ed and ridiculed as fanatical! Nay, even an allusion to a general or particular providence, if it be made with becoming seriousness, is frequently conceived to indicate an offensive degree of religion. If these remarks are unfortunately but too applicable to the community at large, it is at least consolatory to reflect, that in all classes of it there are many bright and excellent examples of genuine piety and virtue. Still it may be said, what are these among so many? yet few as they comparatively are, they constitute the salt* of our country; and This "salt preserves us; more corrupted else, Than Sodom in her day had pow'r to be, For whom God heard his Abra'm plead in vaint." The truly pious of the land, indeed, after all that can be said of our fleets and armies, and that is not a little, are the grand bulwarks of our national security; and the regard of Heaven to them and to their † Cowper's Task, book iii. * Mat. v. 13. prayers, is the surest ground of hope that we shall be protected against the overwhelming destruction with which we are threatened by the great scourge of modern Europe. It becomes us, however, to "stand in awe," to cease from sin, "to repent and do works meet for repentance;" for, although our existence as a nation, and our institutions, may be preserved, we have still just reason to apprehend the less signal marks of the divine displeasure. It is not, indeed, for blind and erring man to estimate the proportions of national delinquency, or to fix the time, the mode, or the severity of national chastisements. Generally, however, it may be observed, that the number, value, and duration of the moral advantages which a nation enjoys, constitute the equitable measure of its guilt. Judging ourselves. upon this principle, how malignant does our depravity appear! how greatly aggravated our transgressions, how deeply stained our ingratitude! Still we seem insensible to our deserts. The sky gathers blackness; we hear the distant thunder that forebodes approaching storms;' but no salutary dread prevails, no radical, no general reformation is discernible. An atheistical dissipation of mind, a sensualiz ing gaiety of manners pervade, and awfully infatuate the country. Dark and threatening clouds, at intervals succeeding each other, have hung over us for a time, and then dispersed; and we flatter ourselves, therefore, that we shall continue to remain unpunished*. Nay, from a consideration of our national means of defence and security, we grow presumptuously confident; and, regardless of the divine judg ments, which are so evidently "abroad in the earth," we in effect say, like the Jews, "none evil can come upon us." The finger of prophecy points to the destruction of a second Tyre, distinguished above the nations for her commercial grandeur and prosperity; and Britain, unawed, ap、 * Eccles. viii. 11. propriates the description to herself, say. ing not merely "in her heart," but by positive declarations, I sit as a queen, and shall see no sorrow! But how rash and presumptuous is such language! For shall not He who sustains and controuls the universe," whose power no creature is able to resist," and "who is the only giver of all victory;" shall not he make vain the strength even of the proudest and mightiest kingdoms? "He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he punish" nations who apostatize from him, under countless obligations to love, duty, and allegiance, with which the heathen are totally unacquainted? From this vain-glorious spirit, so fatal to the stability of empires, may the Almighty mercifully deliver us! The evils of this spirit are incalculable. It dissipates that salutary fear of providential retribution, which keeps nations in awe. It generates that headlong presumption which rushes into dangers, and that haughtiness which precedes a fall. It throws wide open the flood-gates of iniquity, and paves the way to a radical and universal corruption of public morals. If, in the revolution of years, under the influence of such a principle of pride and vain confidence, this last state of degeneracy become ours, it requires no spirit of divination to perceive, that the awful doom of all great and ancient empires, whose dissolution and ruin the voice of history deplores, must await us also. Then, indeed, the measure of our iniquities being once filled up, "He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth," and before whom the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers," may render our national bulwarks, vainly deemed impregnable, as ineffectual for defence as "the small dust of the balance,"—and, as a final display of his vengeance against inveterate and incorrigible apostacy, may send forth His commission to some great and powerful nation, which, copying the example, and emulating the fame of the ancient Ro |