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A DISCOURSE ON THE LATE FAST.

LUKE xiii. 2, 3.

Suppose ye, that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

THE occasion on which these words were spoken was this: Judas Gaulonites,* a man of a most boisterous and intrepid temper, had raised a sedition in Galilee, under the pretence of rescuing his countrymen from the ignominious pressure of the Roman yoke. Unfortunately fanaticism was at hand to supply fuel to those flames which faction had kindled. Hence the followers of Judas, in that blindness of understanding, and that frenzy of passion, into which they had been seduced by their leader, resolved to pay no tribute but in the Temple; to acknowledge no king but Jehovah. After this overt act of avowed opposition to the Romans, and of personal indignity against Cæsar himself, they appeared at the public sacrifices, intending, no doubt, by the vehemence of their clamours, and the notoriety of their example, to spread wide a spirit of insurrection among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Their design was, however, crushed by the activity

* Vide Josephi Antiq lib. xviii. cap. 1. edit. Genev. 1535.

of Pilate; and it is remarkable that their offence was punished on the same spot where it was committed. In the temple they had determined to refuse the tribute which Cæsar claimed: in the temple they were cut off by Cæsar's representative.

Some Jews, it seems, had taken occasion to mention the fate of these unhappy men to Jesus; and from the sharpness of his reply we may infer the malignity of their motives. Forgetful of their own sins, and altogether unalarmed at the punishment that awaited them, they looked back with savage triumph to the miseries of the deluded Galileans. For this reason our blessed Lord at once mortified their vanity, and roused them from their insensibility.

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Suppose ye," said he, "that. these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Doubtless the Galileans had been sinners-their calamities too were justly and evidently the effects of their sins. But from these sins, however atrocious, from those calamities, however severe, no conclusion could be drawn either for the comparative innocence or security of their countrymen. None for their innocence, because the accused, who "suffered such things, were not sinners above all other Galileans,”—none for their security, because the accusers themselves, unless they repented, were likewise doomed "to perish."

In the words of my text yon may observe a kind of indirect censure, which you will readily allow to

have been, on the part of Christ, most deservedly applied, and most graciously intended. But through the secret magic force of self-delusion, that censure was soon forgotten by those to whom our Lord addressed himself; and in process of time the sentence accompanying it was executed with a most astonishing exactness-It was executed by the very conquerors who had slain the Galileans, in consequence of the very crimes for which the Galileans perished; and on the persons, or at least on the immediate descendants of those very men, who had "told Christ of the Galileans," in order to sport with their misfortunes, and to blacken their guilt.

These things are written for our admonition. Whether we examine the private or the public conduct of mankind, we may observe, that the temptations of pleasure, and wealth, and power, are hostile even to their temporal felicity. Inattentive to the hand that protects, and the eye that watches over them, intoxicated with success, and pampered with indulgence, nations as well as individuals often abandon themselves to the wildest desires of the human heart. With an involuntary or perhaps an acquired indifference to their own situation, with the pride, though not the malevolence of Jews, they recount the faults and vindicate the sufferings of other states; and at last, in the midst of all their gay amusements, and all their towering projects, are themselves overtaken by destruction as by a whirlwind. This conduct, strange as it may appear in beings who are endowed with faculties to recall the past, and to explore the future, must not always be

imputed to hypocrisy, or deliberate uncharitableness. Where no restraints of false shame can be supposed to operate, and the actions of men are sheltered from impertinent and unfriendly inspection, few have the courage to descend into the depths of their own bosoms, to search out every latent corruption, and to provide against every distant evil to which they are peculiarly exposed. Much less then should we wonder at their lethargy amidst the common danger, where each man shifts off from himself what equally concerns his neighbour, and what his neighbour equally neglects; where all confide in others for expedients which none have the resolution to employ; where every doubt is misconstrued into singularity, and every fear ascribed to cowardice; where the blind lead the blind, and the audacious harden the audacious; where indolence makes the best of men unwilling to anticipate what, as despair tells them, cannot be prevented; and the worst, quite plunged in the enjoyments of to-day, set at defiance every mischief which to-morrow may produce.

One difference there is indeed in the dispensations of Providence, as they eventually affect men in their collective and separate capacities; and that one it is most necessary for me to point out, and for you to remember-I mean, that whatever inequality of distribution may be observed among particular men, the rewards and punishments of nations are uniformly and visibly accomplished in this life. The honest endeavours of individuals are often disappointed; their upright actions are misrepresented;

nor do they, in the sight of the world, receive any recompence, however their minds may be fortified against unmerited distress, by the hopes of future retribution. But in the affairs of nations, the proofs of a Providence are not left to be collected by the slow deductions of analogy: they are written in the clear and broad characters of experience; and it is scarcely possible to mention any one uncorrupted people, who have been totally destroyed. An enemy may have disturbed their repose, or an oppressor may have invaded their rights; but virtue has ever produced such harmony of opinion, and such concentration of strength, among those who happily formed at once the best and the greatest part of the citizens; it has inspired them with such wisdom in the council, and such vigour in the field; it has furnished so many resources both to repair miscarriage and to improve success, that they have at last risen superior to the machinations of internal perfidy, and to the assaults of outward force. In private life, we see men of the most licentious morals, whose judgment is reserved by almighty God to the last day, and the lustre of whose happiness, unclouded by the intervention of adversity, sets only in the grave. But there is upon record no one instance of a whole people, whom God, after delivering them over to an infatuated and reprobate mind, has not finally visited with the scourge of his displeasure.

The fact is incontestible, and the reason is obvious for while the general tendency of sin to produce misery is ascertained by experience, and while

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