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World were for years ravaged by fire, and sword; plague, pestilence, and famine.

They were God's judgments on this sinful World; and shall we dare to repine, being spared their miseries, when we may by such. base ingratitude draw down His vengeance on ourselves? Let us submit to His dispensations, and confidently await His own good time for the restoration of complete prosperity.

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By adversity are Nations tried, as well as individual men; and surely it must be to every thinking mind a great joy, that with one voice our Country laughed to scorn the blasphemer of her God.

"Those who are not with Me are against Me," said our Lord; and consequently our Nation has chosen that good part which the World cannot give, or take away: she has acknowledged that Lord Jesus Christ, whose mercies are over all His works. She has confessed His great Redemption; and He has said, "those who acknowledge Me, them will I also acknowledge before the face of men, and angels."

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Who knows what blessings are in store for us; who that hears, or reads the Scriptures,

can doubt of our National prosperity; while true Religion upholds the sacred banner of Christ crucified: while peace, and harmony, prevail among us all ?

When our aged, and venerable, Monarch, George III. ascended the Throne; he swore to maintain the Church, and State, the Constitution inviolate. How faithfully, how honourably he had kept that oath, the tears of his people for his severe afflictions fully proved.

And on our part, our National Representatives at that time swore to support, honour, and obey the King. Let us then, who engaged to perform these duties, by our elected Representatives; let us preserve our own fidelity.

The Christian Religion commands us to do as we would be done by; and surely to do as we have been done by is as necessary to our eternal hopes of mercy.

Obedience to our anointed Sovereign is also obedience to our God; who expects that His Name shall not be called upon in vain : and whose mercy has been fully shewn to our highly favoured Country, in protecting our Religion; our Laws; our free, and noble,

VOL. I.

Constitution; and in having given us so virtuous, so excellent, a King to reign over us.

"Let every soul," says the Apostle St. Paul," be subject unto the higher powers'; for there is no power, but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."

"Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake;" says St. Peter in our Text.

And that very Lord himself, both by his action, and his word, advised; "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's."

SERMON XII.

ON DEATH.

PSALM XC. 10.

THE DAYS OF OUR AGE ARE THREESCORE YEARS AND TEN; AND THOUGH MEN BE SO STRONG THAT THEY COME TO FOURSCORE YEARS: YET IS THEIR STRENGTH THEN BUT LABOUR AND SORROW; so SOON PASSETH IT AWAY, AND WE ARE GONE.

IN the hour of private affliction, when we attend the remains of a beloved relative to the place appointed for all men living; the Church has wisely chosen this instructive Psalm for our benefit. How much more forcibly do its awful lessons appeal to our hearts, when the voice of mourning is heard within our own homes; for the loss of just, and righteous, servants of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is hardly necessary to show how particularly applicable the words of our Text are to those sorrows of age, and infirmity, which the merciful hand of God has then closed for ever in this Life which our departed friends truly Christian excellences lead us to believe, to be now changed into peace, and joy, within the blessed Paradise of God.

While they lived upon Earth, the base voice of flattery might have sometimes looked for reward in the days of their prosperity. But when many heavy afflictions weighed down their last declining years; when every mental faculty became obscured, every bodily "strength then but labour, and sorrow:" it was the voice of honest Truth, which blessed them for the recollection of their worth.

Let us therefore, by God's mercy, endeavour to profit by the useful lesson which their good lives have left for our example. For such is the excellence of a truly Christian life, that its virtues survive the triumph of the grave; as the Soul of the believer lives, still lives in peace, and rest, while his body moulders in the dust.

"I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write; Blessed are the dead which die

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