and God in his fierce Anger, for which there is fuch Cause, should determine to inflict it.

4. How awfully are we not only threatned with this our Ruin, but fhewn the Means of it, which are held up in our View, in our no diftant View. And Means they are of Destruction, than which nothing more terrible can be threatned or inflicted in this prefent World.

The Plague, the Peftilence, Famine, or the Sword, kill only the Body; but our Enemies are fuch as are not content only to kindle Fires for our Bodies, but are forging Fetters and Chains for our Minds, and laying the most dangerous Snares for our Confciences, whereby, tho' they cannot kill, they may bring our Souls into dreadful Condemnation.

Perjured Traitors to their King and Country, are studying to make us fuch to God and our Confciences; are endeavouring to introduce a double Impofture, the Pretender as the Temporal, and the Pope as the Spiritual Head of thefe Kingdoms, by divine Right; the one of which demands from us the Surrender of our Laws, and the other of our Bibles, with which, tho' they are dearer to us than our Lives, they are each of them at most deadly Enmity. And the miferable Lot of this our dear Country, were these Monsters to be its Mafters, would be to exchange the Gofpel, which is infinitely the best, for Popery, which, if it be any, is the worst of all Religions; and our c ́

vil

vil Constitution, which is, I think, the best for us, if not the best in the World, for arbitrary Power, which is the worst of Governments. These are the Rods which are held over our Backs; these are the Scourges which are in the Hand of God; these the Wicked whom he has often referved for the Day, as the Inftruments of his. Wrath. And if the Degree of his Wrath be proportioned to the dire Nature of these Inftruments of inflicting it, we can think no other than that it is Wrath to the uttermoft. And who can fay we have not deserved it? Who that confiders not only the Numbers by which the Gofpel is rejected in this Land (which furely we may be allowed to reckon a Part of the Guilt of it) but the lukewarm Temper with which it is treated by fuch as profefs it, can forbear trembling left God fhould refuse to take our Part, who have fo often and fo heinously refused to take his? and refolve to take the fweet Light of his Word away from us, which, tho' it be of infinite Value, we have ufed with infinite Contempt, and treated as a Matter rather of abfolute Indifference, than of the utmoft Importance. There does not seem to have been any other Appearance of Danger to Nineveh, but what arose from the divine Displeasure and from the divine Threatning. Security of Mind is no Argument of the Safety of our State. They were Eating and Drinking, Marrying and giving in Marriage, when the Flood came,

and

and fo will they be at the End of the World. And it is but a few Months ago that he would have been treated as no other than a Madman, who fhould have ventured to affert that we might be in the State we are actually in at this Time.

5. How clearly are we shown our Duty, and how loudly are we called to practise it, as the wife Course we can take for our Safety, by the Cafe and Circumftance of the City of Nineveh, by the Words of their King contained in the Text, and by the Efficacy and Success it had in their Cafe; and that is Repentance: turning every one of us from our evil Way, and from the Violence that is in our Hands?

There are, it is true, other Means befide this to be used, human Art and human Force, which we have as little reason to think God will fave us without, as that they can fave us without him. And God be thanked, we are not destitute and unprovided, or careless and thoughtless about the Ufe of them. I wish we were all of us as careful about this, which, without all doubt, is of equal Neceffity. For have we not given God Caufe of Anger? Does it not look as if he really was fo, and feem to threaten us? How can we turn away our Destruction from us, without his turning away his Anger from him? And how is he fo likely to turn and repent, and turn away his Anger, that we perish not, as by our turning

turning every one from our finful Ways, and from the Wickedness that is in our Hands?

Nineveh was as easy and fecure as we, till they received this Alarm; but you see what an Alteration it univerfally wrought in them, when they viewed their Destruction but as forty Days off; and God only knows what in forty Days may be decided upon this City, if not upon this Land: for it is as easy with God to deftroy as to fave by a few.

Let us not content ourselves with exercising a vague and indeterminate Sorrow for the Sins of other Perfons, or the Sins of the Nation, but every one of us fearch and look into our own Hearts and Lives, for the Share we have had in it, and do away every one our own Part: For National Guilt is no other than the Sum of perfonal; it is what every Perfon has contributed to, and what every one must concur to the putting away; and National Virtue and Reformation is that of particular Perfons confidered together in one View. Any other Senfe of National Repentance, or National Religion, that derogates from this, instead of being our Remedy, is Part of our Disease, of difficult Cure and moft dreadful Confequence.

And let us not imagine we can truly repent, with a Saving.or Referve of any single Luft; this, instead of allaying, will but inflame the Anger of God more against us.

Neither

Neither let us be fo vain as to expect Salvation and Deliverance from God, by a Repentance and abstaining from Sin for a Time only, and fo long only as till the Terror and Danger we are in be over-paft. This would be neither acting fincerely with God, nor wifely for ourfelves. For whatever we may expect from fuch collufive Kind of Dealing with God, we are much more likely to enfure and aggravate and haften, than avert our Ruin by fuch Means.

.. 6. How ought we to cry mightily to God, and fecond the fincere Refolutions of Repentance in our own Breafts, with ardent Supplications at the Throne of Grace, when not only our Liberties and Properties and Lives, but our very Souls are in Danger!

For who knows how fuch a Change of the State of Religion as we are threatned with in this Land, might entangle his Confcience or hazard his Salvation? And nothing, methinks, can move Men who are not influenced by fuch a View of Things. Let us therefore add to a fincere Repentance the most fervent Prayer to Almighty God, to fave and deliver us out of this our Danger. Prayers of this Kind come justly in here, as in their proper Place, after, rather than before Repentance, but have no Place without it; when they attend or follow it, they may help to give it Success, but not when they fuperfede it, and are put in its Place. For to do this is just as if the Prodigal D

Son