or pestilence, are the proper instruments of reward and punishment, and yet, that God doth not so employ them, but will rather have recourse to what we call miraculous operations, is an unwarranted and indeed disrespectful notion of divine Wisdom; as implying a kind of incapacity in the Almighty to fit the natural to the moral system in such a manner as to make the former a ready instrument for the regulation of the latter.

2. If, from the character of the speaker, we turn to the state and condition of the hearers, we shall see further reason to acquiesce in this conclusion. The Jews, of all people upon earth, were best justified in ascribing national calamities to the anger of offended Heaven. They were of a Race long accustomed to receive rewards and punishments through the instrumentality of Nature; and of a Religion which more solemnly and exactly dispensed them; for the most part indeed, they were miraculously enforced; yet frequently too, administered in the common order and course of Nature: so that such a people, whose sacred books bore testimony in every page to the punishment of crimes by pestilence, by famine, and the sword, could never hesitate a moment to conclude, that the calamities of the wicked Galileans were a mark of God's displeasure against sin.

3. Lastly, the very words of the reproof [-except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish], evidently imply, that amongst the many ends effected in the administration of Nature, this was one, to express God's displeasure at human iniquities, in order to bring men to REPENTANCE-except ye REPENT, ye shall

all likewise perish: that is, perish for the same cause (your sins), and by the same instrument (the Roman power). In which it appears, that our blessed Lord alluded to his own prediction, of the exterminating vengeance impending over the whole Nation by the arms of Vespasian.

But now, if the belief of a moral end, in these general calamities, be a principle of Religion, proper to be inculcated, to support the reverence due to the moral Governor of the world; What was it, you will ask, that could deserve so solemn and so severe a reproof as our Lord's words are confessed to convey, on this occasion?

The answer is easy. It was that detestable superstition, which so often accompanies, and so fatally infects, this generous principle of Religion; the superstition of ascribing public calamities, not to God's displeasure against sin in general, but to his vengeance on the persons of the unhappy sufferers; who, for some fancy or other, this Superstition concludes to be greater sinners than other men.

This deserved all the severity of our Lord's censure, as it implied gross ignorance in the nature of the punishment; and betrayed a malignity of heart which defeated the very end of the dispensation.

1. When Sodom and Gomorra were destroyed by a fire from Heaven, and the idolatrous inhabitants of Canaan extirpated by the command of God, who furnished the instruments, which he employed, with extraordinary powers for their destruction, the people of God were authorized to con

clude,

clude, that those nations were sinners above all other men; and, consequently, that their punishment was inflicted for their own immeasurable iniquities, as well as for a warning and example to the rest of mankind. But when God, by the admirable direction of his general providence, so adjusts the circumstances of the natural and moral systems, as to make the events in the former to serve for the regulation of the latter, we must, in all reason, conceive that such events are principally designed as alarms and warnings to a careless inattentive world; and that their moral purpose was rather general example than particular vengeance: for the attaining of which end, it is sufficient for us to believe, that those who suffer are sinners deserving punishment; not that they are greater sinners than those who have escaped; possibly much less, as the preservation of these was necessary for the carrying on some other great and inscrutable design of Providence, in the more general government of the moral world.

From all this, it appears, that though, indeed, we be allowed, on the soberest principles of reason, to consider such unhappy sufferers as the criminal object of an offended Master; yet are we by no means authorized on any principles, either of reason or religion, to conclude that they are more criminal than others.

2. This leads me to another reason of the severity of our Lord's reproof; the extreme uncharitableness of this wicked superstition: For when once we begin to estimate the degree of demerit by the frequency

or severity of the punishment, and the degree of God's disfavour in proportion to the demerit,. these our distressed brethren will be no longer the object of our pity, but of our scorn and aversion, as the abandoned and the outcasts of Heaven. And when superstition is once got into this train, so frequent and general are the calamities of human life, that Christian communities, from a brotherhood of love, would soon degenerate into a desperate crew of mis creants, each rejoicing in the pains, and triumphing in the miseries, of others.

3. A third reason of the severity of the reproof is, That this superstition has a direct tendency to defeat the very end of the chastisement. It is inflicted to rouse, to wake, and to alarm a drowsy, inattentive world; to beget, in those who have escaped, humility and circumspection; which, by a timely repentance, may avert the vengeance hovering round them. But when men, by this wretched error, are become so debauched as to fancy, that the unhappy, on whom the evil falls, are sinners above all others, they no longer consider the punishment as a warning of some approaching mischief, but as a passed vengeance, in which themselves are but remotely concerned, and have therefore no need to scrutinize their own conduct, or disturb their quiet with self-apprehensions. Thus the gracious purpose of Heaven being defeated, and the hand of Mercy stretched out in vain, an exterminating vengeance follows, and the dreadful scene closes in a final destruction.

This was the case of these very men to whom the reproof

1

reproof of Jesus was addressed. They were far gone in the superstition here condemned. They had long considered general disasters in this absurd and impious light and the suffering Galileans supported them in the satisfaction they took in their own ways. Exemplary warnings became lost upon them; and every fresh gleam of divine mercy only served to ripen them into the speedy objects of his justice.

Things were now at a crisis; and the last warningvoice from Heaven was given in the case of the Galileans, suffering by that very scourge, the Roman power, which stood ready at the door to drive and sweep away their very name and nation. And now the gracious Saviour of the world exerts this last effort of his goodness towards them, in an explanation of the nature of these punishments: He shews that their principal purpose was for their admonition and amendment, to awake them to repentance, and an abhorrence of their ways; which if neglected or delayed, they too should perish, and in a more general desolation.

But the day of grace was past: they were deaf to Reason, to Nature, and to Religion. Their doom was now pronounced; and that instrument of God's vengeance, the Imperial eagle, scenting the carcass* from afar, came down with an exterminating wing on this devoted Nation, already more than half destroyed by its intestine vices and corruptions.

The contemplation of this awful judgment is at this time so peculiarly useful to Us, that I almost scruple to call you away from an attention to it, * Matt. xxiv. 28.