neral complaints make them, and, what is not the cafe

that we were not able to clear up the matter, or anfwer it reconcileably with God's justice and providence ;—what shall we infer ?Why, the most becoming conclufion is, that it is one inftance more, out of many others, of our ignorance.—Why should this, or any other religious difficulty he cannot comprehend,why fhould it alarm him more than ten thousand other difficulties, which every day elude his most exact and attentive search ?—————Does not the meanest flower in the field, or the smallest blade of grass, baffle the understanding of the most penetrating mind?-Can the deepest inquiries after nature tell us, upon what particular fize and motion of parts, the various colours and tastes of vegetables depend; why one fhrub is laxative,-another reftringent ;-why arfenic or hellebore fhould lay wafte this noble frame of ours, or opium lock up all the inroads to our fenfes, and plunder us in fo merciless a manner, of reason and understanding ?. Nay, have not the most obvious things that come in our way, dark fides, which the quickest fight cannot penetrate into? and do not the clearest and most exalted understandings. find themselves puzzled, and at a lofs, in every particle of matter?

Go then, proud man!-and when thy head turns giddy with opinions of thy own wisdom, that thou wouldft correct the meafures of the Almighty, go then, take a full view of thyself in this glass ;— confider thy own faculties,how narrow and imperfect; how much they are chequered with truth and falfehood; how little arrives at thy know.

ledge, and how darkly and confufedly thou difcerneft even that little, as in a glass :-confider the be ginnings and endings of things, the greatest and the fmallest, how they all confpire to baffle thee;-and which way ever thou profecuteft thy inquiries, what fresh fubjects of amazement,and what fresh reasons to believe there are more yet behind, which thou canft never comprehend. Confider —these are but part of his ways. How little a portion is heard of him! Canft thou by searching find out God;-Wouldst thou know the Almighty to perfection? It is as high as heaven, what canft thou do? It is deeper than hell, how canft thou know it?

Could we but fee the myfterious workings of Providence, and were we able to comprehend the whole plan of his infinite wifdom and goodnefs which poffibly may be the cafe in the final confummation of all things ;—those events, which we are now so perplexed to account for, would probably exalt and magnify his wisdom, and make us cry out with the Apostle, in that rapturous exclamation,O! the depth of the riches both of the goodness and wisdom of God!-how unfearchable are his ways, and his paths past finding out!

Now, to God, &c,

SERMON XLV.

The Ingratitude of Ifrael.

For fo it was

2 KINGS XVII. 7.

–that the children of Israel had finned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt.

THE words of the text account for the cause of a fad calamity, which is related, in the foregoing verses, to have befallen a great number of Ifraelites, who were surprised in the capital city of Samaria, by Hofea King of Affyria, and cruelly carried away by him out of their own country, and placed on the defolate frontiers of Hala, and in Haber by the river Gozan, and in the eity of the Medes, and there confined to end their days in forrow and captivity.Upon which the facred hiftorian, instead of accounting for fo fad an event merely from political springs and causes, such, for inftance, as the fuperior :ftrength and policy of the enemy, or an unfeafonable provocation given, or that proper measures of defence were neglected;-he traces it up, in one

word, to its true caufe; For fo it was, fays he, that the children of Ifrael had finned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt.-It was furely a fufficient foundation to dread fome evil, that they had finned against that Being who had an unquestionable right to their obedience.-But what an aggravation was it, that they had not only finned fimply against the truth, but against the God of mercies,-who had brought them forth out of the land of Egypt ;-who not only created, upheld, and favoured them with fo many advantages in common with the rest of their fellowcreatures, but who had been particularly kind to them in their misfortunes:-who, when they were in the house of bondage, in the moft hopelefs condition, without a prospect of any natural means of redrefs, had compaffionately heard their cry, and took pity upon the afflictions of a diftreffed people,-and by a chain of miracles delivered them from fervitude and oppreffion;-miracles of fo ftupendous a nature. that I take delight to offer them, as often as I have an opportunity, to your devoteft contemplations?This you would think as high and as complicated an aggravation of their fins as could be urged.This was not all;for, befides God's goodness, in first favouring their miraculous efcape, a series of fucceffes, not to be accounted for from fecond cauíes, and the natural courfe of events, had crowned their heads in fo remarkable a manner, as to afford an evi-dent proof, not only of his general concern for their welfare, but of his particular providence and attachment to them above all people upon earth. In the Vol. VI. M.

wilderness he led them like fheep,-and kept them as the apple of his eye;—he suffered no man to de them wrong, but reproved even kings for their fake. -When they entered into the promifed land,-no force was able to ftand before them :—when in poffeffion of it,—no army was able to drive them out; and, in a word, nature, for a time, was driven backwards to ferve them; and even the fun itself had flood fill in the midst of heaven to fecure their vicTorles.

A people with fo many teftimonies of God's favour, who had not profited thereby fo as to become a virtuous people, must have been utterly corrupt;— and fo they were. And it is likely from the many fpecimens they had given in Mofes's time, of a difpofition to forget God's benefits; and upon every trial, to rebel against him,—he forefaw they would certainly prove a thankless and unthinking people, extremely inclined to go aftray and do evil;-and therefore if any thing was likely to bring them back to themselves, and to confider the evils of their mifdoings, it must be the dread of fome temporal calamity, which, he prophetically threatened, would one day or other befal them ;—hoping, no doubt,— that if no principle of gratitude could make them an obedient people,—at least they might be wrought upon by the terror of being reduced back again by the fame all-powerful hand to their firft diftreffed condition; which, in the end, did actually overtake them.-For, at length, when neither the alternatives of promifes or threatenings,-when neither rewards or corrections,comforts or actions,