and the superintendance of a Providence? A man admitting those two grand principles, and presuming to make crimes subservient to the support of society, should digest the following propositions. There is indeed a God in heaven, who has constituted society to practise equity; to maintain order; and to cherish religion he has connected its prosperity with these duties; but by the secrets of my policy, by the depths of my counsels, by the refinement of my wisdom, I know how to elude his designs, and avert his denunciations. God is indeed an Almighty Being whose pleasure has a necessary connection with its execution; he has but to blow with his wind on a nation, and behold it vanishes away; but I will oppose power to power; I will force his strength * and by my fleets, my armies, my fortress, I will elude all those ministers of vengeance. God has indeed declared, that he is jealous of his glory; that soon or late he will exterminate incorrigible nations; and that if from the nature of their vices there proceed not a sufficiency of calamities to extirpate them from the earth, he will superadd those unrelenting strokes of vengeance which shall justify his providence but the state over which I preside, shall be too small, or perhaps too great to be absorbed in the vortex of his commanding sway. It shall be reserved of providence as an exception to this general rule, and made to subsist in favour of those very vices, which have occasioned the sackage of other nations. My brethren, there is, if I may presume so to speak, but a front of iron and

* The versions vary very much in reading; Isaiah xxvii. 5, Vide Poli Synopsi Crit. in loc.

brass that can digest propositions so daring, and prefer the system of Hobbs and of Machiavel to that of David and of Solomon.

But what awful objects should we present to your view, were we wishful to enter on a detail of the proofs concerning the equity of the strokes with which God afflicted the Jews; and especially were we wishful to illustrate the conformity found in this second head, between the desolations of those ancient people, and those of our own churches?

To justify what we have advanced on the first head, it would be requisite to investigate many of their kings, who were monsters rather than men; it would be requisite to describe the hardness of the people who were wishful that the ministers of the living God, sent to rebuke their crimes, might contribute to confirm them therein; and who, according to the expression of Isaiah, said to the seer, seẻ not; and to those who had visions, see no more visions of uprightness; speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceit. Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. xxx. 10, 11. It would be requisite to exhibit the connivance of many of their pastors, who, as Jeremiah says, healed the hurt of his people slightly, saying, peace, peace, when there was no peace: vi. 14. and who were so far from suppressing the licentiousness of the wicked, as to make it their glory to surpass them! It would be requisite to describe the awful security which in the midst of the most tremendous visitations infatuated them to say, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell we are at agree

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ment. Isaiah xxviii. 15. It would be requisite to trace those sanguinary deeds, which occasioned that just rebuke, In the skirts of thy robe is found the blood of the innocent poor. Jer. ii. 34. It would be requisite to exhibit those scenes of idolatry, which made a prophet say, Lift up thine eyes on the high places, and see where thou hast been lien with. O Juda, thy gods are as many as thy cities. ii. 28. iii. 2. It would be requisite to speak of that paucity of righteous men, which occasioned God himself to say, Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now and know, and seek ye in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh truth, and I will par

don it. v. i.

But instead of retracing those awful recollections, and deducing from them the just application of which they are susceptible, it would be better to comprise them in that general confession, and to acknowledge when speaking of your calamities what the Jews confessed when speaking of theirs: The Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled against him. Certainly thou art righteous in all the things that have happened, for thou hast acted in truth, but we have done wickedly.Neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers kept thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments, and to thy testimonies wherewith thou didst testify against them. Lam. i. 18. Neh. ix. 34.

III. But it is time to present you with objects more attractive and assortable with the solemnities of this day. The calamities which fell upon the Jews, and those which have fallen on us; those calamities which

had a character of justice; yea, even a character of horror, had also a character of mercy; and this is what is promised the Jews in the words of my text; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and among the countries; yet I will be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they are come. Whether you give these, as a little sanctuary, a vague, or a limited signification, all resolves to the same sense. If you give them a limited import, they refer to the temple of Jerusalem, which the Chaldeans had destroyed, and which was the emblem of God's presence in the midst of his people. I have dispersed them among the heathen; I have deprived them of their temple, but I will grant them supernaturally the favours, I accorded to their prayers once offered up in the house, of which they have been deprived. In this sense St. John said, that he saw no temple in the new Jerusalem, because God and the Lamb were the temple thereof. Rev. xxi. 22. If you give these words an extended import, they allude to the dispersion. Although I have cast them off among the heathen, and put them far away from the place of their habitation; yet I will be myself their refuge.— Much the same is said by the author of the xcth Psa. Lord, thou hast been our retreat, our refuge, from one generation to another. But without a minute scrutiny of the words, let us justify the thing.

1. Even amid the carnage which ensued on the taking of Jerusalem, many of the principal people were spared. It appears from the sacred history, that Jeremiah was allowed to choose what retreat he 19

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pleased, either to remain in Babylon, or to return to his country. He chose the latter; he loved the foundations of Jerusalem, and of its temple, more than the superb city; and it was at the sight of those mournful ruins, that he composed those Lamentations, from which we have made many extracts, and in which he has painted in the deepest tints, and described in the most pathetic manner, the miseries of his nation.

2. While some of the Jewish captives had liberty to return to their country, others were promoted in Babylon to the most eminent offices in the empire. The author of the second book of Kings says, that Evil-merodach lifted up the head of Jehoiachin out of prison and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon. Jeremiah repeats the same expressions of this author; 2 Kings xxv. 28. Jer. lii. 32. and learned men have thence concluded, that Jehoiachin reigned in Babylon over his own dispersed subjects. Of Daniel we may say the same; he was made governor of the province of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, and chief of the governors over all the wise men. Dan. ii. 48. Darius conferred many years afterwards the same dignities on this prophet; and Nehemiah was cup-bearer to Artaxerxes.

3. How dark, how impenetrable soever the history of the seventy years may be, during which time the Jews were captive in Babylon, it is extremely obvious, that they had during that period some form of

* It appears below, that Saurin thought Jeremiah and others returned from Babylon!