Ireland, our fifter kingdom. Had fhe fucceeded in establishing her power there, where she might have victualled her fleets, and recruited her armies, England, in all probability, would have become an easy prey.

But God, the great guardian of our isle, has mercifully prevented the accomplishment of her first object. Ireland is not yet a department of France; and therefore our fears need not run high for Britain. The capture or difperfion of the fhips and forces deftined to that service, and the weakening the naval power of France by fubfequent conquefts, whereby fhe is rendered, as far as we can judge, incapable, for the prefent, of renewing her hoftile attacks, are certainly occafions of real pleasure to every friend to his country, and of gratitude to every British christian. It is then to this one object I would direct your attention-THE SALVATION OF BRITAIN FROM AN INVADING POWER. And to excite your gratitude for this, let me lay before you the following confiderations.

I.

If the French had fucceeded in taking Ireland, and had in confequence landed an hostile army on our coafts, what horrid confequences would have enfued!

What an interruption would it have occafioned to our trade and manufactures! How precarious would it have rendered our obtaining food for our bodies! What fore anxieties and gloomy forebodings would it have excited in our bofoms! What a paufe would it have put to the pleasures of focial worship!

1

worship! Where would have been our peaceful and happy fabbaths! What tumult and diforder would it have excited among the lower orders of the people, many of whom, taking advantage of the general confufion, would have gone from house to house, plundering the peaceable inhabitants, whilft all, and worse than all the horrors of the former Riots, would have difgraced and diftreffed Birmingham! What fufpicions would have exifted between one inhabitant and another! What domestic misery should we have witneffed in our now tranquil dwellings !our wives and children weeping, whilft we, called to go out against the common foe, were taking, perhaps, a laft farewell; they not knowing but we might fall in the field, and our bosoms torn with anguifh, left their honor fhould be violated, or the means of fubfiftence taken from them, fo that after all our efforts to make "the present day still happier than the laft," they should be abandoned to famine and death!

How dreadful would be the roar of the deftructive cannon, and the din of clashing arms! What a fpectacle would prefent itself, when, baptized in their own blood, we faw acquaintance, neighbors, kindred, friends, parents, lying in our streets; whilft the cries of orphans, the groans of mothers, and the fhrieks of widows, compleated the horror of the scene!

Good God! who in thy abundant mercy haft faved us from realizing the fcenes, which now only our imaginations paint, fave us alfo from the curfe of an ungrateful heart! 2. My

2. My brethren, let your gratitude be still heightened by reflecting on the moral character of our country, and the high demerit of its crimes. How in this land, where God is fo much known, is he also awfully blafphemed! How are his holy fabbaths profaned! How debauched in general are our youth! How luxurious the opulent! And with what rapid ftrides does infidelity advance, whilst she receives a flattering welcome from all claffes of Britons, from the courtier to the inhabitant of the cottage! How have the children of christian parents declined from the piety of their ancestors! How cool is the devotion in our fanctuaries, and how many families call not upon the name of the Lord! What" fordid avarice, and low arts of commerce," ftain the characters of many, eminent for rank and opulence! Whilft in the language of a late writer, "Our wealth and plenty have been abused to an

amazing luxury, and our liberty to a boundless li"centioufnefs. Many act as if they had no other "way of fhowing that they are free, but by cafting "off all restraints, and fetting themselves loose from "all the ties of religion and virtue."

Who could have been furprized, if long ere now, the Lord had "avenged himself on fuch a nation as this!" But, "flow to anger, and plenteous in mercy," whilft almost all Europe befide has been involved in the miferies of war, he ftill preferves our island a quiet habitation, and, fitting under our own vines and fig trees, none are permitted to make us afraid-" He hath not dealt fo with every nation; praise ye the Lord."

3. Nor let it be forgotten, that this is a mercy granted in anfwer to prayer. Often from within thefe walls have our fervent cries arifen to the throne of God, that he would abandon us neither to civil tumults, nor hoftile foreigners; and now that he hath heard our prayer, fhall we refufe him praife? «O come, let us give thanks unto the Lord, for he is

good, for his mercy endureth for ever: we cried " unto him, and he hath helped us, and delivered us "from all our fears!"

Laftly, whilft I indulge the hope that your hearts reverberate the invitation to praife, I would offer you fome directions as to the manner in which you should exprefs it; and

1. Let us exprefs our fenfe of obligation for national mercies, by breaking off from national fins. Let each one of us confider, that his individual crimes go towards augmenting the mafs of national iniquity. Let none of us go on any longer to provoke the Lord to jealoufy; and if the fear of national judgments has not power to restrain our corruptions, let a fenfe of national mercies engage us to repentance and reformation.

2. Let us discover our gratitude by endeavoring to excite that of others. Whilft the multitude, who on the one hand charge all the miseries of a nation on its governors, inftead of its crimes, attribute on the other all our fecurity merely to the valor of our commanders, and their forces at fea or on land, let us ftrive to raise their views to a much higher cause of safety-let us teach our neighbors,

Our

our children, our fervants, that "Salvation is only of the LORD."

3. Let us fhew our gratitude to God, by our benevolence to our diftreffed fellow creatures.

We read that when God delivered the Jews from Babylon, and days of thanksgiving were appointed; the injunction was, "Go your way, eat "the fat, and drink the sweet, and fend portions to "them for whom nothing is prepared." And when fhould our hearts be opened to the miferies of others, but at the moment when we are expreffing our fenfe of the divine liberality to us; indeed he is an hypocrite, and not a fincere worshipper, who pretends to gratitude without benevolence.

But whom fhould we felect as objects of our benevolence to-day? Can we think on any objects more fuitable than thofe whofe miferies are occafioned by that very event, which furnishes us with matter of joy and praife-I mean the widows and orphans of the brave men who have lately fallen in the defence of their country?

I am extremely happy to reflect that a measure. has been adopted, which, in all likelihood will unite moft,if not all the congregations in Birmingham, in this becoming charity. Too long separated by mutual jealousies, let us gladly embrace a propofal which breathes a spirit of conciliation, and prove by our liberality this day, that we are steady friends to the interests of our country, and to the interefts of benevolence.

FINIS,