against the Bible, against divine institutions, and against all civil, moral, and religious restraints. Such a blind and flaming zeal to break over all the laws of God and man, must be extremely criminal, and loudly call for humiliation and self-abasement. We are a "sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters: we have forsaken the Lord; we have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger; we are gone away backward." "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed." Let us sigh and cry for all that false zeal which has burned in our breasts, or in the breasts of others, and which has been infinitely offensive to God. Our national guilt will become our personal guilt, unless we sincerely lament it. Let us rend our hearts and not our garments, and return unto the Lord by true repentance, that iniquity may not be our ruin.

With these feelings let us look to God, who governs the moral as well as the natural world, to display his power and grace for our deliverance. He restrained the false zeal of Esau from injuring his brother. He restrained the false zeal of Pharaoh from destroying his chosen people. He subdued the false zeal of Paul, and made him as warm a friend as he had been a bitter enemy to the cause of Christ. He still has the entire dominion over the hearts of rulers and subjects, and can turn them whithersoever he pleases, as the rivers of water are turned. He can turn the most zealous infidel into a zealous believer. He can turn the enemies of their country into sincere and zealous patriots. He can save our nation from foreign wars and internal tumults and convulsions. He can disperse the dark clouds which hang over us, and establish us in the full and lasting enjoyment of all our civil and religious privileges. Let us trust in the Lord, in whom there is everlasting strength; and who has assured us that the wrath of man shall praise him, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain. Amen.

SERMON XV.

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.

JULY 5, 1802.

This day shall be unto you for a memorial. Ex. xii. 14.

NOTHING can be more correspondent with the joyful occasion upon which we are convened than this passage of divine inspiration. It contains the express command of God to his ancient people to commemorate every year the auspicious day of their national independence. From a single family, in the course of about four hundred years they rose into a numerous and independent nation. They were of the seed of Abraham in the line of Isaac and Jacob. The darling son of this pious patriarch was carried into Egypt, where he was raised to superior power, and where he became the happy instrument of preserving his father's family, who rapidly increased to a numerous people. During the life of Joseph, his infant nation was extremely prosperous and happy; but some time after his death they found themselves in a very wretched condition. There arose a king in Egypt who knew not Joseph, and who attempted to diminish the growing population and strength of the children of Israel. Among other arbitrary acts, he set over them certain officers who treated them with intolerable rigor and severity. But the more they sighed, and groaned, and complained, the more they were oppressed by their unfeeling masters. At length the God of Israel heard their groanings, and raised up a deliverer. Moses was born, and providentially preserved, educated, and prepared to execute the gracious design of Heaven. God vouchsafed to speak to him

face to face, and gave him authority to go to the king of Egypt and demand deliverance for his chosen people. Though diffident and reluctant, he accepted the divine appointment, and undertook his important and arduous work. He repeatedly applied to Pharaoh, and repeatedly met with a repulse; but being clothed with divine authority and miraculous power, he brought such a series of sore and wasting judgments upon him and his subjects that he finally gave his full consent that the people of God should leave his kingdom and return to the country from which they came. This was the joyful day of their independence: and this day God appointed as a standing memorial of that great and happy event.

The causes and circumstances which concurred to bring about the independence of the Israelites are so similar to the causes and circumstances which concurred to bring about the American revolution, that we may justly conclude there is a peculiar propriety in commemorating the birth-day of our national existence. Many instances might be adduced from scripture to illustrate this conclusion. God sanctified the Sabbath for a memorial of the great work of creation. He appointed the bow in the clouds for a memorial of his preserving mercy to Noah and his family in the midst of a perishing world. He ordained that the pot of manna and Aaron's rod which budded should be kept as perpetual tokens of his special kindness and awful justice. He likewise commanded his people, whom he conducted through Jordan upon dry ground, to take stones from the bottom of the river and raise a lasting monument of that miraculous interposition in their favor. Justly reasoning from such instances as these, Mordecai, with the express approbation of Esther the queen, appointed the days of Purim to commemorate the great deliverance of the Jews from the hand of Haman. Each of these cases exactly applies to the case before us, and completely illustrates the propriety of commemorating the day upon which we took the rank and claimed the character of a free and independent nation.

But what I farther propose in the present discourse, is to point out some of the important purposes which may be answered by keeping up the remembrance of this great and interesting event.

First, it must have a tendency to give us a realizing sense of the overruling hand of God in all that takes place in the moral as well as in the natural world. While we observe the common course of nature, which is no other than the common course of Providence, in producing similar effects in a similar manner, from day to day and from year to year, we are extremely prone to lose a realizing sense of that invisible hand

which governs all natural causes and moral agents. But when God comes out of his place, and shakes kingdoms and nations. by sudden and unexpected revolutions, we are constrained to awake from our stupidity, and "to know that he is the Lord," who governs the world. The visible manifestation of his overruling hand in such uncommon and extraordinary events, strikes us with a strong conviction that others, more common and ordinary, are equally under his constant and controlling influence. Nothing is more easy and familiar to our minds, than to trace causes into all the variety and multiplicity of their effects. When we recollect and contemplate any great and unusual event, we naturally conclude, not only that the hand of God was in that, but in every other event which appears to have been intimately or remotely connected with it. Who can contemplate and realize the hand of God in the work of creation, without realizing his hand in upholding and governing the world from that day to this? Who can contemplate and realize the hand of God in the destruction of Pharaoh and the redemption of Israel, without realizing that he governs the kingdoms of men, and gives them to whomsoever he will? Hence a standing memorial of that great event was wisely calculated to give the people of God a realizing sense of his universal providence. Accordingly he directed them, when they celebrated the day of their deliverance, to rehearse in the ears of their children the evils they suffered and the scenes they saw in the land of Egypt; and to recount the great and distinguishing blessings which flowed from that memorable interposition of Providence in their favor. This could hardly fail of causing both them and their children to acknowledge and realize the hand of God in all events.

The same important purpose may be answered, by keeping alive the remembrance of the eventful day of our national independence. The hand of God was clearly displayed in preparing the way, in raising up the instruments, and supplying the means, for the American Revolution. Though no miracles were wrought in our favor, as in the case of Israel, yet those in the cabinet and those in the field were favored with the peculiar smiles and influence of Heaven. And though the armies of our enemies were not plunged in the mighty ocean, yet they were one after another, by a remarkable concurrence of causes, delivered into our hands. Who then can either recollect or contemplate the commencement of our independence, without realizing the hand of God in that great event, and in the surprising train of consequences which have flowed from it? If any thing can prevent the general spread of atheism and infidelity in this favored land, it seems the commemorating the

day of our national preservation and independence is calculated to produce the desirable effect. This is one very valuable purpose to be answered, by recognizing the hand of God in making us a distinct and independent nation.

Secondly, the recalling to remembrance the auspicious day of our separation from Great Britain, is suited to fill our hearts with gratitude for all the public and private, civil and religious, blessings which we now enjoy. A stream of every kind of knowledge, and a stream of every kind of wealth, has been flowing in upon us in consequence of our assuming a national character. Our independence has not only enlarged our borders to a vast extent, but also opened a free intercourse with all the commercial world. Our wealth and knowledge are not only doubled, but the means of increasing these are ten-fold increased. We have, perhaps, more extensive and promising prospects before us, than any other people on the globe. And though at present a thick and dark cloud is hovering over us, yet there is reason to believe that the blessings of our independence will extend and increase to the latest generations. Now, all these blessings in enjoyment and in prospect may be traced up to that memorable day which gave us an independent station among the nations of the earth. And in contemplating the great goodness of God, in such a signal interposition in our favor, we are prepared to discern his loving kindness and tender mercy in all the happy fruits which we have long been reaping from it. It must be, therefore, both pleasing and useful, to preserve and perpetuate the memory of our national birth-day, which has produced and still promises so much benefit to this western world.

Thirdly, there is another good purpose to be answered, by the frequent recollection of the day which disconnected us from the British parliament; and that is, to teach us how to support and preserve our own excellent government, which we have happily adopted in consequence of that disconnection. To illustrate the truth of this observation, you will permit me to unfold, in the most conspicuous manner, the governing motives and fundamental principles which conspired to bring about our separation from Great Britain. These things, of late years, have been greatly misunderstood by some, and greatly misrepresented by others. I will endeavor, therefore, to set these points in a true and clear light.

It has been justly observed by a judicious and elegant author, "that our independence was found by those who sought it not." At the commencement of our controversy with the mother country, we had not the least desire nor intention of becoming independent. We had no objection against the peculiar form