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By the arm of the Almighty, while they were yet a small people, 

 they were protected from surrounding dangers — the savages of the 

 wilderness became their friends, and they grew up and multiplied 

 into a great and prosperous people. How far we had followed the 

 example of the Jews, in our backslidings and forgetfulness of the 

 mercies of God, after wc became a nation, would appear from a 

 brief statement of their conduct, after they became a nation, in the 

 promised land. This history the preacher then traces. 



"The Chronicles of their kings, rulers and judges were a stand- 

 ing testimony," says the preacher, "of their ingratitude and for- 

 getfulness of God, their inattention to his providence and neglect 

 of amendment; continuing hardened in their iniquity amidst his 

 various judgments and visitations, intended in mercy and long- 

 suffering to lead them to reformation. The prophecies of their 

 prophets — were they not all to the like purpose ? Either filled 

 with denunciations of judgments upon their apostasy from God, 

 promises of forgiveness upon their repentance and amendment, or 

 threatening of total ruin and destruction, unless they turned from 

 the evil of their ways, to do that which is lawful and right! 



"Many and various," he adds, "were the judgments inflicted 

 on this people by the hand of Providence, for the punishment of 

 their transgressions; but the four sorest, in extreme cases, when 

 they became wholly hardened in their iniquity, were 'the Sword 

 and the Famine, and the noisome Beast (to infest a desolate land), 

 and the Pestilence, to cut off from it (by one dreadful visitation) 

 both man and beast.' * 



"The first mentioned of those four sore judgments, the sword, 

 hath been sent," he observes, " upon us not only by the great 

 nation from which our fathers and many of ourselves originated, 

 but many a time likewise by the savage of the wilderness around 

 us." And giving way to an expression of Federal politics, and 

 to ancient dislike of France, now under Jacobin rule, more dan- 

 gerous than in the days of any Louis, he adds : 



Nor is it foreign to our purpose, on this solemn day, to contemplate 

 the possibility, and even probability, of a sword against us from another 

 great nation, once gratefully caressed, and never ungratefully offended, 

 by us as a people. 



* Ezck. xiv. 21. 



