SERMONS. 423 



any of them) and run naked under his defence ; 

 and then we are fit for his wing. Say not, then, 

 this great nation is a wise and an understanding 

 people ; we have counsel, and strength for the 

 war ; we are fenced and moated in from the rest 

 of the world with the vast ocean ; our island sits a 

 queen in the heart of the four seas ; she shall dwell 

 in safety alone, and know no sorrow. Let not the 

 mighty thus glory in their might, nor the wise in 

 their wisdom ; but he that glorieth, let him glory 

 in the Lord. 



And of this, holy David stands here before us a 

 great example. He trusts not in the wings of his 

 army, but in the Lord of hosts and battles ; not in 

 the shadow of his cave, but in the shadow of 

 God's wings ; not in the height of his rock, but in 

 the rock of ages. Though, being a man of war, he 

 well understood the grand importance of a castle 

 well seated and fortified ; of a mount or rock in- 

 accessible ; of a cave in that rock capacious and 

 defensible, (such as Strabo tells us there were 

 many in Palestine ; and such were probably the 

 cave of Adullam, and the strong holds of Engedi, 

 and the rest, which we meet with so often in 

 David's story :) yet severed and abstracted from 

 the Divine protections, he slights all these, as 

 paper walls, and cobweb fortifications : and know- 

 ing he could not be safe on this side Omnipo- 

 tence, he styles God almost in every Psalm, his 

 rock, and his castle, his foi:tress, and his strong- 

 hold, his high-tower, and the hill of his defence : 



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