ftates, or by critical turns and revolutions in their favour when beginning to fink ;-by fome fignal interpofition of God's providence ;they may have refcued their liberties, and all that was dear to them, from the jaws of fome tyrant; or may have preferved their religion pure and uncorrupted, when all other comforts failed them.—

If other countries have reason to be thankful to God for any one of these mercies, much more has this of ours, which at one time or other hath received them all ;-infomuch that our hiftory, for this laft century, has scarce been any thing else but the hiftory of our deliverances, and God's bleffings,-and thefe in fo complicated a chain, and with fo little interruption, as to be scarce ever vouchsafed to any nation or language besides,—except the Jews; and with regard to them, though inferior in the ftupendous manner of their working,-yet no way so in the extensive goodness of their effects, and the infinite benevolence which must have wrought them for us.—Here then let us ftop and look back a moment, and

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enquire as in the cafe of the Jews;—what great effects all this has had upon our lives,— and how far worthy we have lived-of what we have received?—

A ftranger,-when he heard that this ifland had been fo favoured by heaven,--fo happy in our laws and religion,-fo flourishing in our trade, -fo bleffed in our fituation and natural product,—and in all of them fo often,-so visibly protected by providence,- would conclude, our gratitude and morals had kept pace with our bleffings; and he would fay,—as we are the most bleffed and favoured,-that we muft be the most virtuous and religious people upon the face of the earth.

Would to God! there was any other reafon to incline one to fo charitable a belief;for without running into any common-place declamation upon the wickedness of the age,

-we may say within the bounds of the truth, -that we have profited in this refpect as little as it was poffible for the Jews;-that there is as little virtue, and as little fenfe of religion, at least as little of the appearance of it, as can

be fuppofed to exist at all, in a country where it is countenanced by the state.-Our forefathers, whatever greater degrees of real virtue · they were poffeffed of,-God, who fearcheth the heart, best knows; but this is certain, in their days they had at least the form of godlinefs, and paid this compliment to religion, as to wear at least the appearance and outward garb of it. The public fervice of God was better frequented, and in a devout, as well as regular manner;-there was no open profaneness in our streets to put piety to the blush,or domestic ridicule, to make her uneafy, and force her to withdraw.

Religion, though treated with freedom, was still treated with refpect;-the youth of both fexes kept under greater restraint ;-good orders and good hours were then kept up in most families; and, in a word, a greater ftrictness and fobriety of manners maintained throughout amongst people of all ranks and conditions ;-so that vice, however secretly it might be practifed,-was afhamed to be feen.

But all this has infenfibly been borne down,

ever fince the days of our forefathers trefpafs; -when, to avoid one extreme, we began to run into another;-fo that inftead of any great religion amongst us, you see thousands who are tired even of the form of it, and who have at length thrown the mask of it aside,—as an useless incumbrance.

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But this licentioufnefs, he would fay, may be chiefly owing to a long courfe of profperity, which is apt to corrupt mens minds.God has fince this tried you with afflictions; have been vifited with a long and expenfive war :-God has fent, moreover, a peftilence amongst your cattle, which has cut off the stock from the fold,—and left no herd in the stalls. Surely he'll fay,-two fuch terrible fcourges must have awakened the confciences of the most unthinking part of you, and forced the inhabitants of your land—from fuch admonitions, though they failed with the Jews, to have learnt righteousness for themfelves.

I own this is the natural effect,—and one would hope always be the natural use and

improvement from fuch calamities;-for we often find that numbers who, in profperity, feem to forget God, do yet remember him in the day of trouble and distress.-Yet confider this nationally, we fee no fuch effect from it in fact, as one would be led to expect from the fpeculation:-for inftance,-with all the devaftation, bloodfhed, and expence which the war has occafioned,-how many converts has it made to frugality, to virtue, or even to feriousness itself?-The peftilence amongst our cattle, though it has diftreffed and utterly undone fo many thousands, yet what one vifible alteration has it made in the courfe of our lives?

And though one would imagine that the neceffary drains of taxes for the one,—and the lofs of rents and property from the other, fhould in fome measure have withdrawn the means of gratifying our paffions, as we have done;-yet what appearance is there amongst us, that it is fo?—

What one fashionable folly or extravagance has been checked by it?-Is not there the