THE first thing that occurs is the call to repentance, (verse 12.) "In that day did the Lord of Hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth." theless, this is urged, with great propriety, | tical improvement we all ought to make as an argument for serving God with re- of it. verence and godly fear: for the means of purifying may be very painful in the mean time, and it is written, (Psalm xcix. 8.) "Though he forgives their sins, yet he will take vengeance of their inventions." The children of God may be assured of it, The day here referred to was a season that the rod shall not be withheld their of abounding iniquity, as we learn from own backslidings shall be made to reprove the first chapter of this book of prophecy, them; "for whom the Lord loveth he which begins with a heavy charge against chasteneth." And therefore they should the nation of the Jews, published with awserve God with reverence, that a moderate ful solemnity by God himself, in the folfurnace may suffice to purge away their lowing words: "Hear, O heavens, and dross, and that it may not become neces- give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath sary that God, for their correction, should spoken! I have nourished and brought wound their hearts in the tenderest part, up children, and they have rebelled against by taking from them their dearest earthly comforts, or withdrawing the light of his countenance utterly from them. "Wherefore we, receiving a kingdom that cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire." SERMON LX. me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my people do not consider. Ah, sinful nation! a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters. They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they have gone away backward." Accordingly the prophet, in bespeaking their attention to the message he was about to deliver, addressed them, in terms of severe reproach, (verse 10.) "Hear the words of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye peo Preached on a Public Fast-Day, in the time of ple of Gomorrah." And the lamentation the American War. THE ALARMING DENUNCIATION. ISAIAH morrow we shall die. And it was revealed in he utters, (verse 21.) shows with what justice and propriety those titles of ignominy were applied to them. "How is the faithful city become an harlot! It was full of judgment, righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water. Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves; every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards." Their boldness and impudence in sinning are particularly taken notice of, as high aggravations of their guilt, (chap. iii. verses 8, 9.) "The show of their countenance doth witness against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom; they hide it not. Their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eye of his glory." Neither was this accusation limited to the men in that age; for, Each of these particulars I shall briefly (ver. 16.) even the daughters of Zion are illustrate, and then point out our imme- represented as "haughty, walking with diate concern in the subject, and the prac-stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, THIS passage is introduced with a loud and pressing call to repentance. It describes the contemptuous behavior of the people to whom the call was addressed; | and concludes with an alarming denunciation of wrath against those perverse and obstinate transgressors. walking and mincing as they went," under | are no further acceptable than as they the cumbersome load of tinkling orna. truly express the sorrow and contrition ments, chains and bracelets, and the many of the heart, yet, in the case before us, other superfluous articles of dress, of which a catalogue is left on record from the 18th verse downward, till, at the 24th verse, the fantastic inventory is closed with that humiliating doom: "It shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell, there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle, a rent; and instead of well set hair, baldness; and burning instead of beauty." This leads me to mention another circumstance, by which the day referred to in my text is distinguished. It was a day of sore rebuke, as well as of abounding iniquity. "Look away from me," said the prophet, ver. 4 of this chapter, "I will weep bitterly, labor not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people; for it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity, by the Lord God of Hosts in the valley of vision." Such was the day in which the Lord God of Hosts did call to weeping and mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth, i. e. to the deepest humiliation on account of their sins, to the most unfeigned repentance, and amendment of life. That this is the true import of the call, appears from a similar exhortation, (Joel ii. 12.) where, after the Lord had given commandment to blow the trumpet in Zion, and to sound an alarm in his holy mountain, that all the inhabitants of the land might tremble in the prospect of that day of darkness and gloominess, which was soon to be spread over them; he addresses them in these words: "Turn ye even to me with all your heart, with weeping and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God." they are expressly required of that impudent and hard-hearted people, that as their tongue and their doings had been against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory, so their shame and sorrow might be proclaimed as openly as their sin, and their penitent return to God might be no less apparent than their proud and insolent revolt had been. Having made these remarks upon the import of the call, and the state of the Jews in the day it was published to them, let me now, II. Lead forward your attention to the account that is given us of the reception it met with, (ver. 13.) "And behold!" It is introduced, you see, with a note--what shall I call it ?-Whether doth it bespeak our admiration or astonishment? The object must surely be wonderful, either for beauty or deformity, to which the great God himself demands our attention with such solemnity. Say then, my brethren, were you not already acquainted with what follows, would you not expect to see a multitude of humble penitents, prostrate on the ground, and covered with sackcloth, while, with weeping and mourning, they say one to another, in the language of genuine repentance, "Come, and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up." But what do we really see? Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid. Instead of mourning and weeping, behold joy and gladness; instead of baldness and girding with sackcloth, behold every kind of riotous excess, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine. In every age, and in every climate, There is no room to suppose that they weeping and mourning are the natural ex- had given no attention to the message depressions of inward sorrow. In the eastern livered by the prophet. It would rather countries, and especially among the Jews, appear that they had attended to it with when grief rose to a great height, tears of accuracy, nay, studied its meaning, on lamentations were usually accompanied purpose to counteract it; for a contrast so with rending their clothes, plucking out minutely exact, a scheme of contradiction their hair, and covering their bodies with so completely adjusted, could hardly have sackcloth. And though these outward been stumbled upon by mere accident. signs are only the trappings of woe, which | And indeed the latter part of the verse puts this beyond all doubt. "Let us eat | cause I have purged thee, and thou wast and drink," said they, for to-morrow we not purged, thou shalt not be purged from shall die." thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee. I the Lord have spoken it, and it shall come to pass, and I will do it. I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent, saith the Lord God." We are not to imagine that these words were spoken seriously by one of those presumptuous and boasting rebels. The most daring amongst them must have been conscious, that the aspect of the king of terrors, at their most sumptuous entertainments, would leave them no appetite for flesh or wine. They meant it as a scoff, a witty saying, for turning into ridicule the warning they had received, but which they did not believe. The prophet hath been telling us of desolating judgments just at hand, and with the same breath he calls us to weeping, and mourning, and girding with sackcloth. How absurd, how unreasonably cruel is the demand! Will not the evil day come soon enough, though we should not anticipate the sorrows of it, by afflicting ourselves unnecessarily before its arrival? Nay, rather, if life is to be cut short, let us make the most of it while it lasts. If we must die to-morrow, let us eat and drink, and be merry to-day, and crowd into the few scanty hours that remain as much festivity and pleasure as we can. These wicked men had not only resisted the means of conviction, but they had perverted those means and extracted poison from the medicine intended for their cure. They drew iniquity with cords of vanity, and sinned as it were with a cart rope. By their scoffing reply to the call that was given them, in the name of the Lord God of Hosts, they said in effect, with insolent contempt and proud defiance, "Let him make speed and hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and The procome, that we may know it." phet therefore proclaims, as on the house top, what God had revealed in his ears, that from that time forward, vengeance should pursue those impious men, till, like their rebellious forefathers, whose carcasses fell fell in the wilderness, they should be utterly consumed from off the face of the earth. fore us. But what concern have we in these things? and what improvement shall we make of them? Surely it is not needful that I should lengthen out this picture of deformity in Thus have I endeavored briefly to illusall its dimensions. Its most distinguish-trate the several parts of the passage being features are abundantly obvious; and I am confident, that the few sketches I have given you, will suffice to render the generation it represents, the objects of contempt and abhorrence to all; those For an answer to these questions, I very persons not excepted, who, in the need only refer you to 1 Corinthians, portrait drawn for them, may perhaps chap. x. where, after reciting some of discover their own true likeness. For it those awful judgments which God had inis common enough to condemn with just, flicted upon his ancient church, the apostle though partial severity, the same faults in subjoins those memorable words, (verse 11.) others, which we easily forgive, nay cher-" Now all these things happened unto ish in ourselves. At any rate, I suppose none of us will be surprised to hear the alarming denunciation of wrath against those perverse and obstinate transgressors; which is the them for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. "The Lord is known by the judgments which he executes." God is always the same: with him there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. And therefore, in his past acts of government, as they are explained by his word, we behold a plan of righteous administration; from whence we may learn, with some degree of certainty,, what kind of treatment, in similar circumstances, we ourselves have reason to expect. They must know little of what passes in the world, who do not observe a very striking resemblance between the present state of our own nation and that of the Jews, in the day to which my text refers, Ingratitude to God, for the great things he hath done in our behalf, and for the distinguishing privileges we have long enjoyed, is too apparent to require any proof. Our deliverance from popery at the Reformation, and the full establishment of our civil and religious liberties at the Revolution; these marvellous doings of the Lord are either forgotten by many, as a dead man out of mind, or at least remembered with cold indifference; nay, treated with marks of disaffection by some, while the character of those illustrious men, whom God honored to be the instruments in bringing about those glorious events, have been canvassed with the utmost severity of criticism, and under the specious pretext of candor and impartiality, set forth to public view in the most unfavorable light. Have not vice and immorality grown up among us to an amazing height? Do not multitudes proclaim their sins as Sodom; and, instead of hiding them, do they not rather glory in their shame, as if they accounted it an honor to excel in one species of wickednesss or another? I do not aggravate the charge: every one's observation may convince him of the truth of it. Is there not a visible and growing contempt of the blessed gospel? Are not its ordinances despised by some, and profaned by others; nay, is it not by many deemed a mark of superior genius to reject the whole of divine revelation as a cunningly devised fable, and to employ all their influence in proselyting others to their opinion? often republished, and as often refuted? Now, union is the strength of the religious, as well as of the civil community; and there is reason to fear that God will suffer that candlestick to be removed from among us, about which we quarrel and fight with one another, instead of walking by the light it affords, and performing the work which was given us to do. I shall not waste any part of your time upon the mere triflers of either sex, who literally walk in a vain show, and ought rather to be regarded as the scenery or decorations of the theatre, than as actors sustaining any character upon the stage. Yet even they, light as they may seem, make some addition to the load of national guilt, as we learn from the passage respecting the daughters of Zion, in the third chapter of this prophecy, which I formerly quoted. Enough has been said to prove, that we are a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, and that the call to repentance is proper and seasonable, and belongs to the very day in which our lot is cast. Indeed our very meeting together in this place is a public acknowledgment of it. For what purpose are we convened by royal authority? Is it not that we may humble ourselves before Almighty God, and send up our prayers and supplications to the divine Majesty, for obtaining par don of our sins, and for averting those heavy judgments which our manifold provocations have most justly deserved? Thus far we may be assured, that the call of the Lord of Hosts hath been distinctly and faithfully echoed from the throne. And lest, after all, we should turn a deaf ear to his voice, the Lord of Hosts hath written the same call upon the face of providence, in characters so legible, that they must be worse than blind who do not read and understand them. The little cloud, like a man's hand, that arose a few years ago on the other side of the Atlantic, hath ever since been increasing both in size and in blackness. What small success attends the preaching of the gospel even among those who profess to believe? Into how many sects and parties are they divided? With Our envious and deceitful neighbors, what zeal do they build up their walls of who, by secret artifice, have endeavorpartition? With what animosity do they ed from the beginning to keep the uncontend for their own peculiarities, as happy breach open between Great Britain points of new and important discovery, and her colonies, have at length laid aside though in fact most of them might lay the mask, and are now straining every claim to a very ancient date, have been nerve to spread the desolations of war through the whole extent of the British | context. They used every precaution to empire. put their city into a proper state of deThe sword that was drawn for coercion fence. They inspected their magazines, abroad, now finds employment for self- they repaired the breaches in their walls, defence at home; and the measures hith- and provided large store of water for a erto pursued have been so ineffectual, siege. In all this they acted wisely, and that after much expense of blood and did no more than was their duty. But treasure, we may say with the Jews in the herein lay their fault, (verse 11.) they redays of Jeremiah, (chap. xiv. 19.) "We lied upon the preparations for the safety looked for peace, and there is no good; of Jerusalem, and "did not look unto the and for the time of healing, and behold Maker thereof, neither had respect unto trouble." him that fashioned it long ago. What shall we say to these things? Do they bear no impression of God's holy and righteous displeasure? "Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? Will a young lion cry in his den, if he hath taken nothing? Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? Shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all? Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? The lion hath roared, who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophecy?" Our own wickedness is made to correct us, and our backslidings reprove us, that we may know and see what an evil thing it is, and bitter, that we have forsaken the Lord our God. This, my brethren, is the primary aim of all God's corrections. He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men; but when transgressors will not learn the malignity of sin by gentler means, then he causes them to feel the evil of it in the bitterness of affliction. Hence it appears, that temporal judgments are acts of mercy as well as of justice, especially when they are of such a nature as to bear the stamp and signature of those sins which are the cause of them. Till we discern the hand of God in the sufferings that befall us, we shall never have recourse to the true and the only effectual remedy. When public measures are defeated, we shall sometimes blame the contrivance, and at other times the execution; but still we shall look to the creature for help, and place our trust in the arm of flesh. This was an express article of indictment against the Jews in the preceding I have therefore endeavored to lead your attention to God himself, and to trace up all the penal evils we feel to the several instances of our criminal departure from him, as their true origin and source; and though perhaps I may have erred in the illustration of particulars, yet I cannot help thinking that the general truth will appear with sufficient evidence, that our own backslidings are reproving us, and that we ourselves have made the rod with which we are smitten. By this time we may all see our concern in this subject, and the improvement we ought to make of it. It is righteousness alone that exalteth a nation. Repentance towards God, flowing from faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, is the only effectual means for preventing the ruin of a sinful people. Without this we may obtain a temporary respite from punishment; but the clouds will return again after the rain; and all the while we are filling up the measure of our iniquity, the consumption is advancing, and every day we draw nearer and nearer to dissolution. Whereas, if we accept of the punishment of our iniquity, and put away from us those evil doings which provoke the Lord to jealousy, then may we hope that he will return to us in mercy, and rejoice over us to bless us and to do us good; according to that encouraging promise, (Jer. xviii. 7.) "At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy; if that nation, against which I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.' It is this which should always give check to any desponding thoughts. We have but ONE to please, ONE whose favor |