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A Thanksgiving Sermon.

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to be more constant and fervent in Prayer. He hath heard our Voice and our Supplications; and because he hath inclined his Ear unto us, therefore fhould we call upon him as long as we live. Pfal. cxvi. I, 2.

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5. The great Goodness of God to us in putting an End to our late Troubles and defeating our Enemies, should strongly induce us to put our Trust in him at all Times, and to honour him by fuch an Affiance as is his due.

We have been a People highly favoured by Providence, and often faved by God's Right Hand. Our Deliverances have been many and furprisingly great, and now there is another added to the Number, which will be recorded and tranfmitted down to Pofterity as a fignal one; so that we have the higheft Reason to make Jéhovah our Confidence, and this will be our Security. They that trust in the Lord fhall be as Mount Zion which cannot be removed but abideth for ever.

-As the Mountains are round about

Jerufalem, fo the Lord is round about his People from henceforth even for ever.

Pfalm cxxv. I, 2.

6. Happy will it be for us if our late Troubles and our Deliverance out of them may be the Means of Reforming us, and making us a better People. If we keep

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A Thanksgiving Sermon.

on Sinning against the Mercies which we have received, this will discover monftrous Ingratitude, and be a dreadful Aggravation of our Guilt; and if we don't amend our Ways and Manners, and turn to the Lord, we have juft Ground to fear that the Confequences will yet be deplorable. The Sins of Britain are our greatest and worft Enemies. That abominable Practice of profane Swearing, which, in Defiance of the Laws of God and Man, is fo common among People of all Ranks, is a prodigious Iniquity, and as it deftroys all Reverence for an Oath, whichis the strongest Security that any can give, for their behaving well as Members of a Community, fo if fuch as are accuftomed to that odious Vice are drawn in to be perjur'd Traytors, it may be eafily accounted for. As to more fenfual Vices, they tend (as a very eminent and judicious Divine has obferved) to make us an Effeminate, "Mean-spirited, a Lazy, Slothful, Un"healthful People, useless to the Glorious

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Prince, and excellent Government we "live under; neither fit to endure the "Hardships, or encounter the Hazards " of War, nor apply ourselves to the Bufinefs, or undergo the Labours that belong to a State of Peace, and do con"fequently tend to infer upon us a deplorable, but unpitied, Poverty, and (which all will pretend to abhor,) Sla

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A Thanksgiving Sermon.

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very at length *”. And nothing can be more certain than that by our Wickednefs we forfeit the Protection of Heaven upon which our Happiness depends, and expose ourselves to God's righteous Judg

ments.

Let all then refolve to reform what is amiss in themselves, and do all they can in their feveral Places to promote a general Reformation, that we and our Pofterity may be fafe and happy. Now blef fed be the Lord God, the God of Ifrael, who only doth wondrous Things. And bleffed be his glorious Name for ever, and let the whole Earth be filled with his Glory; Amen and Amen.

Howe's Works, Vol. II. p. 284.

FINI S.

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