each of us! This would not damp the joy of this day, but render it more refined and elevated. The tears of such a repentance are agreeable bitter-sweets; and to feel a hard, selfish heart broken with it, is a most delightful sensation; as every evangelical penitent knows in some measure by experience. Oh! can we bear the thought of ever sinning more against our gracious guardian, God? If we have any sense of honour or gratitude within us, his goodness will certainly do what all his judgments have failed to do, that is, turns us all from our evil ways, to love and serve him for the future. God grant that it may have this effect, for his own name's sake! Amen.

SERMON LXXII.

PRACTICAL ATHEISM, IN DENYING THE AGENCY OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, EXPOSED.

ZEPHANIAH I. 12.-And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees; that say in their heart, the LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil.*

WHOEVER takes a review of the state of our country, for about two years past, or observes its present posture, must be sensible, that matters have gone very ill with us, and that they still bear a threatening aspect. If our country be entirely under the management of blind chance, according to the uncomfortable doctrines of Atheists and Epicureans, alas! we have reason to be alarmed; for the wheel of fortune has begun to turn against us. If all our affairs be entirely dependent upon natural causes, and wholly subject to the power and pleasure of mortals, it is time for us to tremble; for the arm of flesh has been against us. But if our land be a little province of Jehovah's empire; if all natural causes be actuated, directed, and overruled by his superintending providence; if all our affairs be under his sovereign management, and all our calamities, private and public, be the chastisements of his hand-if, I say, this be the case in fact, as every man believes and wishes, then, it is high time for us to acknow

* Hanover, April 4, 1756.-Nassau Hall, Nov. 23, 1759.

ledge it, and be deeply sensible of it, and solicitously to inquire how we have incurred the displeasure of our gracious and righteous Governor, that we may amend our conduct, and labour to regain his favour.

And, after a very serious inquiry, I could discover nothing more likely to be the cause of our present calamities from the divine hand, than the general insensibility and practical disbelief of the Providence of God, that prevail among us. This, I apprehend, is the epidemical disease of the age, and is likely to prove fatal, without a timely remedy. Secondary causes are advanced to the throne of God, and the administration of the world is put into their hands, in his stead; feeble, precarious mortals set up for independency, and would manage their affairs themselves, without a proper subordination to that power by whom they live, move, and have their being. If blessings fall to their lot, they ascribe the honour to themselves: or, if they meet with mortifications and calamities, some poor creature must bear the blame; and they will not realize the hand of Providence in such things. I do not mean that the doctrine of divine providence is not an article of our public and professed faith; or that we avow it as our belief, that God has nothing to do with our But I mean, the temper

affairs or the kingdoms of men. and conduct of multitudes is equivalent to a professed disbelief of divine providence; or, in the words of my text, "they say," in their hearts, "the Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil;" that is, he does not concern himself, one way or other, with human affairs. This they say, in their hearts; this is the language of their temper, though with their lips they profess quite the contrary.

This practical Atheism brought the judgments of God upon the Jews, which are so terribly denounced against

them by the prophet Zephaniah; and were fully executed, a little time after, in the Babylonish captivity. To that period of national desolation my text refers. "It shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles;" I will make the strictest search in every corner and apartment of the city, like persons that search a room with lighted candles. "And I will punish the men that are settled upon their lees;" such men will I find out, wherever they lurk; and no one shall escape. By their being settled on their lees, we may understand their riches; for wine grows rich by being kept on the lees. So, by a long scene of peace and prosperity, the inhabitants of Jerusalem were arrived to very great riches: or it may signify a state of security; like wine settled on the lees, they have been undisturbed; they are not moved with the threatenings or judgments of God, which hang over them; and, therefore, they are easy, and sunk in security and luxury. In both these senses, this metaphorical expression may be understood in Jeremiah, "Moab hath been at ease from his youth; and he hath settled on his lees:" Jer. xlviii. 11. That is, the kingdom of Moab hath enjoyed a long series of peace and prosperity, and this has advanced them to riches and pleasure; and they are dissolved in ease and luxury. They had not experienced the calamities of war; or, as it is there added, “he hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity;" he hath not been tossed from country to country, but enjoyed a peaceable settlement in his own land for a length of years; or this phrase, "the men that are settled on their lees," may be rendered, with little alteration, “the men that are curdled or corrupted on their lees;”* and then it denotes their corrupt state; they were, as it were, settled and stagnated in their sins: these filthy dregs are

* הספריס

mingled and incorporated with their body politic; and they were become a mere mass of corruption; and they must be shaken and tossed with divine judgments, to purge out their filth. Wars and calamities in the moral world are as necessary as storms and tempests in the natural, to keep the sea and air from putrefying; and a constant calm would introduce a general corruption. The mire and dirt must be cast out; which cannot be done without casting the whole body into a violent ferment and commotion.

"I will punish," says Jehovah, "I will punish the men that are settled on their lees." Though I am not fond of· a parade of learning in popular discourses, yet it may be worth while to make this criticism, that the word here rendered, "I will punish," is in the original Hebrew, the language in which the Old Testament was written, "I will visit.”*

And this word is very often used to denote the punishments of the Divine hand; and sometimes it is so rendered, "Shall I not visit for these things, saith the LORD? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" Jer. v. 9. And this word suggests to us, that sinners are apt to look upon God as far from them; they flatter themselves he will let them alone in their sinful security, and that his judgments will always keep at a distance from them; But, says God, I will pay them a visit I will 'come upon them unexpectedly with the terrors of my displeasure, and let them know, to their surprise, that I am not so far off as they imagine.

This sense is very pertinent in my text, where it is made one part of the character of these devoted Jews, "That they say in their hearts, the LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil." Men are often said in Scripture to say that in their hearts, which is their secret thought, or their inward temper; that which is their governing