event to God; and your cowardly deserting the cause of your country, and seeking to prolong your lives by that means, will not be a likely way to remove your doubts and fears: you would always be haunted with a consciousness of guilt, and that will cast a gloom over your minds, and obscure the evidences of your hopes. Follow the path of duty wherever it leads; for that will always be found the safest in the issue. As for such of you as are really unprepared for your latter end, and justly conscious of it; I have sundry things to say to you, and oh that they may sink deep into your hearts. First, How may it shock you to think, that you who have lived so long in the world, should now want more time to turn to God, and prepare for eternity? Alas! what have you done with the ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years that God has given you for this purpose ? Ah! are they all gone, without doing any of the great work you were sent into the world for? Have they all been wasted upon sin, the flesh, and the world, and sacrificed to the devil? Have you been destroying yourselves all this time? Oh! sirs, have I not told you of this, but in vain? Have I not often warned you of the danger of delays in turning to God? Will you now, at length, believe me? Will you now conclude it is high time for you to regard the things that belong to your peace? Secondly, If the reason why you desire to preserve your lives longer, be that you may have time to turn to God, and prepare for eternity, then you are carefully improving the time you now have. It is a vain pretence that you want more time for this, if you do not use the time you have. And are you doing so? Are you seeking the Lord in earnest, and endeavouring to repent and turn to him? If not, you only want time to sin longer-to pursue the world and your pleasures longer. And can you expect God will indulge you in such a wicked desire? Thirdly, It is not the want of time, but the want of a heart, that keeps you unconverted. St. Paul was converted in three days, the jailor in a few hours, and St. Peter's hearers under one short sermon; and why may you not hope for the like blessing if you exert yourselves in earnest ? Fourthly, To excite you to this, let me try an argument or two from a new topic. It is you, and such sinners as you, that have brought all these calamities upon your country. Impenitent sinners are the bane of society, and bring down the wrath of God upon it. Therefore, if you would save your country, repent and be converted. What a cutting thought may it now be to you, 'I am one of the guilty creatures for whom my country is now suffering? Consider also, if the things you fear should come upon you, how miserable would you be ! An angry God above you; a withering, ravaged country, an aceldama, a field of blood, around you; a guilty conscience within you, and a burning hell just before you! Then you will borrow the despairing complaint of Saul. "The Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me.”* Then you will see the use of religion, and bitterly lament your neglect of it. your concern. Therefore now make that I shall conclude with two or three remarks. First, let us not be too much discouraged. Our country is in danger of famine and the sword; but the case is not desperate. Do not, therefore, give it up as a lost case. Our inhabitants are numerous; some parts of the country have promising crops; our army, we hope is not cut off; the New England forces are likely to succeed in their expeditions; and we have a gracious, though a provoked God over all therefore, let us not despond, nor let us think it hard to suffer a little in such a world as this. Let us not think it a mighty matter, that we who have forfeited every blessing, should fall into poverty. We may still have food and raiment somewhere or other; and why should we complain? : It is one character of a good man, that "he is not afraid of evil tidings." "Though the fig-tree," says Habakkuk, "should not blossom, neither fruit be on the vine, though the labour of the olive should fail, and the fields yield no meat-though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there should be no herd in the stall; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." What a noble spirit appears in the fortysixth Psalm. "We will not be afraid, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar, and be troubled ; though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous fly to it and find safety." To have a friend in heaven, a friend who is the Lord of armies, what a strong support is this? And what is that religion good for, that will not support a man under trials? It has been a kind of a gracious calamity to our land, that we have not had any thing to try our religion, and to distinguish the chaff from * 1 Sam. xxviii. 15. † Psa. cxii. 7. Hab. iii. 17, 18. Prov. xviii. 10. the wheat. Now perhaps the trying time is coming; and "he 'that endureth to the end shall be saved."* Let me address this in particular to such of you as fear the Lord. You are safe, come what will. Therefore, do not disgrace your religion, by unmanly, cowardly fears; but like David, when he had lost all, and even his wives and his concubines were taken captive," strengthen yourselves in your God." But, Secondly, Be not too presumptuous; 'be not highminded, but fear.' I am most afraid you should fall into this extreme. We have many reasons to fear; we are a sinful land; we are but poorly provided against war or famine: it is fit we should in our turn experience the fate of other nations, that we may know what sort of a world we live in. We are in danger from foreigners of a gloomy hue-in a state of servility among ourselves. (I speak in this style, that I may give no dangerous intimation to the persons concerned.) It is certain many will be great sufferers by the drought; and many lives will be lost in our various expeditions our poor brethren in Augusta, and other frontier counties, are slaughtered and scalped. In short, it is certain, be the final issue what it will, that our country will suffer a great deal; therefore, be humble. : Thirdly, be diligent in prayer for our army, for the unhappy families in our frontiers, &c. "And may the Lord of hosts be with us, and the God of Jacob be our refuge." DAN. IV. GOD THE SOVEREIGN OF ALL KINGDOMS. 25. The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.§ THAT this world owes its existence to the creating power of God, and that he established all its laws, and put its every wheel in motion, is a truth so evident, that it has extorted the consent of all mankind. But did he then exhaust his omnipotence? And has he been inactive ever since? Did he cast it off his hand, as † 1 Sam. xxx. 6. * Matt. x. 22. an orphan-world, deprived of his paternal care, and left to shift for itself? No; as we were at first the creatures of his power, we are still the subjects of his government--he still supports and rules the world which he made. In the material world, events are accomplished according to those laws which he first estab lished in nature but it is his agency that still continues these laws, and carries them into execution. In the rational world, events are frequently brought to pass by the instrumentality of free agents; but still they are under the direction of the univer sal cause; and their liberty is not inconsistent with his sovereign dominion, nor does it exempt them from it. Though he makes use of secondary causes, yet he reserves to himself the important character of the Ruler of the universe, and is the supreme Disposer of all events. This is a truth of infinite moment, and fundamental to all religion; and unless we are met here to-day with a deep impres sion of this upon our spirits, we are wholly unfit to make a proper improvement of this solemn occasion. It is pertinently observed in that proclamation, in cheerful obedience to which we are now met, that---" In every undertaking it is expedient and necessary to implore the blessing and protection of Almighty God." But if Almighty God does not govern the world, and order all the affairs of men according to his pleasure, where is the expe diency or necessity of imploring his blessing and protection? A powerful and perfidious enemy is making inroads upon our territories; our religion, our liberty, our property, our lives, and every thing sacred or dear to us, are in danger. We are preparing to make a defence; and " our most gracious sovereign has been pleased to send a considerable number of his ships and forces, to oppose the unjustifiable attempts of our enemies." But unless the success of the expedition depend upon the providence of God, to what end do we humble ourselves before him, and implore his help? The thing itself, upon this supposition, would be an incongruity, an empty compliment, a mockery. If he exerts no agency in such cases, but leaves things entirely to their natural course, then we have nothing to fear from his dis pleasure on the account of sin; and we have nothing to hope from his assistance; and consequently, it is needless and absurd to humble ourselves for the one, or to be importunate with him for the other. I cannot, therefore, inculcate upon you, at pres ent, a more seasonable truth than that contained in my text"The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." Nebuchadnezzar, of whom we read so much in the sacred writings, was the first founder of the rich and powerful Babylonian empire, which was built upon the ruins of that of the Assyrians, the metropolis of which was Nineveh, and sundry other mighty kingdoms. Providence had raised him up to be the Scourge of the Jews in particular, the favourite people of God. After his numerous and extensive conquests, while living at ease in grandeur and luxury in his palace, and surveying the glories of Babylon, his magnificent metropolis, his heart was elatedhe becomes of great importance in his own sight-he ascribes his successes to himself alone; and arrogates a style that becomes none but the King of heaven "Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty ?"* While he is thus self-deified, he that is higher than the highest, and who pours contempt upon princes, resents his insolence; and will let him know that he is but a man, by degrading him to a level with the beasts; but he is so gracious as to warn him of it in a dream, that he might escape his doom by a timely repentance; and Daniel gives him a solemn advice, “O king, let my counsel be acceptable to thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor, if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity."+ He continued impenitently proud, and did not regard the counsel; and therefore the threatened judgment was inflicted upon him. His case seems to have been this after divine patience had tried him for a whole year, while he was venting his arrogance in his palace, he was judicially struck, in an instant, with a melancholy madness; and while he was in a raving fury, his domestics turned him out of his palace. There are instances, now-a-day, of persons imagining themselves to be transformed into other creatures and Nebuchadnezzar probably fancied himself an ox, and therefore tried to imitate the actions of that animal: he run wild in the fields with beasts; eat grass like them, and laid abroad under the dews of heaven; until at length his hairs grew like eagles' feathers, and his nails, for want of paring, |