusion; who has changed his religion with his uniform, and has not spared the assassination of his own troops: it is easy to foresee what treatment such a man will give to his enemies, should they fall into his power; to those enemies especially who, saved from the shipwreck of nations, are preserving, as in an ark, the precious remains of civilization and order, and whom, after destroying the liberties of every other country, he envies the melancholy distinction of being the only people he has not enslaved. Engaged with such an enemy, no weak hopes of moderation or clemency can tempt us for a moment to relax in our resistance to his power, and the only alternative which, remains is, to conquer or to die.

Hence that unexampled unanimity which distinguishes the present season. In other wars we have been a divided people: the effect of our external operations has been, in some measure, weakened by intestine dissension. When peace has returned, the breach has widened; while parties have lpeen formed on the merits of particular men, or of particular measures. These have all disappeared; we have buried our mutual animosities in a regard to the common safety. The sentiment of self-preservation, the first law which nature has impressed, has ahsorbed every other feeling; and the fire of liberty has melted down the discordant sentiments and minds of the British Empire into one mass, and propelled them in the same direction. Partial interests and feelings are suspended, the spirits of the body are collected at the heart, and we are awaiting with anxiety, but without dismay, the discharge of that mighty tempest which hangs upon the skirts of the horizon, and to which the eyes of Europe, and of the world, are turned in silent and awful expectation. While we feel solicitude, let us not betray dejection; nor let us be alarmed at the past successes of our enemy, which are more dangerous to himself than to us, since they have raised him from obscurity to an elevation which has made him giddy, and tempted him to suppose every thing within his power. The intoxication of his success is the omen of his fall. What, though he has carried the flames of war throughout Europe, and gathered as a nest the riches of the nations, u’hile none peeped, nor muttered, nor moved the wing; he has yet to try his fortune in another field: he has yet to contend on a soil filled with the monuments of freedom, enriched with the blood of its defenders; with a people who, animated with one soul, and inflamed with one zeal, for their laws and for their prince, are armed in defence of all they hold dear or venerable, their wives, their parents, their children, the sanctuary of God, and the sepulchre of their fathers. We will not suppose there is one who will be deterred from exerting himself in such a cause, by a pusillanimous regard to his safety, when he reflects that he has already lived too long who has survived the ruin of his country; and that he who can enjoy life after such an event, deserves not to have lived at all. It will suflRee us, if our mortal existence, which is at most but a sp;in, be co-extended with that of the nation whiijh iiive us birth. We will gladly quit the scene, with all that is noble and august, innocent and holy; and instead of wishing to survive the oppression of weakness, the violation of beauty, and the extinction of every thing on which the heart can repose, vt’elcome the shades which will hide from our view such horrors.

From the most ^xed principles of human nature, as well as from the examples of all history, we may be certain, the conquest of this country, should it be permitted to take place, will not terminate in any ordinary catastrophe, in any much less calamitous than utter extermination. Our present elevation will be the exact measure of our future depression, as it w ill measure the fears and jealousies of those who subdue us. While the smallest vestige remains of our former greatness, while any trace or memorial exists of our having been once a flourishing and independent empire, while the nation breathes, they will be afraid of its recovering its strength, and never think themselves secure of their conquest till our navy is consumed, our wealth dissipated, our commerce extinguished, every liberal institution abolished, our nobles extirpated; whatever in rank, character, and talents, gives distinction in society, called out and destroyed, and the refuse which remains, swept together into a putrifying heap by the besom of destruction. The enemy will not nee4j.to proclaim tis triumph; it will be felt in the more expressive silence of extended desolation.

Hecollect for a moment his invasion of Egypt, a country which had never given him the slightest provocation; a country so remote from the theatre of his crimes, that it probably did not know there was such a man in existence; (happy ignorance, could it have lasted!) but while he was looking around him, like a vulture, perc|jed on an eminence, for objects on which he might gratify his insatiable thirst for rapine, he no sooner beheld the defenceless condition of that unhappy country, than he darted upon it in a moment. In vain did it struggle, flap its wings, and rend the air with its shrieks: the cruel enemy, deaf to its cries, had infixed his talons, and was busy in sucking its blood, when the interference of a superior power forced him to relinquish his prey, and betake himself to flight. Will that vulture, think you, ever forget his disappointment on that occasion, or the numerous wounds, blows.

and concussions, he received in a tenycars struggle? It is impossible. It were folly to expect it. He meditates, no doubt, the deepest revenge. He who saw nothins; in the simple manners and bland liberties of the Swiss to engage his forbearance: nothing in proclaiming hiQiself a Mahometan to revolt his conscience; nothing in the condition of defenceless prisoners to excite his pity, nor in that of the companions of his warfare, sick and wounded in a foreign land, to prevent him from dispatching them by poison, will treat in a manner worthy of the impiety and inhumanity of Isis character, a nation which he naturally dislikes as being free, dreads as the rivals of his power, and abhors as the authors of his disgrace.

Though these are undoubted truths, and ought to be seriously considered, yet I would rather choose to appeal to sentiments more elevated than such topics can inspire. To form an adequate idea of the duties of this crisis, it will be necessary to raise your minds to a level with our station, to extend your views to a distant futurity, and to consequences the most certain, though most remote. By a series of criminal enterprises, by the success of guilty ambition, the liberties of Europe have been gradually extinguished: the subjugation of Holland, Switzerland, and the free towns of Germany, has completed that catrastrophe; and we are the only people in the eastern hemisphere, who are in possesslon of equal laws and a free constitution. Freedom, driven from every spot on the continent, hag sought an asylum in a country which she always chose for her favourite abode: but she is pursued even here, and threatened with destruction. The inundation of lawless power, after covering the whole earth, threatens to follow us here; and we are most exactly, most critically placed in the only aperture where it can be successfully repelled; in the Thermopylae of the universe. As far as the interests of freedom are concerned, the most important by far of sublunary interests, you my countrymen, standinthe capacity of the foederal representatives of the human race; for in you it is to determine (under God) in what condition the latest posterity shall be born; their fortunes are entrusted to your hand, and on your conduct, at this moment, depends the colour and complexion of their destiny. If liberty, after being extinguished on the continent, is suffered to expire here, whence is it ever to emerge in the midst of that thick night that will invest it? It remains with you, then, to decide, whether that freedom, at whose voice the kingdoms of Europe awoke from the sleep of ages, to run a career of virtuous emulation in every tiling great and good: the freedom which dispelled the mists of superstition, and invited the nations to behold their God; whose magic touch kindled the rays of genius, the enthusiasm of poetry, and the flame of eloquence: the freedom which poured into our lap opulence and arts, and embellished life with innumerable institutions and improvements, till it became a theatre of wonders; it is for you to decide whether this freedom shall yet survive, or be covered with a funeral pall and wrapt in eternal gloom. It is not necessary to await your determination. In the solicitude you feel to approve yourselves worthy of such a trust, every thought of what is afflicting in warfare, every apprehension of danger must vanish, and you are impatient to mingle in the battle of the civilized world. Go, then, ye defenders of your country, accompanied with every auspicious oraen; advance with alacrity into the field, where God himself musters the hosts to war. Religion is too much interested in your success not to lend you her aid. She will shed over this enterprise her selectest influence. While you are engaged in the field, many will repair to the closet, many to the sanctuary; the faithful of every name will employ that prayer which has power with God; the feeble hands which are unequal to any other weapon, will grasp the sword of the spirit; and from myriads of humble and contrite hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping, will mingle in its ascent to heaven with the shouts of battle and the shock of arms.

While you have every thing to fear from the success of the enemy, you have every means of preventing that success; so that it is next to impossi-S4 ble for victory not to crown your exertions. The extent of your resources, under God, are equal to the justice of your cause. But should Providence determine otherwise, should you fall in the struggle, should the nation fall, you will have the satisfaction (the purest allotted to man) of having performed your part; virtue will atone for the outrages of fortune, by conducting you to immortality: your names will be enrolled with the most illustrious dead; while posterity to the end of time, as often as they revolve the events of this period, and they will incessantly revolve them, will turn to you a reverential eye, while they mourn over the freedom which is entombed in your sepulchre. I cannot but imagine the virtuous heroes, legislators, and patriots of every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats to witness this contest, as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favourable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals! your mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, inflamed with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne, and livethfor ever and ever, they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your labours, and cemented with your blood. And thou, sole Ruler among the ehihlren of men, to whom the shields of the earth belong, gird on thy sirord, thou Most Mighty: go forth w ith our hosts in the day of battle. Impart, in additiou to their hereditary valour, that confidence of success which springs from thy {Presence: pour into their hearts the spirit of departed heroes: inspire them with thine own; and, while led by thine hand, and fighting under thy banners, open thou their eyes to behold in every valley, and in every plain, what the prophet beheld by the same illumination, chariots of fire and horses of fire. Then shall the strong man he as tow, and the maker of it as a sparky and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.