as the ancient Israelites, whose eyes were still struck with the miracles wrought on their leaving Egypt; to change the glory of God into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass; and to raise a profane shout. These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, is a spot, but not the spot of the children of God. Exod. xxxii. 8.

Now, my brethren, can you cast your eyes on these provinces, without recognizing a number of sins of the latter class? In some families, the education of youth is so astonishingly neglected that we see parents training up their children for the first offices of the republic, for offices which decide the honour, the fortune, and the lives of men, without so much as initiating them into the sciences, essentially requisite for the adequate discharge of professional duties. Profaneness is so prevalent, and indifference for the homage we pay to God is so awful, that we see people passing whole years without ever entering our sanctuaries; mechanics publicly follow their labour on the Sabbath; women in the polished circles of society choose the hour of our worship to pay their visits, and expose card-tables, if I may so speak, in the sight of our altars. Infidelity is so rife, that the presses groan with works to immortalise blasphemies against the being of God, and to sap the foundation of public morals. How easy would it be to swell this catalogue! My brethren, on a subject so awful, let us not deceive ourselves; "These are not the spots of the children of God ;" they are the very crimes which bring upon nations the malediction of

God, and which soon or late occasion their total overthrow.

III. To feel the calamities under which we now groan, and to trace their origin is not enough: we must anticipate the future: the third sort of regard required for the strokes with which we are struck, is to develope their consequences and connections. Some calamities are less formidable in themselves than in the awful consequences they produce. There are deeps which call unto deeps at the noise of God's water-spouts; Psalm xlii. 8. and to sum up all in one word, there are calamities whose distinguished characteristic is to be the fore-runners of calamities still more terrible. Such was the character of those inflicted on the kingdom of Judah and of Israel in Micha's time, as is awfully proved by the ruin of both.

Is this the idea we should form of the plagues with which we are struck? Never was question more serious and interesting, my brethren; and, at the same time, never was question more delicate and difficult. Do not fear, that forgetting the limits with which it has pleased God to circumscribe our knowledge, we are about with a profane hand to raise the vail which conceals futurity, and pronounce with temerity awful predictions on the destiny of these provinces. We shall merely mark the signs by which the prophet would have the ancient people to understand, that the plagues God had already inflicted were but harbingers of those about to follow. Supply by your own reflections, the cautious silence we shall observe on this subject: examine attentively what connection may exist between the calamities we now suffer, and

those which made the ancient Jews expect a total overthrow. And those signs of an impending calamity are less alarming in themselves, than the dispositions of the people on whom they are inflicted.

1. One calamity is the fore-runner of a greater, when the people whom God afflicts have recourse to second causes instead of the first cause; and when they seek the redress of their calamities in political resources, and not in religion. This is the portrait which Isaiah gives of Sennacherib's first expedition against Judea. The prophet recites it in the twentysecond chapter of his book. He discovered the covering of Judah, and thou didst look in that day to the armour of the house of the forest. Ye have seen also the breaches of the city of David, that they are many: and ye gathered together the waters of the lower pool. And ye have numbered the house of Jerusalem, and the houses have ye broken down to fortify the wall. Ye made also a ditch between the two walls, for the water of the old pool; but ye have not looked unto the Maker thereof, neither have ye had respect unto him that fashioned it long ago. And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping and to mourning, and to plucking of the hair, and to girding with sackcloth, And behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink for to-morrow we shall die. And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, surely this iniquity shall not be purged from

you.

It belongs to you to make the application of this passage; it belongs to you to enquire what resem

blance our present conduct may have to that of the Jews in a similar situation. Whether it is to the first cause you have had recourse for the removal of your calamities, or whether you have solely adhered to second causes? whether it is the maxims of religion you have consulted, or the maxims of policy? whether it is a barrier you have pretended to put to the war, to the pestilence, and famine; or whether you have put one to injustice, to hatred, to fornication, and to fraud, the causes of those calamities?

2. One calamity is the forerunner of greater calamities, when instead of humiliation on the reception of the warnings God sends by his servants, we turn those warnings into contempt. By this sign, the author of the second Book of Chronicles wished the Jews to understand that their impiety had attained its height. The Lord God of their fathers sent unto them by his messengers, rising up betimes and sending; because he had compassion on his people but they mocked the messengers of God; they despised his word, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, so that there was no remedy. xxxvi. 15, 16.

My brethren, it is your duty to enquire how far you are affected by this doctrine. It is your duty to examine whether your present desolating calamities are characterised as harbingers of greater evils. Do you discover a teachable disposition towards the messengers of God who would open your eyes to see the effects of his indignation; or, do you revolt against their word? Do you love to be reproved and corrected, or do you resemble the incorrigible man of whom

the prophet says, thou hatest instruction. Psalm 1. 17. What a humiliating subject, my brethren, what an awful touchstone of our misery!

3. One calamity is the forerunner of greater calamities, when the anguish it excites proceeds more from the loss of our perishable riches than from sentiments of the insults offered to God. This sign, the prophet Hosea gave to the inhabitants of Samaria. Though I have redeemed them, says he, speaking for God, they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds. It was for corn and wine, that they cut themselves when they assembled together; or as might be better rendered, when they assembled for devotion.* Examine again, or rather censure a subject which presents the mind with a question less for inquiry than for the admission of a fact already decided. We would interrupt our business; we would suspend our pleasures; we would shed our tears; we would celebrate fasts on the recollection of our crimes, provided we could be assured that God would remit the punishment? We cut ourselves; we assemble to-day for wine and wheat ; because commerce is obstructed; because our repose is interrupted in defiance of precaution; because the thunderbolts fallen on the heads of our neighbours threaten us, and our friends, our brethren, and our children; or is it because that those paternal regards of God are obscured, which should constitute our

* The original word is so translated in the French bibles, Psalm lvi. 7. lix. 4. The French version, in regard to the former phrase, they cut themselves, seems to harmonize better with the scope of the passage than the English, They rebel, because it follows, Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, meaning their wounded arms.