fusion of these false prophets, who cry Peace, peace, prosperity, prosperity, riches, and treasure, and glory! Six months have run their course, and the squal hath not passed, but hath settled, and deepened, and darkened into the blackest cloud which ever brooded over any land. The cloud hath shaken famine from its skirts, and threateneth to shake pestilence from its bosom, if the people will not turn unto the Lord. It hath moved the national councils of the realm. with much keen debate; and many prudent measures have they taken for the remedy and mitigation of the evil; and to repress the violence of its outbreakings, the sword hath been unsheathed; and to comfort its misery, every one, from our most gracious sovereign, hath contributed his mite of charity; and all tongues have spoken of it, and all writers of every class and order have written of it. And think ye, then, men and brethren, that we ministers of the Gospel are the only men whose hearts are to be restrained from feeling the miseries of our fellow-countrymen; or, if our hearts feel, that we messengers of Almighty truth, interpreters of God's providence, and his counsellors to the nation, are the only men whose lips are to be refrained by a false delicacy, and our mouth muzzled by a wicked authority of opinion. As the Lord liveth, it never yet was so done in Israel, that there was evil in the city, and the Lord did not reveal it unto his prophets; nor was it ever so endured in the church of Christ, that the ministers of the Gospel should not fearlessly expose the sins of the nation, and make known the sufferings of the nation, and the causes why the Lord's people were brought to trouble

or dismay. And, behold you, brethren, I am purposed to enjoy all the liberty of prophesying, for which the elders contended, and by the like grace to contend for it unto the death. That the people who do know the Lord may take counsel among themselves, and not be shaken with the blows, nor alarmed with the terrors of the wicked, who know him not; and that I may save my own soul, according to that fearful woe upon the prophet, which I do now read to you, as my constraint and obligation to fulfil the office with fear and trembling, which I have undertaken, of declaring the sin and iniquity for which the land laboureth under the frown of Jehovah.- Ezek. xxxiii. 2-6: "When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: if, when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning, his blood shall be upon him: but he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand." Now, then, let me forget my fears, and speak before my God, according as his Spirit shall give me utterance, all the sins and transgressions of this people, that our souls may be bowed down before him like the bulrush, searching first

into the sins of the governors and rulers, and masters of the people; and, secondly, into the sins of the people themselves; and, thirdly, endeavouring to move you with a desire to bring help to them in their present distress.

I. If you will read the burdens of the prophets, who are the true interpreters of Divine providence, and of national judgments, you shall find that the Lord never visiteth until the rulers and representatives of the nation have corrupted their way before him, and turned from his holy worship to idolatry; and from the ends of righteous and equitable government for which he entrusteth them with power, to the ends of oppression and violence: as it is said in the fourth chapter of Amos, "oppressing the poor and crushing the needy, and saying continually, Bring, and let us drink." Therefore, in all inquiry into and discourse of national judgments, it is most necessary that the preacher of righteousness should carry the candle of the Lord into the high places of the nation. And behold what I have found in my meditation thereof,--That the servants of our king, with whom the responsibility doth lie of their several offices, however well they may be disposed towards the people, are not well-disposed towards God and his church, by whom kings reign and princes decree justice. Being, so far as I can observe, wholly ignorant of any responsibility beyond that which they owe to our sovereign lord the king, or to the people, and utterly forgetting to acknowledge in their acts and speeches, and in the spirit of their policy, the great principle of all Christian government; That it is for Christ they hold the

power, and to him that they are responsible for every act thereof. Nor are they in this matter checked, or set right by the representatives of the people, who, with all their eloquence and patriotism, can never be brought to remember that they also are obliged to God, and answerable to Christ, for the right performance of all the power which the constitution hath placed in their hands. So also of the judge and magistrate, and every occupant of place and trustee of power, who are as much vicegerents of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the earth, for the ends of government and justice, as the ministers of the word and the elders of the church are witnesses for the truth of the Gospel, and rulers for the wholesome discipline of his church. Wherefore it is appointed of all Christians to obey the power, as being the minister of God to us for good, the terror of evil doers, and the praise of them that do well. And the church may not usurp to itself any power, nor resist the power, nor call upon it to answer for its actions before any of its courts, because the powers that be are ordained of God, and responsible unto Him who is the Prince of the kings of the earth. It is said of the Sixth Edward, that when, at his coronation, three swords were brought to be carried before him, as the king of three kingdoms, he said there was one yet wanting. Upon which the nobles inquiring what he meant ; he replied, it was the Bible; and thus delivered himself in right royal style: "That book is the sword of the Spirit, and to be preferred before these swords. That ought, in all right, to govern us, who are then for the people's safety by God's appointment. Without that sword we are

nothing, we can do nothing, we have no power: from that we are what we are this day: from that we receive whatsoever it is that we at this present do assume. He that rules without it is not to be called God's minister, or a king. Under that we ought to live, to fight, to govern the people, and to perform all our affairs. From that alone we obtain all power, virtue, grace, salvation, and whatsoever we have of Divine strength." -Now, forasmuch as the church may not dare to arrogate unto herself any power whatever, either co-ordinate with or compulsatory over the civil power, which is an ordinance of God, it is so much the more her province and duty to open in the ears of magistrates, judges, members of parliament, ministers of state, and royal princes, the good, and wise, and merciful ends for which government, that best of all national blessings, is entrusted to their administration, that they may not err through ignorance of their high and holy vocation. Wherefore, at the coronation of his majesty, it is appointed unto a minister of Christ to anoint his head with oil, and to another to discourse in his hearing concerning the royal office as the highest stewardship under Christ. And every sitting of parliament is opened with offices of devotion, to the same end appointed. And every assize of judgment is opened, not only with prayer, but with a special discourse to the same end directed. And, in the north, I know that the first thing which the magistrates of towns have to do, is to go and hear from the lips of the minister of the Gospel a discourse concerning the sacred responsibility of their office. From all which it is manifest, that the principle declared by the