of Judah, and Benjamin, went out against him;-and as they went, they cried mightily unto God.-And Afa prayed for his people, and he said,—“O Lord! it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power :-help us, O Lord our God; for we reft in thee, and in thy name we go againft this multitude.-O Lord, thou art our God, let not man prevail against thee." -Succefs almost seemed a debt due to the piety of the prince, and the contrition of his people. So God fmote the Ethiopians, and they could not recover themselves:-for they were scattered, and utterly destroyed,-before the Lord, and before his hoft.-And as they returned to Jerufalem from purfuing,-behold the spirit of God came upon Afariah, the fon of Oded.—And he went out to meet Asa, and he faid unto him,-Hear ye me, Afa, and all Judah and Benjamin ;—the Lord is with you, whilst you are with him;-and if you seek him, he will be found of you, but if ye forsake him, he will forfake you.- Nothing could more powerfully call home the confcience than fo timely an expoftulation. The men of Judah

and Benjamin, ftruck with a sense of their late deliverance, and the many other felicities they had enjoyed fince Afa was king over them, they gathered themfelves together at Jerufalem, in the third month in the fifteenth year of Afa's reign; and they entered into a covenant to feek the Lord God of their fathers, with all their foul:-and they sware unto the Lord with a loud voice, and with fhouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets, and all Judah rejoiced at the oath.

One may obferve a kind of luxuriety in the defcription, which the holy hiftorian gives of the men of Judah upon this occafion.-And fure, if ever matter of joy was so reasonably founded, as to excufe any exceffes in the expreffions of it,this was one :-for without it, the condition of Judah, though otherwife the happiest, would have been, of all nations under heaven, the most miserable.

Let us fuppofe a moment, instead of being repulfed, that the enterprize of the Ethiopians had profpered against them,—like other grievous distempers, where the vitals are first attacked, Afa, their king, would have

been fought after, and have been made the first facrifice. He must either have fallen by the fword of battle, or execution; or, what is worse, he must have furvived the ruin of his country by flight,—and worn out the remainder of his days in forrow, for the afflictions which were come upon it.-In fome remote corner of the world, the good king would have heard the particulars of Judah's deftruction.-He would have been told how the country, which had become dear to him by his paternal care, was now utterly laid waste, and all his labour loft;-how the fences which protected it were torn up, and the tender plant within, which he had fo long fheltered, was cruelly trodden under foot and devoured. He would hear how Zerah, the Ethiopian, when he had overthrown the kingdom, thought himfelf bound in confcience to overthrow the religion of it too, and establish his own idolatrous one in its ftead.-That, in pursuance of this, the holy religion, which Afa had 1eformed, had begun every where to be evil fpoken of, and evil entreated :

That it was first banished from the courts of

the king's houfe, and the midft of Jerufalem, -and then fled for fafety out of the way into the wilderne's, and found no city to dwell That Zerah had rebuilt the altars of the ftrange Gods, which Asa's piety had broken down, and fet up their images:

in.

That his commandment was urgent, that all fhould fall down and worship the idol he had made:-That to complete the tale of their miseries, there was no profpect of deliverance for any but the worst of his subjects; those who, in his reign, had either leaned in their hearts towards these idolatries,-or whofe principles and morals were fuch, that all religions fuited them alike.-But that the honeft and conscientious men of Judah, unable to behold fuch abominations, hung down every man his head like a bulrush, and put fackcloth and afhes under him.

This picture of Judah's desolation might be fome resemblance of what every of Afa's fubjects would probably form to himself, the day he folemnized an exemption from it.-And the transport was natural,-To fwear unto the Lord with a loud voice, and with shout

ing, and with trumpets, and with cornets ;to rejoice at the oath which fecured their future peace, and celebrate it with all external marks of gladness.

I have at length gone through the ftory, which gave the occafion to this religious act, which is recorded of the men of Judah in the

text.

I believe there is not one, in facred Scripture, that bids fairer for a parallel to our own times, or that would admit of an application. more fuitable to the folemnity of this day.

But men are apt to be ftruck with likeneffes in fo different a manner, from the different points of view in which they stand, as well as their diverfity of judgments, that it is generally a very unnacceptable piece of officioufnefs to fix any certain degrees of approach.

In this cafe, it feems fufficient,-that thofe who will difcern the least resemblance, will difcern enough to make them seriously comply with the devotion of the day;-and that those who are affected with it in a stronger manner, and fee the bleffing of a protestant king in its faireft light, with all the mercies which made Ff