of

power of his love. And fuch, believe me, fuch you must be, before you can be faved.-But if the result your examination turns out in your favour, then, 5. You may entertain the joyful hope of falvation; of falvation through one that was infulted as not able to fave himself; of crowns of glory through him that wore the crown of thorns; of fulness of joy through the man of forrows; of immortal life through one that died upon a crofs; I fay, you may entertain a joyful hope of all this; for in this way of falvation there is no hindrance, no objection. God will be glorified in glorifying you, the law magnified in justifying you. In fhort, the honour of God and his government concurs with your intereft; and therefore if you heartily embrace this plan of salvation, you may be as fure that God will fave you as that he will take care of his own glory, for they are infeparably connected. And do not your hearts, dead as they are, fpring within you at the thought? Do you not long to fee your Saviour on the throne, to whofe cross you are indebted for all your hopes? And O! will you not praise his name while you live, and continue the fong through all eternity? Are you not ready to anticipate the anthem of heaven, Worthy is the Lamb that was flain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and ftrength, and honour, and glory, and bleffing: for thou haft redeemed us unto God by thy blood. Rev. v. 9, 12. Finally, let me congratulate my reverend brethren on their being made minifters of the New Teftament, which reveals that glorious and delightful fubject, Christ crucified, in full light, and diffuses it through all their ftudies and difcourfes. The Lamb that was flain is the theme that animates the fongs of angels and faints above, and even our unhallowed lips are allowed to touch it without profanation. Let us therefore, my dear brethren, delight to dwell upon it

*

*The author towards the end of the difcourfe writes, " At a Prefbytery in Augufta, April 25, 1759;" which accounts for this particular addrefs to minifters.

it. Let us do juftice to the refined morality of the gofpel: let us often explain and enforce the precepts, the graces, and the virtues of christianity; and teach men to live righteously, foberly, and godly in the world. But let us do this in an evangelical ftrain, as minifters of the crucified Jefus, and not as the fcholars of Epictetus or Seneca. Let us labour to bring men to an hearty compliance with the method of falvation through Chrift; and then we shall find it comparatively an easier matter, a thing of course, to make them good moralifts. Then a short hint of their duty to God and man will be more forcible than whole volumes of ethics, while their fpirits are not caft in the gospel-mould. Thus may we be enabled to go on, till our great Mafter fhall take our charge off our hands, and call us to give an account of our Stewardship!

SERMON XXV.

INGRATITUDE TO GOD AN HEINOUS BUT GENERAL INIQUITY.

2 CHRON. XXXii. 25. But Hezekiah rendered not again, according to the benefit done unto him.

A

MONG the many vices that are at once univerfally decried, and univerfally practifed in the world, there is none more base or more common than ingratitude; ingratitude towards the fupreme Benefactor. Ingratitude is the fin of individuals, of families, of churches, of kingdoms, and even of all mankind. The guilt of ingratitude lies heavy upon the whole race of men, though, alas! but few of them feel and

lament

lament it. I have felt it of late with unusual weight; and it is the weight of it that now extorts a discourse from me upon this fubject. If the plague of an ungrateful heart muft cleave to us while in this world of fin and imperfection, let us at least lament it; let us bear witness against it; let us condemn ourselves for it; and let us do all we can to fupprefs it in ourfelves and others. I feel myself, as it were, exafperated, and full of indignation against it, and against myfelf as guilty of it. And in the bitterness of my fpirit I fhall endeavour to expofe it to your view in its proper infernal colours, as an object of horror and indignation.

None of us can flatter ourselves that we are in little or no danger of this fin, when even fo good and great a man as Hezekiah did not escape the infection. In the memoirs of his life, which are illuftrious for piety, zeal for reformation, victory over his enemies, glory and importance at home and abroad, this, alas! is recorded of him, "That he rendered not again to his divine Benefactor, according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up, therefore there was wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerufalem."

Many had been the bleffings and deliverances of this good man's life. I fhall only particularize two, recorded in this chapter. The Affyrians had overrun a great part of the country, and intended to lay fiege to Jerufalem. Their haughty monarch, who had carried all before him, and was grown infolent with fuccefs, fent Hezekiah a blafphemous letter, to intimidate him and his people. He profanely bullies and defies Hezekiah and his God together; and Rabshakeh, his meffenger, comments upon his mafter's letter in the fame ftyle of impiety and infolence. But here obferve the fignal efficacy of prayer! Hezekiah, Ifaiah, and no doubt many other pious people among the Jews, made their prayer to the God of Ifrael; and, as it were, complained to him of the threatenings and profane blafphemy of the Affyrian

monarch.

monarch. Jehovah hears, and works a miraculous deliverance for them. He fends out an angel (one was fufficient) who deftroyed in one night, as we are elsewhere told (2 Kings xix. 35.) no less than an hundred fourfcore and five thoufand men; which extenfive flaughter, a Jewish tradition tells us, was made by means of lightning; a very fuppofable and fufficient caufe. Sennacherib, with the thin remains of his army, fled home inglorious; and his two fons affaffinated him at an idolatrous altar. Thus Jerufalem was freed from danger, and the country refcued from flavery and the ravages of war. Nay, we find from profane history, that this dreadful blow proved fatal in the iffue to the Affyrian monarchy, which had oppreffed the world fo long; for upon this the Medes, and afterwards other nations, threw off their fubmiffion; and the empire fell to pieces. Certainly fo illuftrious a deliverance as this, wrought immediately by the divine hand, was a fufficient reafon for ardent gratitude.

Another deliverance followed upon this. Hezekiah was fick unto death; that is, his fickness was in its own nature mortal, and would have been unto death, had it not been for the miraculous interpofition of Providence. But, upon his prayer to God, he was recovered, and fifteen years added to his life. This alfo was great cause of gratitude. And we find it had this effect upon him, while the sense of his deliverance was freth upon his mind; for in his euchariftic fong upon his recovery, we find thefe grateful ftrains: The living, the living he fhall praife thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth. The Lord was ready to fave me; therefore we will fing my fongs to the ftringed inftruments all the days of our life. But, alas! thofe grateful impreflions wore off in fome time; and pride, that uncrcaturely temper, began to rife. He began to think himfelf the favourite of heaven, in fome degree, on account of his own perfonal goodnefs. He indulged his

vanity in oftentatiously expofing his treasures to the Babylonian meffengers: which was the inftance of felfish pride and ingratitude that seems here particularly referred to.

This pride and ingratitude paffed not without evidences of the divine indignation; for we are told, therefore there was wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerufalem. As the crime was not peculiar to him, fo neither is the punishment. Nations and individuals have fuffered in this manner from age to age; and under the guilt of it we and our country are now languishing.

In order to make you the more fenfible of your ingratitude towards your divine Benefactor, I shall give you a brief view of his mercies towards you, and expofe the aggravated baseness of ingratitude under the reception of fo many mercies.

Mercy has poured in upon you on all fides, and followed you from the firft commencement of your exiftence: rich, various, free, repeated, uninterrupted mercy. The bleffings of a body wonderfully and fearfully made, complete in all its parts, and not monftrous in any the bleffing of a rational immortal foul, preferved in the exercise of found reafon for fo many years, amid all those accidents that have shattered it in others, and capable of the exalted pleafures of religion, and the everlafting enjoyment of the bleffed God, the fupreme good: the bleifing of a large and spacious world, prepared and furnished for our accommodation; illuminated with an illustrious fun, and the many luminaries of the sky; the earth enriched and adorned with trees, vegetables, various forts of grain, and animals, for our fupport or convenience; and the fea a medium of extenfive trade, and an inexhaustible ftore of fishes: the bleffings of the early care of parents and friends, to provide for us in the helpless days of infancy, and direct or reftrain us in the giddy precipitant years of youth: the bleffing of being born in the adult age of the world, VOL. II.

S

when