Class __£3J4l. 
 Book __JL73_ 
 
GOD 
 
 PLEADING 
 
 WITH 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 A SERMON*, 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE LATE 
 
 FAST DAY, 
 
 RECOMMENDED BY THE AMERICAN CHURCHES AND 
 BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE U. STATES. 
 ( 
 
 — " — — ■ ■ ■ ' n ■ 
 
 BY ARTHUR JOSEPH STANSBUKY, 
 
 MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL- 
 
 GOSHEN, NY. 
 
 PRIJVTEJ) BY T B. CROWELL. 
 
 181!?. 
 
 
Sfl 
 
 Mo 
 
 State 
 
 ntgomery, County of Orange and\ 
 teof Neio York, Sept. 1 1 ; 1813. J 
 
 REV. AND DEAR SIR, 
 
 The Session of your Churchy anx- 
 ious for the promotion of truth in the present alarm- 
 ing state of our Country, and -willing to make eve- 
 ry proper exertion for that end, request for public 
 cation, a copy of the Sermon preached by you at 
 Graham's Church, on the late Fast Day recommen- 
 ded by our General Synod and by the President of 
 the Unued States. 
 
 Rev. Arthur J. Stansbury, 
 
 ?&/y 
 
A SERMON, &c. 
 
 AMOS IV. 10 13. 
 
 " I HAVE sent among 1 you the pestilence after the manner of E- 
 gyp f . : your young 1 men have I slain with the sword, and have taken 
 awav your horses ; and I have made the stink of your camps to come 
 up unto your nostrils : yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the 
 Lord. 
 
 " I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and 
 Gomerrah, and ye were as a fire-brand plucked out of the burning ; 
 yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. 
 
 " Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel ; and because I 
 will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. 
 
 " For lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, 
 and declareth unto man what is his thought, and maketh the morn- 
 ing darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, the 
 Lord, the God of hosts is his name." 
 
 HE man is a fool, or worse, who would shut 
 out God from the government of his own world. 
 A fool, to suppose that he who called the universe 
 into being by his word, and who upholds it with 
 his hand, should not control its motions and gov- 
 ern what he has made. Worse than a fool, if the 
 opinion has passed from the head to the heart ; if 
 he " hath said in his heart, No God." Bad as 
 the state of the world is, it would be ten thou- 
 sand times worse could we believe the world left 
 tp, itself, abandoned by us maker, and delivered 
 
4 
 
 lip to whatever fearful /esults its folly or i'S sin 
 miqht produce. A Chri>tain has other view a>d 
 other consolations He adopts a nobler, more 
 Consistent, more enlarged, more e lightened phi- 
 losophy ; and while his infidel neighbour attri- 
 bute every thing to c nee. and i thrown, for 
 all the present and for ail the future, upon mere 
 contingency, or what is worse, upon the unres- 
 trained will of iniul men, the Christain 
 
 " Sees a God employ'd 
 " In all the good and ill that checker life." 
 
 £ut if we admit the interference of a governor^ 
 and believe that governor to be righteous, we (.an- 
 not avoid the idea of a moral government, end 
 must suppose some connexion between natural 
 and moral evil, between suffering and sin. 
 Then connexion in even particular instance, in<* 
 deed, we need not expect to trace ; but the ge- 
 nera! notion we must admit. The dealing of 
 God with men is a system of discipline, c«lcula* 
 te r; in its own nature to instruct and reform them; 
 and if, under its infliction, they remain unin-« 
 structed and unreformed, their guilt becomes ag- 
 gravated in proportion as this discipline has beea 
 St^onglv marked and long continued. These pnn-. 
 ciples are lain ; they run throughout the Bible; 
 the. are applied to Gemile and to Jevv ; but for 
 obvious reasons they apply with most force to 
 
•'I 
 
 those who have most light Whoever are favored 
 with r.h Word of God have the best hefp [•:; the 
 understanding of his providence ; and if the) shut 
 their eyes to the one and their ears against the 
 other they need not wonder if God make i heir 
 do', m qual to their pcrverseness Nations are 
 viewed bv him a.s persons, and all the principles 
 which regulate his treatment of individual men 
 regulate his government of men as, collected in 
 masses and bound together by political or other 
 ties. 
 
 Amos appeared among the nations of the west 
 of Asia as a messenger of general woe. Upon 
 Syria, upon Palestine, on Tyre, on Edom, on 
 Ammon, on Moab, he denounces in succession 
 the sentence of hi^ God : and then, turning to 
 the chosen tribes, he rises in the severity of his 
 rebukes, and in a strain of lofty and penetrating 
 eloquence that speaks us own original, he upbraids 
 them with their national mgrati ude, recounts the 
 mercies of God, sets their crimes before <heir 
 face, and warns them of accumulated and desola- 
 ting judgments. He spoke to men who would 
 not hear. I he kingdom oi Issaelhad stood fof 
 more than two centuries since its separation from, 
 Judah under the first Jeroboam, and was now at 
 the hei_h( of i; temporal grandeur But alas 3 
 with most nations, the meridian of wealth and 
 
power is the midnight of profligate security. A- 
 m ,s thundered in their ears the thrt atemngs of 
 Jehovah, but they set his message at naught; and 
 though the cup of the djvine wtath was passing a- 
 roundthem from people to people, they said in the 
 pride and infatuation of their heart ' it shall not 
 come nigh us.' They were mistaken. It came, and 
 thev drank the dregs of it, and wrung them out. 
 The warnings of the prophet had hardly ceased to 
 vibrate on their ears, before the nation fell into a 
 state of anarchy. Duin.g an apparent interreg- 
 num of eleven years they seem to have been aban- 
 doned to general confusion, and when at length 
 the government was restored unto Zachariah, the 
 national miseries still continued. Conspiracy suc- 
 ceeded to conspiracy One usurper after another 
 seized the regal power. i'hrough five successive 
 reigns the judgments of God continued to pursue 
 them, until all former and lesser evils were swal- 
 lowed up in the overthrow and final destruction of 
 the kingdom of the Assyrian conqueror. Then, 
 it may be, the words of their rejected prophet 
 came to remembrance, and compelled by their ru- 
 inous accomplishment that regard which had been 
 demanded in vain by their wofulness and their au- 
 thority. " I will slay the last of them with the 
 3word. He that fleeth of them shall not flee a- 
 way ; and he that escapeth of them shall not be 
 
7 
 
 delivered. Though they dig into hell, thencfc 
 shall mine hand take them ; though they climb up 
 to heaven, thence will I bring them down : and 
 though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, 
 I will search and take them out thence; and tho' 
 they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, 
 thence will I command the serpent, and he shall 
 bite them : and though they go into captivity be- 
 fore their enemies, thence will I command the 
 •word and it shall slay them ; and I will set mine 
 eyes upou them for evil, and not for good. And 
 the Lord God of hosts is he that toucheth the 
 land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein 
 shall mourn ; and it shall rise up wholly like a 
 flood, and shall be drowned as by the flood of 
 Egypt." But wherefore such a vehemence of 
 wrath ? Because they were a nation pre-eminent- 
 ly favoured : because God had long pled with them 
 by his messengers; because his providence toward 
 tfhem had been so peculiarly marked as to constrain 
 their notice : because they had despised both mer- 
 cies and judgments, and under the clearest light, 
 and all the opportunities and means of repentance 
 hau ;emained incorrigible. 
 
 Is there in all this no lesson for America ? I do 
 riot say that the cases of the two nations are exact- 
 ly parallel > God forbid that my country should 
 he so near the time of her rejection and judgment ; 
 
s 
 
 but are thev not at least smiilar ? so similar, that 
 the voids of the text, in their spirit, and almost 
 in the 11 very form, will apply to our own land ? 
 
 That vvcare a nation which has been highly fa- 
 voured by God, no man but an atheist will deny. 
 Who enriched this land with all the means of life, 
 watered it with fertilizing streams, indulged it with 
 a. genial soil and temperate climate, fitted it for 
 internal and for external commerce, stored it with 
 the materials for manufactures, and all the muni- 
 tion of defence? Who conducted our fathers 
 hither over the trackless deep, preserved them from 
 surrounding dangers, and blessed their industry ? 
 When threatened with oppression, who gave them 
 one heart and one soul, united their council , and 
 combined their stiength in resisting wrong? When 
 dangers thickened around them, who placed a pa- 
 triot and a hero at the head of their little armies, 
 and giving to his magnanimity its noblest reward, 
 made him the political saviour oi his native land ? 
 Who gathered us into a nation, endowed us with 
 civil and religious liberty, relived our finances 
 from embarrassment, streangthened us by foreign 
 treaties, blessed the labour of the husbandman, 
 spread our sails in every sea, changed our wilaer- 
 ness into fruitful fields, and covered our plains and 
 rivers with villages and towns? Who fostered 
 our infant seminaries of learning, sent among tt^ 
 
.9 
 
 the messengers of his gospel, multiplied our chim 
 ches and watered them by his spint? While hu- 
 rope was convulsed to ts centre and drcched in 
 blood, while Asia was in barbarism and Africa in 
 chains, who made favoured America the envy of 
 the world ? While Continental Europe was wor- 
 shipping i he Virgin and the Pope, while Turkey 
 wa^ kneeling to Mahomet, Per>ia worshipping the 
 S -n, Tartary the Lama, India sacrificing to Jug- 
 gernaut, China bowing before ner Jo>, and all 
 Africa worshipping thcdcil and the stars, on our 
 distinguished shores the light of the knowledge of 
 the glory of God in the face of Jesus i hns -hone 
 resplendent for a century, and still shines. The 
 highest blessing for the sout crowned all the bles- 
 sings for the bod), and to every varied com', rt 
 of this life was added God s unfailing provision 
 for the life to come. 
 
 Under so many and so great fa\ ours, what has 1 
 been our return ? We have forgotten our deli- 
 verer, offended our fatier, provoked our God. 
 Large sections of our country have long been no- 
 torious for the contempt of his truth, others for 
 the corruption of it, and all for open breaches of 
 his iaw. 5o little did we think of his bible, that 
 we did not hesitate to put the helm of our public 
 affairs into the hands of a man whu disbelieved it, 
 and who published his disbelief of it to ail the 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 world. Deistical societies have been openly form- 
 ed, and the most scurrilous of all the libels on 
 the scriptures has been printed and sold, and 
 printed again ; its blasphemies have been fashion- 
 able among the voung and its dreary Atheism the 
 refuge of grey hairs. The infidel philosophy of 
 Europe has spread among our literary men and 
 infects our literary works. he great code of our 
 civil order, our most solemn national act, contains 
 no allubion to our deliverance or our deliverer 
 nor any trace by which it can be known whether 
 America worships one god, or twenty gods, or no 
 god at all. And (worse than all !) this is avowed, 
 is advocated, is boasted of by men professing 
 Christianity. But it will be said there are irreli- 
 gious men in all societies, the bulk of all commu- 
 nities consist of men who do not profess to be re- 
 ligious, and those who rule especially, are every 
 where notorious for impiety. A miserable apo- 
 logy ! But let us then turn to the religious world. 
 And. here are we guiltless? Is it not a fact that 
 the deit\ of the Son of God is not only doubted 
 but openly denied in this land? Has not the 
 heresy of that Arius whose bowels God shed up- 
 on the ground found its sanctuary among the des- 
 cendants of the puritans? Nay, has not Socini- 
 ani Si itselfg which not only denies his divinity, but" 
 denies his pre-existence altogether, denies his rrii 
 
11 
 
 i 
 
 raculous conception, and makes him a man like 
 other men, the son of Joseph and Mary. Has not 
 this blasphemy raised its head in our laud, and have 
 not its preachers been aided in erecting the temple 
 of error by members of churches sound in the pro- 
 fession of the faith ? Is not a sect which denies or 
 explains away his imputed righteousuess spread o- 
 ver our land from Maine to Georgia, and are they 
 not boasting of converts by thousands ? Has the 
 bloody mother of abominations no footing on our 
 shoii ;? Has she not five churches in one citv 
 and sixteen thousand members in another ? and 
 is she not pursuing her old and successful policy 
 in establishing seminaries for our youth ? Has 
 not a new-fangled combination of errors become 
 the fashionable religion of a large district of our 
 country, and is it not spreading like a pestilence 
 from minister to minister, from church to church, 
 from pre-bytery to presbytery ? A system which 
 without ceremony affirms God to be M the effi- 
 cient agent, the great first cause of all sin ;" which 
 denies the imputation of our sins to Christ, asserts 
 that no man can be a Christian who is not Willing 
 to be damned, and allows us to ask no blessing 
 but one for Christ's sake. 
 
 But let us look at the orthodox. How is disci- 
 pline administered, and how is it received ? Are 
 not whole sections of the church openly neglect 
 
12 
 
 iuJ of the correction of offences ? and where 
 the fa I i otherwi e are not church memi ers 
 restiff under the di cipline which our divine 
 .Head and Lawgiver has appointed ? Are not fu- 
 gitives from one church welcomed and counten- 
 anced in another ? — How does mer'ca support 
 the Ministry ? Does she not give them the op- 
 tion either to leave their studies < nd their flocks to 
 labour for their daily bread, or by accumulating 
 a load of debt to distract and buidet their spirit for 
 the >e.zi o! h ir dav ? I know there are honora- 
 ble exceptions; it is my happiness to anjo) ne of 
 them; but I now speak generally. Is it a (act that 
 the American churches make comfortable provision 
 for ; eir pastors, that they furnish it in season* and 
 without grudging? What prospect have these 
 pastors for old age? What can they do for their 
 children ? — Seminaries have been attempted for 
 the education of our pious youth ; do the church- 
 es in general do anv thing respecting these seminar 
 xies but praise them ? What is the state of fami- 
 ly religion ? Of those who stand up before Cod, 
 and in the face of his church, in the hearing of 
 their families and with a living offering in their 
 arms vow to observe farm!) -worship, what pro- 
 portion keep their vow; 01 in how many in an- 
 ces does not the c mduct of ttie parent demon- 
 strate Lo iheii children that in their lather's estima-. 
 
. 
 
 13 
 
 tion promises (those at least made to God) mav be 
 broken at pleasure, and that baptismal vow% an 
 be nothing to ;hem, since they are evidently no- 
 thing o him ? Oh Israel, how canst tnou say I 
 am -.lean, I have done no iniquity ! 
 
 From such things in the church let us tain to 
 the naii. v We are, at least we once were, a 
 commerjeial nation. As such, how have we kept 
 thi> commandment, Si Thou - hair not covet?' or 
 this, ' . hou shalt not steal ? or this, " i hpa 
 sbalt not take the name A' the Lord thy God in 
 vam? Where is the Custom House from the 
 St Croix to the St. Mary's, in which the name of 
 God is not a foot hall and a jes ? Who find.s a- 
 ny difficulty in getting pioperty covered., talse 
 oaths, false papery false signatures and ail ? — 
 May mon erected at the sea his throne oi goidj 
 and Mich throngs- of worshippers pressed to sacri- 
 fice at his shrine, that the) setmed ready to contend 
 who should the most devotedly make a burnt -of- 
 fering of their conscience and ruin their souls in his 
 service. There is not a form undes which dishon-. 
 esty could appear that it has not assumed in our 
 community : insomuch that it may be truly said 
 thi eighth command has no where been more in- 
 gem -u ly broken. To whe; od.ei of the com- 
 mandments she i v. . < k ? is it to the >ixth ? A- 
 menca is a land ot aueis. ihc soldier views his 
 
u 
 
 ^word with a blu<h till he has flesh'd it in the bQ- 
 som-ofa friend; his epaulette has no brilliancy till 
 it is brightened with a widow's tear. The judge 
 takes a pride in breaking the law it was his place 
 to guard, the barrister in breaking the law it was 
 his profession to study, and both receive the plau- 
 dits of their country for trampling on the united, 
 authority of God and man. Murder? The land 
 is juH of murderers. I speak not of the assassict- 
 who lays wait by night. I speak of him who mur- 
 ders at noon day ; who drags his miserable vic- 
 tim publicly to the slaughter house, and whiie it 
 cries for merev continues to repeat his blow till by 
 Gtern and rathless perseverance ne destroys the 
 last feeble remains of life. Such a murderer is t^e 
 drunkard, and the victim, alas ! is his own soul. 
 Sixty Stills in one single county furnish :he means 
 of death one svould think in abundance, but there 
 is a cry for more, and it drowns the voice of abu_ 
 sed wives and naked children that rise with it to 
 heaven. Do we turn to the fourth command- 
 ment ? At this very session of congress a law has 
 been passed authorising the breach of it, and pre- 
 scribing the penalty on such as refuse to break it. 
 I refer to the law regulating the post offices, per- 
 mitting the travelling of the mail, and compelling 
 all post master, to deliver letter and new pj pers 
 on the SaDbath day, on pain of the loss of oftce,. 
 
is 
 
 Nay, our national representatives have not only 
 com nanded us the breach of the Lord'., day, but 
 the ive set us themselves the example. Again 
 an again have they sat as a congress on that day 
 —an .1 this in the face of the remonstrances and the 
 Withdrawal of a few, whose eloquence was by such 
 an a angement silenced without the trouble of ar- 
 gument, and their votes conveniently dispensed 
 with. And do we ask how the people have thriven 
 in such a school ? go for an answer to our steam- 
 boats and our livery-stables on Sabbath morning, 
 to our news-offices on Sabbath noon, to our pub- 
 lic gardens on Sabbath evening. 
 
 * We are a free people. But is there no slave- 
 ry in our land ? Yes, there is slavery : grinding, 
 merciless, wicked slavery ; and, strange to tell, 
 where the cry for liberty is loudest it is mingled 
 with the clank of fetters and the sounding lash of 
 the overseer. Cargoes of human flesh and bones 
 still leave the wretched coasts of the old world, and 
 find a ready market here. But the miserable vic- 
 tims come, however, to a Christian land, they 
 come, of course, to be pitied and enlightened. 
 Would it were so ! But we know better. We 
 know that the Christian teacher, nay, even the 
 harmless schoolmaster, though received as an an- 
 
 ne two following paragraphs were through inadvertence omit- 
 ted in the delivery of the diseoursei 
 
16 
 
 gel by the slaves, is frowned upon, is repulsed, is 
 bervecuted b) the master. 
 
 We are a free people. But has our liberty ne- 
 vet been abused. Has not the happy freedom of 
 our government, instead of binding us together 
 as brethren, generated a spirit of party which 
 knows no bounds and will brook no restraint ? 
 D" - not this spirit interpose its dividing force be- 
 tv\ en the nearest relations of life and sever the 
 most sacred ties which unite men to each other ? 
 Is not this sitting brother against, brother^ Christian 
 (oh shame!) against Christain, parting friend 
 from friend, and breeding destructive jealousies 
 b ecu ministers and people? Nay, is it not op- 
 era ing among us on a gigantic scale, and produ- 
 cing i exults which make true patriots of all parties 
 ile for then country ? In this land of equal 
 rigl i have not men unconvicted by any law, 
 be< driven like cattle through the public greets, 
 lo-. led with insults, covered with wounds, shut up 
 in ti < common prison, and thence brought forth 
 for i' e slaughter ? Lias hot an \merican city been 
 polluted with blood thus unrighteously shed, while 
 t ■ was silenced and overaweu, and trembling 
 
 ju . ; fawned upon crime? Ha not this spirit 
 01 i almost driven truth from oui land? Mas 
 it not made our ubhc p ini a public nuisance? 
 The tune has c^me when even official statements 
 
17 
 
 are to be received with caution. The long accus- 
 tomed channels through which truth has flowed to 
 the community begin to shift, are no longer safe, 
 and our credence must slowly make its way with 
 the sounding. line in its hand. On certain sub- 
 jects we all seem to have agreed to forget with one, 
 accord that it is written " Thou shalt not bear 
 false witness against thy neighbour." And now^ 
 brethren, shall I proceed ? Need I call up our 
 race-grounds, our theatres, our lottery-offices, our 
 brothels ? or has not enough been said to bring 
 the blush upon our cheek and to humble us this 
 day before God ? To this catalogue of public 
 crimes let every man bring the secret list of his own 
 sins, of sins within his personal knowledge, of sins 
 which pass daily before his eyes, and then let him 
 ask his soul whether a fast is out of season. 
 
 Thus have we requited God. His dealing with 
 us, in the mean while, has been that of a father 
 with a refractory and disobedient child. This na- 
 tion is a child before God. With him a thousand 
 years are but as yesterday when it is passed, or as 
 a watch in the night; and our nation is not yet 
 forty years old : But ah, how old are we already 
 in corruption ! God has treated us with much 
 tenderness, yet with a discipline gradually pro- 
 ceeding from one degree of severity to another. 
 He has « sent us the pestilence after the manner of 
 
18 
 
 Egypt." It has entered our populous cities, cut 
 down the ^toung and the aged, the base and the 
 honourable together : the most skilful of our phy- 
 sicians have themselves become its prey, and all 
 the resources of their knowledge have been appli- 
 ed in vain to check its progress. The country 
 long thought itself safe, but God has written vani- 
 ty upon this confidence, and commanded his des- 
 troyers to go throughout the land. We ha\ e seen 
 our most valued neighbours drop one after ano- 
 ther into the grave, and our breaches are not yet 
 healed. From the country it passed to the camp. 
 The commissioned angel walked among our ar- 
 mies, traversed our frontiers, and wherever he 
 passed he left the dead behind. The pestilence 
 was soon succeeded first by the decline and at 
 length by the ruin of our commercial prosperity. 
 And here the Lord touched us to the quick. We 
 had long been profiting ,by the calamities of Eu- 
 rope j the wealth of the various quarters of the 
 world floated into our harbours wi*h every wind; 
 our merchants were like princes. But God turn 
 ed first one ravager and then another upon us. 
 They mocked at our feebleness, they trampled 
 upon our rights, they sported with our property. 
 And after thus retrenching our gains by foreign 
 violence, he at length completed their destruction 
 bv our own hands. The busy hum of men has 
 
19 
 
 ceased f r om our harbours, the roar of commerce 
 with her hundred wheels is now but faintly heard, 
 and our mariners are gone to seek their bread in 
 other lands. 
 
 Then God kindled alarming fires in our cities, 
 and in one the text was almost literally fulfilled : 
 " I have overthrown some of you as God over- 
 threw Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a 
 fire-brand plucked out of the burning." Have we 
 forgotton the catastrophe at Richmond ? How 
 suddenly were the haunts of sinful pleasure turn- 
 ed into a furnace of judgment, and the temple of 
 folly with all her thoughtless votaries made a 
 smouldering ruin ! After the fires came storms 
 upon our sea-board ; and scarcely had these fin- 
 ished their commission by strewing our coast with 
 the wrecks of ships and the dead bodies of their 
 crews, when they were followed by earthquakes 
 along all our southern and western border. The 
 concussions of the earth were violent, protracted 
 beyond example, and of such frequent recurrence 
 that numbers abandoned their homes, and the 
 most inconsiderate and hardened began to pause 
 and to tremble. Neighbouring cities were engulf- 
 ed in destruction, ours were mercifully spared. 
 
 All this, one would think, was a course of the di- 
 vine procedure sufficiently marked to awaken and 
 to warn us, But we would not be instructed : Be 
 
20 
 
 ing often reproved we hardened our necks ; until, 
 after long deferring, and often respiting us, God 
 has at length stretched out his hand in wrath & we 
 are plunged in the horrors of war. The justice 
 or necessity of the war I am not now going to 
 discuss. The war is here, and our business to- 
 day is to view ii as the judgment of God; which 
 every war, while it lasts, certainly is, whatever be 
 its origin or end. A load of national debt, and 
 of consequent taxes ; the destruction of morals oc- 
 casioned by military service ; the tearing of our 
 youth fr^m all who loved and were united io 
 them ; the sickliness of a camp ; the danger of bat- 
 tle, the miseries of captivity ; these, certainly are 
 not public or private blessings. They are indeed 
 the necessary concomitants of the most successful 
 war, and may in some measure be compensated 
 by splendid victories, important acquisitions, and 
 permanem national aggrandizement. But where 
 are the equivalents, where the national aggran- 
 dizement here ? The war has been little else than 
 a series of disasters. The flower of our youth 
 have fallen : two armies are gone into captivity : 
 a territory is lost : our coast is ravaged : we have 
 spent fifty millions of dollars : and what is gain- 
 ed ? We are a divided people, and our divisions 
 grow daily more alarming. What is in reserve for 
 us time alone can reveal. The purposes of God 
 
21 
 
 hang in dread uncertainty. Chastened us he cer- 
 tainly has, and that in various ways, " yet we have 
 not returned unto him." Under like circumstan- 
 ces what says he to his own chosen Israel? "There- 
 fore thus will I do unto thee O Israel, and because 
 I will do tlus unto thee, therefore prepare to meet 
 thy God, O Israel." His purpose towards them 
 is here covered with that dreadful obscurity which 
 they well knew contained the heaviest judgments. 
 For the Jews, to this day, dread no threaienings 
 lnVe such aS are thus significantly and purposely in- 
 definite. Such a threatening the Lord Jesus utter- 
 ed to the chutch of Sardis before its utter destruc- 
 tion. " If therefore thou shaltnot watch, I will 
 come on thee as a thief, and thou shah not know 
 die hour that I will come upon thee." And what 
 is Sardis this day ? A desolation. The turban of 
 the Janizary is seen on her plains like the white 
 crest of the eagle in the desert, and wherever he 
 is seen he is passing to his prey. — And where are 
 now the tribes to whom Amos was sent ? Lost a- 
 mong the millions of Asia, They went forth into 
 captivity, they, their kings, their priests and their 
 princes together. The delicate woman uncover- 
 ed the thigh md passed over the rivers; their 
 mighty men were without strength, their elders 
 without honour. 1 hey were led far from their 
 border, they returned no more to the land of their 
 
22 
 
 fathers' sepulchres, but remained to mourn among 
 the heathen and to die by the waters of Chelar. 
 
 And oh America, is not this thy God also ? Is 
 his arm shortened that it cannot reach thee? lz 
 he not still "he that formeth the mountains, and 
 createth the wind, and declareth unto man what 
 is his thought, and maketh the morning darkness, 
 and treadeth upon the high places of the earth ? 
 the Lord, the God of hosts is his name." Are we 
 so fortified in safety that we may deride his voice 
 and set at naught all his reproof? Has he not a- 
 risen out of his place to plead with the inhabitants 
 of the earth for their iniquity ? Has he not over- 
 turned kingdom after kingdom, and is not Europe 
 afloat with blood? Where, I ask, is our pledge 
 of security ? Have no free governments ever pe- 
 rished in a revolution ? Have no republic, been 
 first divided and then subdued ? Have none of 
 them fallen victims to foreign attachments, to the 
 arts of intrigue, and the violence of ambition ? Is 
 the destroyer of Europe, the modern Attila, a 
 friend to republican government ? Was not 
 France itself a republic when he crossed the Me- 
 diterranean, and what is she now ? Did their 
 mountains save the Swiss, or their insignificance 
 the Genoese ? Ah, talk not of our bravery, of 
 our unconquerable spirit, of our untameable ha- 
 tred of despotism. I know my countrymen are 
 
23 
 
 brave, and that they love their liberty. But have 
 no brave, no free, no freedom-loving nations been 
 broken by the mace of despotic power ? Be not 
 deceived. We lie at mercy. There is a God, 
 and we are sinners. Our hope is not in our ar- 
 mies, it is not in our generals, it is not in our 
 counsellors, it is not in our constitution : it is in 
 this, that the Lord is long-suffering, and slow to 
 wrath, and repenteth him of the evil. His face 
 let us seek. Let us weep in the dust before him. 
 Let us break off our sins by righteousness. Let 
 us return unto him with the whole heart and with 
 the whole soul, if, peradventure, through the pre- 
 cious merits of his own Christ, he will turn away 
 his wrath from us, and his heavy judgments from 
 our children. 
 
 THE END,