-the many perfonal deliverances which have preferved him the unaccountable manner in which he has been enabled to get through difficulties, which on all fides befet him, at one time of his life—or the ftrength of mind he found himself endowed with, to encounter afflictions, which fell upon him at another period where is the man, I fay, who looks. back, with the leaft religious fenfe, upon what has thus happened to him, who could not give you fufficient proofs of God's power and his arm over him, and recount feveral cafes, wherein the GOD of Jacob was his help, and the Holy One of Ifrael his Redeemer.

Hast thou ever laid upon the bed of languishing, or laboured under a grievous distemper which threatened thy life? Call to mind thy forrowful and penfive fpirit at that time; and add to it, who it was that had mercy on thee, that brought thee out of darkness and the fhadow of death, and made all thy bed in thy fickness ?

Hath the scantiness of thy condition hurried thee into great straits and difficulties, and brought thee almost to distraction! Confider who it was that spread thy table in that wilderness of thought-who it was that made thy cup to overflow-who added a friend of confolation to thee, and thereby spake peace to thy troubled mind. Haft thou ever fuftained any confiderable damage in thy ftock or trade? Bethink thyself who it was that gave thee a ferene and contented mind under thofe loffes. If thou haft recovered, confider who it was that repaireft those breaches, when thy own fkill and endeavours failed:

call to mind whofe providence has bleffed them fince -whofe hand it was that has fince fet a hedge about thee, and made all that thou haft done to profper. Halt thou ever been wounded in thy more tender part, through the lofs of an obliging husband? or haft thou been torn away from the embraces of a dear and promifing child, by his unexpected death ?—

O confider, whether the GoD of truth did not approve himself a father to thee, when fatherlessor a husband to thee when a widow; and has either given thee a name better than of fons and daughters, or, even beyond thy hope-made thy remaining tender branches to grow up, tall and beautiful, like the cedars of Libanus.

Strengthened by these confiderations, fuggefting the fame, or like paft deliverances, either to thyself, thy friends and acquaintace- -thou wilt learn this. great leffon in the text,In all they exigencies and diftreffesto truft GoD; and whatever befalls thee, in the many changes and chances of this mor tal life, to speak comfort to thy foul, and to fay, in the words of Habakkuk the prophet, with which I conclude,

Although the fig-tree fhall not bloffom, neither fhall fruit be in the vines; although the labour of the olive fhall fail, and the fields fhall yield no meat; although the flock. fhall be cut off from the fold, and there fhall be no herd in the ftalls; yet we will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the GOD of our falvation.

To whom be all honour and glory, now and for
Amen.

ever.

SERMON XXXV.

EXODUS XXI 14.

But if a man come prefumptuously upon his neighbour, to lay him with guile ;-—thou shalt take him from my altar, that he may die.

As the end and happy refult of fociety was our mutual protection from the depravations which malice and avarice lay us open to -fo have the laws of GOD laid proportionable restraints against fuch violations as would defeat us of fuch a fecurity. Of all other attacks which can be made against us

that of a man's life—which is his all-being the greateft the offence, in GoD's difpenfation to the Jews, was denounced as the moft henious-and reprefented as moft unpardonable. At the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.Whofo fheddeth man's blood, by man fhall his blood be fhed.-Ye fhall take no fatisfaction for the life of a murderer; he fhall furely be put to death.-So ye fhall not pollute the land wherein ye are-for blood defileth the land;- -and the land cannot be cleanfed of blood that is fhed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.For this reafon, by the laws of

all civilized nations, in all parts of the globe, it has been punished with death.

Some civilized and wife communities have so får incorporated thefe fevere difpenfations into their mu-nicipal laws, as to allow of no diftinction betwixt murder and homicide,at leaft in the penalty ;-leaving the intentions of the several parties concerned in it, to that Being who knows the heart, and will adjust the differences of the cafe hereafter. This falls, no doubt, heavy upon particulars ;-but it is urged for the benefit of the whole. It is not the bufinefs of a preacher to enter into an examination of the grounds and reafons of so seeming a feverity.

Where moft fevere-they have proceeded, no doubt,. from an excefs of abhorrence of a crimewhich is, of all others, moft terrible and fhocking in its own nature-and the most direct attack and' Aroke at fociety;-as the fecurity of a man's life was the first protection of society-the ground-work of all the other bleffings to be defired from fuch a compact. Thefts,-oppreffions, exactions, and violences of that kind, cut off the branches ;this fmote the root:all perished with it;-the injury irreparable.-No after-a& could make amends for it. What recompenfe can he give to a man in exchange for his life?What fatisfaction to the widow, the fatherlefs,to the family,-the friends, the relations, cut off from his protection, —and and rendered, perhaps, deftitute,perhaps miserable for ever?

No wonder, that, by the law of nature, this crime: was always pursued with the most extreme ven-

geance; which made the barbarians to judge, when they faw St. Paul upon the point of dying a sudden. and terrifying death,No doubt this man is a murderer who, though he hath escaped the fea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.

--

The cenfure there was rash and uncharitable; but the honeft deteftation of the crime was uppermoft. They faw a dreadful punishment-they thought;—and in seeing the one, they suspected the other. And the vengeance which had overtaken the holy man, was meant by them the vengeance and punishment of the Almighty Being, whofe providence and honour was concerned in purfuing him, from the place he had fled from, to that illand..

The honour and authority of GOD is moft evidently ftruck at, most certainly, in every fuch crime,

and therefore he would purfue it ;-it being the reafon, in the ninth of Genefis, upon which the prohibition of murder is grounded;for in the image of GOD created he man;——as if to attempt the life of a man had fomething in it peculiarly daring and audacious ;--not only fhocking as to its confequence above all other crimes-but of perfonal violence and indignity against GOD, the author of our life and death. That it is the highest act of injustice to man, and which will admit of no compenfation I have faid.But the depriving a man of life, does not comprehend the whole of his fuffering; he may be cut off in an unprovided or difordered condition, with regard to the great account betwixt himself and his Maker. He may be under the