1793] ^^-V. IVILLTAM SMITH, D. ' D. 37/ 



the Almighty may manifest himself to a people, in judgment as 

 well as mercy, by means of natural causes and with the same breath 

 that he bids the pestilence rage, he can bid its ragings cease; yet his 

 purposes in both are to be our chief consideration, and he hath told us, 

 "that when his judgments are in the land, the inhabitants should learn 

 righteousness." 



On this great and humiliating occasion, the clergy consider it as 

 needless for them to remind the inhabitants of this land of what God 

 hath done for us, and the many instances of his divine favor and inter- 

 position, in the establishment of our civil liberties and independence, 

 together with the enjoyment of the pure doctrines of the Gospel of 

 Christ and the exercise of his holy religion, according to the rights of 

 conscience, under a government of laws, and wise civil institutions 

 of our own free and peaceable choice, there being "none to make us 

 afraid." But the clergy must consider it as a special and most weighty 

 part of their bounden duty to warn, to exhort, and to press the most 

 earnest inquiry — whether we have made a due improvement of those 

 innumerable blessings which the Almighty hath, in his goodness, even 

 heaped upon us? Have we at all times made use of our civil liberty 

 itself, as not seeking to abuse it? But, more especially, have we sought 

 in good earnest, and in the fear and love of God, to improve our precious 

 Gospel privileges, by striving to make the fruits of the same conspicuous 

 in our lives, and "in all holy conversation and godliness?" Or 

 whether, on the contrary, the worship of the true and living God, and 

 the sacred ordinances of the Gospel, have not been too much slighted, 

 or neglected, for the false pleasures of this world, its dissipations, its 

 follies, or perhaps the too eager pursuit of its goods and enjoyments? — 

 evils which, having their origin too generally among the gay, the rich, 

 and those in higher stations, have, by fatal example, spread themselves 

 downwards among all classes of our people, to the dishonor of God and 

 the unspeakable injury of their moral and religious character, as well as 

 the waste and ruin of their temporal substance and the distress and 

 poverty of their families ! 



Together with this retrospective view of our own conduct, and of the 

 calamity from which it hath pleased God to deliver us, who, through 

 his mercy, survive, let us not forget to mourn with those that mourn, 

 to sympathize with them in their distress, and to administer to their 

 comfort and relief. This will be a fruitful subject of devout medita- 

 tion ; and, through divine grace, will awaken and make us feelingly 

 alive to all holy and religious impressions: while we recall to our memory 

 those melancholy days and nights when corps after corps of beloved 

 husbands and wives, dutiful sons and daughters, useful citizens, vener- 

 able pastors, in quick and almost uninterrupted succession, were borne 

 along our streets in the solitary hearse, with scarce a friend or relative 

 to follow them to the grave ! Oh ! let us now consecrate their dust 



