SERMON VII.

ON THE GENERAL FAST, OCTOBER 20,

1803.*

ST LUKE, xxi. 19.

" In your patience possess ye your souls."

lr was in these words that our Saviour consoled his disciples, while he predicted to them the final ruin and desolation of Jerusalem. The people of Judea, confident in the letter, while they were igno rant of the spirit of their religion, had

* Preached when the expectation of invasion was universal, and when the volunteer corps were everywhere forming in the national defence.

long before ceased to listen to his admonitions, and it was only to the chosen few who felt his truth, and who understood his gospel, that he unveiled the mighty scenes which that desolation was to precede. Amid "the wars, and the "rumours of wars," that were to follow, he led them to see the " salvation of the "world" approach. The destruction of Jerusalem was to be the dissolution of that pale which kept the Gentiles from the knowledge of the true God; and he enjoined them, amid all the dread calamities which were to come, to "possess "their souls" in patient expectation of that mighty day, when his name and his religion were to begin their triumphal reign.

Of the many reflections which this subject naturally excites, there is one only, my brethren, which I shall at present submit to your consideration; it is, the

difference between the patience which human wisdom teaches, and that which religion inspires. When the moralist speaks to us of hardship or danger; when he animates us to meet those scenes of calamity which we may be doomed to undergo, he tells us of the dignity of our nature, the magnanimity of self-denial,—and the heroism of patient suffering. He makes the world the spectator of our conduct; and summons us, by every consideration of honour or of fame, to act our part like men, and to deserve the sympathy of those who surround us, by the firmness and magnanimity which we display.

The patience which the Gospel inspires is of a different, but of a sublimer kind. It speaks not to us of ourselves, -it speaks of that great system to which we belong, and of the ends to which we contribute in that system.-It

tells us, that every suffering to which man is born, has its final purpose, either in individual or in public good;-that to nations, as to individuals, the seasons of adversity are the seasons of their highest virtue;-that, in every situation, the discharge of the duties which that situation brings are the simple means by which the mighty designs of nature are to be carried on ;-and that, above all the weakness or suffering of men, there presides one Almighty Mind, in whose extended government "all things are working together "for final good," and who can make even "the wrath of men to praise him."

There are no considerations which seem more proper for the solemnity in which we are at present engaged. We are met together, with all the rest of our land, to humble ourselves before the God of nations; to call to mind what are the duties demanded of us, in this hour

of general alarm; and to form those resolutions for the coming danger, which become us as citizens, as Christians, and

as men.

It is, my brethren, in no common hour of peril that we are now assembled. A contest more awful than either we or our fathers have seen, is rapidly approaching; and that sun which witnesses our meeting, has never, in his long career, beheld a time so pregnant with hope or despair to our country. It is no common war in which we are engaged, and no common enemy we are to oppose. It is a war, in which are put to the hazard of the sword, every blessing of our faith, every honour of our name, and every glory of our country. It is an enemy we are now summoned to oppose,-whose positions are kingdoms, and whose march is revolution; before whom the sovereigns of Europe have bowed their diminished