choice of them,-than by a serious application of the fame fad confeffion, in regard to ourfelves.

Our fathers, like thofe of the Jews in Ezra's time, no doubt have done amifs, and greatly provoked GoD by their violence; but if our own iniquities, like theirs, are increased over our heads ;if fince the days of our fathers we have been in great trefpafs ourselves unto this day,-'tis fit this day we fhould be put in mind of it ;-nor can the time and occafion be better employed, than in hearing with patience the reproofs which fuch a parallel will lead me to give.

It must be acknowledged, there is no nation which had ever fo many extraordinary reasons and fupernatural motives to become thankful and virtuous as the Jews had ;-yet, at the fame time, there is no one which has not fufficient (and fetting afide at prefent the confideration of a future ftate as a reward for being fo)-there is no nation under heaven, which, befides the daily bleffings of GOD's providence to them, but have re

ceived fufficient bleflings and mercies at the hands of GOD to engage their best fervices, and the warmest returns of gratitude they can pay there has been a time, may be, when they have been delivered from fome grievous calamity, -from the rage of peftilence or famine, -from the edge and fury of the fword,from the fate and fall of kingdoms round them; they may have been preferved by providential difcoveries, from plots and designs against the well-being of their 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 rescued 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 reafon to be thankful to Gov 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 history,

for this last century, has fcarce been any thing else but the hiftory of our deliverances, and God's bleffings,-and these in fo complicated a chain, and with fo little interruption,-as to be scarce ever vouchfafed to any nation or language befides, except the Jews;—and with regard to them, though inferior in the ftupendous manner of their working,-yet no way fo 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 enquire, as in the case 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 so often,-fo vifibly protected by Providence,-would conclude, our gratitude and morals had kept pace with our

bleffings; and he would fay, as we are the most blessed and favoured,—that we must be the most virtuous and religi ous 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 fay within the bounds of 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 supposed to exist at all, in a country where it is countenanced by the ftate.-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 service of GOD was better frequented,-and in a devout, as

VOL. VIII.

well as regular manner;-there was no open profaneness in our streets to put piety to the blufh,-or domestic ridicule, to make her unealy, and force her to withdraw.

Religion, though treated with freedom, was ftill treated with refpect; the youth of both fexes kept under greater restraint;-good orders and good hours were then kept up in moft families and, în a word, a greater ftrictness and fobriety of manners maintained throughout amongst people of all ranks and conditions;-fo that vice, however fecretly 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 instead of any great religion amongst us, you fee thoufands who are tired even of the form of it, and who have at length thrown the mask of it afide, as an useless incumbrance.