"me." Thus, while others murmur and fret against the Lord, or are inveighing against their fellow-creatures, or indulging hopeless grief and despondency; he is led to expect a happy event, and using all proper means, to " hope and quietly "wait for the salvation of God." He hears, and hearing he calls on others to "hear, the rod and "who hath appointed it." Indeed, the great office of a minister consists in being the interpreter to his flock of the voice of God, whether he speak in his holy word or in his providence; and the prophet may here be considered as calling the attention of the people to what he hath seen, and heard, and learned.

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The Lord hath a rod of fatherly correction for his children, and an iron rod of vindictive punishment for his enemies. Yet all calamities, personal or public, in this life may be considered as castigatory: so that when sinners harden their hearts after repeated chastisements, and refuse to receive eorrection, he says, "Why should they be smitten any more?" And sometimes he lets them alone to grow more and more hardened and presumptuous by present impunity: at others, he takes the rod of vindictive punishment and cuts them off. Thus we read in Isaiah, after dreadful judgments inflicted on Israel," For all this his anger is not "turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." And the reason assigned for it stands thus; "for "the people turneth not to him that smiteth them, "neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts." 2 In like manner the prophet Amos, recording

'Ps. cxix. 75.

1 Îs. v. 25. ix. 12, 13—21.

the heavy judgments which God had inflicted on Israel, by famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, adds at the close of each, "Yet have ye

not returned unto me, saith the Lord:" and he concludes by saying, "Therefore prepare to meet "thy God, O Israel." 1 Hence we learn that, before the Lord proceeds to execute vengeance, he makes trial, so to speak, of correction after correction, when those whom he corrects, especially his professed worshippers, do not "hear the rod, and "who hath appointed it;" when they do not acknowledge the hand of God in their visitations, but endeavour to account for them, as originating in natural causes, or in the conduct of their fellowcreatures; or say with the Philistines "It was a "chance that happened to us ;"2 and when they do not attend to the warning and instruction of his rod, whether "they despise the chastening of the "Lord," or "faint when they are rebuked of him."3

Amidst a variety of most pleasing indications, that a far more religious spirit prevails in this our favoured land than was observable some years ago, one circumstance has long grieved me, nay, has occasioned a considerable degree of alarm in my mind as to the event of our public dangers and trials I mean the general and almost universal disposition, prevailing among men of the most discordant sentiments, political and religious, without excepting some zealous professors and preachers of evangelical truth, to trace back every painful event connected with our many late trials and

1 Am. iv. 16-12

21 Sam. vi. 9.

' Prov. iii. 11, 12; Heb. xii. 5.

deliverances, to the criminal misconduct of some description or other of their fellow mortals, without "seeing the name of the Lord," or hearing "the "voice of the rod," and recollecting "who hath

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appointed it." One description of men can find the causes, almost exclusively, of all our distresses during the dreadful war in which we were so long engaged, and since its conclusion, in the misconduct of our rulers: as if after a tremendous storm, in which both winds and waves were wholly out of the control of the pilot, master, or seamen, some real or imaginary mistake in their management of the vessel were sufficient to account for the storm itself; without thinking of, at least without mentioning," the Lord who sent out the great wind, "and caused the mighty tempest in the sea, so "that the ship was like to be broken." It appears to me at least, that governors "wise as an angel "of God" could not have prevented those con*vulsions which almost wrecked Europe, and menaced our ruin; any more than the mariners could prevent the tempest which the Lord sent forth after Jonah. And let it be remarked, even allowing, for argument's sake at least, that errors and faults might be found in our public measures, yea, considerable ones, (for I presume not to be a judge in these matters,) yet is it not far more easy, after the storm has subsided, to sit in security, and criticise and severely condemn the conduct of those concerned in navigating the vessel, than it would have been to stand at the helm, and avoid those errors, during the raging of the overwhelming tempest?

On the other hand, a large proportion of Britons

satisfy themselves with finding in the conduct and character of France, and in the enormous ambition, cruelty, and iniquity of her usurper and his agents, the cause, the adequate cause, of all our expenditure of blood and treasure; not only thus exculpating our rulers and others in this land, but entirely overlooking the rod and voice of God in these events; and disregarding if not denying, him "who appointed it :" as if Job had satisfied himself, in the day of his calamity, with exclaiming against the Sabeans, Chaldeans and others, instead of saying "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

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Even when unfavourable seasons, and concurrent causes, wholly beyond the control of human wisdom and power, had added a great scarcity of provisions to the many other distresses and difficulties under which we laboured, not only the thoughtless multitude, and factious demagogues, but men of far superior respectability in other things, seemed scarcely at all to notice "the Lord's voice which "cried to the land," or to "hear the rod, and who " had appointed it; " while they combined in loading with reproach and odium different classes of their fellow citizens. Yet surely nothing can be more evidently scriptural, than that famine and scarcity, as well as war and pestilence, are the judgments of God, with which he visits guilty nations. -Thus it appears, that disregard to the voice and rod of God, and forgetfulness of him who appointed it, have rendered one stroke after another of his correcting displeasure needful for us; if he do not give us up as incorrigible, to endure still more awful desolations.

"The people have not yet

"turned to him that smiteth them :" and therefore" his anger is not turned away, but his hand "is stretched out still." And this leads me,

II. To state some circumstances, connected with the melancholy and deplored event that gave occasion to our present assembling, which may shew that it should be considered as "the Lord's voice crying to the city."

Many years ago, as I well remember, even before the birth of her whose premature death we now deeply lament, an anxiety began to be felt and expressed among many reflecting persons, concerning the state of the family of our revered and beloved sovereign; because, among the numerous branches of it, there were found no children to whom the succession would indisputably devolve, on the demise of the present generation: and now, after twenty-two years have elapsed, the case remains in that respect precisely the same! At the birth of our lamented princess, however, the attention of the nation in general was fixed upon her as the indisputable representative of her royal father and grandfather: and the public mind seemed well satisfied with the prospect. And, as she proved in the event to be an only child, this still more fixed the eye of Britons upon her, with a kind of pleasing solicitude, which gave importance and interest to every particular that could be learned concerning her earlier years. Every thing likewise concurred to render her a favourite in the general estimation: and looking on her when she advanced in life, as the parent of the future race of British monarchs, many thoughts and anxieties were felt and expressed concerning her settlement