free States are so obnoxious. Civil commotions have the same use, in the moral world, that stormy and tempestuous seasons have in the physical. In the stagnation of a continued calm, the best system sickens and decays; but these periodic agitations stifle corruption in the seed, give new vigour to the languid Constitution, and enable the vital Principles of it to perform their destined operations. It is true, indeed, when a storm is let loose upon either System, it ravages and destroys what it was meant to support and actuate. The System of Nature has the Providence of God to curb the blind violence of stubborn matter, which else, in the impetuosity of its course, would soon reduce itself to its former Chaos. The Political System has nothing but the Providence of Government to sustain it against its own fury, from falling into Anarchy. But the Providence of Government is weak and bounded; and needeth all the assistance of good subjects to strengthen its hands, and enforce obedience to its insulted Authority. It was the rejection of this salutary duty in some, and the careless discharge of it in others, which, at the fatal period we now commemorate, was the last cause of all the desolation that ensued.

SERMON XX.

Preached before the Incorporated Society for the propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; on Friday, February 21, 1766.

REVELATION of St. JOHN, chap. x. ver. 11.

AND HE SAID UNTO ME, THOU MUST PROPHESY AGAIN, BEFORE MANY PEOPLES, AND NA TIONS, AND TONGUES, AND KINGS.

GO and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, was the great Commission intrusted by our Divine Master to his Disciples. And we know how faithfully they discharged their trust; these latter ages of extended Commerce having discovered the most evident marks and traces of their footsteps, in every Region, how remote soever, of the then known World.

But there was a NEW WORLD to be disclosed, another Hemisphere to be explored; though reserved for those daring Adventurers who in these later times have pierced through the trackless waste of the great Atlantic Ocean.

D 4

And

And for this Orphaned World the Holy Spiritmade the like charitable provision. Where the future fortunes of the Church, from its humble Cradle to its inthronization in glory, are foretold to St. John, in a regular series of Prophetic visions, enigmatically represented, the Apostle sees a mighty angel descend from Heaven; a rainbow surrounding his head; his face like the Sun, and his feet as pillars of fire*. In this so graphical a description of the Son of God, clothed in all the pomp and majesty of his Father, the attitude is most observable; His RIGHT FOOT WAS ON THE SEA, and his left on the Earth: An attitude expressive of his ready Providence addressed, in the fulness of time, to unveil this NEW WORLD so long concealed in the bosom of the Deep; and pointing out to his Church the religious use that was to be made of this discovery. For the angel having sworn (which denotes the revelation to be a matter of high importance) and intimated (by the words, there shall be time no longer) that the consideration of time is not to be taken in t, the Subject being of a distant period; he addresses him→ self to St. John, who here represents the Church, in the words of my text-Thou must prophesy AGAIN before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and Kings.-As much as to say, "The Church hath been faithful to her great Trust, in all things which have been hitherto in her power to discharge, But a time will come, when this mighty labour, so

* Rev. chap. x. ver. 1.
* ὅτι χρόνος ἐκ ἔται ἔτι. ver. 6.

+ Ver, 2,

success

successfully undergone, in the conversion of the Old World, is to be repeated in the New. For the Church must PROPHESY AGAIN, or preach the Gosfor the second time to many new-discovered People and Nations." To prophesy, signifying here what it does in many other places of the New Testament, to preach the glad tidings of the Gospel.

Hence it appears, that to preach the Gospel to the new World when discovered, is not a mere act of simple Charity, but a work of indispensable duty.

The providential Discovery was at length made; and though, in itself, replete with all the seeds of temporal and spiritual Blessings, yet was it the immediate occasion of the most infernal mischiefs. For as in the old World the Devil stept in to intercept the first fruits of Creation due to the allbounteous Author, so was it, in the new: While, under the mask of Religion, if ever Popery might be said to wear that mask, the Evil One excited his Agents to desolate this late-discovered Continent, by the butchery and sacrifice of millions; and all, for having more gold than they knew how to use, and more land than they knew how to cultivate. But while these Dogs of Hell were crying havock, and the Inhabitants of the new World on the brink of extirpation, God raised up his chosen Instruments in the old to restore Christianity to its health and purity, then labouring in its last pangs under popish tyranny and superstition. For the Gospel, long sequestered and shut up, was of necessity to be known again before it could he preached AGAIN. The

REFOR

REFORMATION OF RELIGION once more opened this living Source. And then it was that the Sense of my Text became apparent; and that the Church first addressed itself to this undertaking.

Nor was this the only benefit. The Church of Rome itself, in order to support its shaken usurpation, was obliged in this, as in other palliations of its abuses, to vie with us in the discharge of this second Mission, in which our venerable Corporation has borne so large a Share.

I am but little acquainted with the history of its pious Establishment; but I reasonably suppose it to have been founded in obedience to this SECOND CALL: and, consequently, that the peculiar objects of its exalted Charity were the barbarous Americans, so long kept hid in the Shadow of Death.

I. Our Colonies, indeed, opened the Door to this spiritual Enterprize; and were, in reason, to be paid for their pains with some portion of the heavenly Manna; not so much for relief of their own wants, as for the wants of their Posterity. Our Colonies were formed and first peopled by religious and conscientious men; who, made uneasy at home by their intolerant Brethren, left the Old World, to enjoy, in peace, that first and chief prerogative of Man, the free worship of God according to his own Conscience: At one time PURITANS driven over by the Episcopal Church; at another, CHURCHMEN forced thither by the Presbyterian Faction; just as the revolutions of State threw the civil power into one or the other hand. For it must be remembered (though