every fuch Perfon mourn, as One who will not be Comforted; Will not? Cannot be, otherwife, comforted, than under the Hopes of God's Mercy, upon the Condition of that Repentance, which is ftill to be Perform'd, and which he must Begin with the Profoundest Sorrow, if he would have it Terminate in the Perfection of Joy.

Let us no longer dare to Trifle with God, and Deceive our Selves. Nothing can render Him Propitious to Us, but the Faithful Discharge of our Duty to Him. May therefore the Sincerity of our Repentance effectually recommend us to his Mercy and Favour This Day, and may every fucceeding Day of our Lives be a New Proof of That Sincerity.

2. 'Tis our Duty, to Deteft and Bewail the Sins of Other Perfons, and to Deprecate that Divine Vengeance, which may justly fall upon the Kingdom, on account of Their Sins, or, our Own.

In a Future State indeed, no Body fhall be hurt by any Man's Sins, but Himself. The Proper Weight of Punishment Due to every Man's Guilt, will be

laid upon his own Perfon Alone. But this Rule does not hold good, in all the Distributions of Punishment, in This State. Nations and Communities, as fuch, do finally Diffolve and Ceafe in This World; And therefore, as fuch, they are to be Rewarded and Punished Here, or not at all. And, when God fends a General Calamity upon a Nation, Those who have Provoked him to it, are not the Only Sufferers by it; Their Neighbours are diftreffed, as well as Themfelves, who have been the Cause of fuch Distress. And This is One Weighty Reason of our Detesting and Bewailing other Mens Sins, and of Proving the Reality of this Deteftation and Sorrow, by bearing our Testimony against them, upon all Proper Occafions: "Tis a Reafon abundantly Sufficient to juftify our being fo highly concern'd for the Iniquities and Abominations of our Fellow-Citizens and Countreymen, as to testify that Concern, no less by Exhorting or Reproving them, as Circumstances Require, than by Mourning and Praying for them,

But

But fo Injudicious, and Injurious are Wicked Men, as to account fuch Reproof and Exhortations, the Effects of a Meddling and Impertinent Spirit. In the Defence even of their Blasphemy, their Burlesques upon God and Religion, and, to use St. Jude's Words, of all their hard Speeches, which Ungodly Sinners have Spoken against the Lord, they are wont to express Themselves, in much the fame way, as Those Haughty Scorners, who are introduced by the Pfalmift, faying, With our Tongue will we prevail; our Lips are our own, who is Lord over us? They are apt to fay, and to fay. it with Virulency enough, That no Man hath any thing to do with Them, or Their Behaviour: And whofoever Concerns himfelf with Them, is Petulant, and Affected, and Phantastical.

Happy indeed would it be for Humane Society, if the Truth of this their Obfervation were but equal to the Acrimony of it. But the Advantages, or the Misfortunes, the Joys, or the Sorrows of all

*Pfal. xii. 4.

the

the Members of a Community, are, in many Respects, and on many Accounts, fo Mix'd and Complicated, that in the Political, as well as the Natural Body, when one Member fuffers, all the Members fuffer with it. Where is the Petulancy, or, the Impertinence, of Claiming to ourselves that Concern with Impious Men, or, those Relations to them, which we should be glad to Shake off and Difannull. The Cafe is fo Plain, that it needs not to be Largely Illuftrated, and so Afflicting, that it cannot be Neglected, That our Relations to Them are, in This State, Indiffoluble; That we must have Concern for Them, unless we can be Unconcern'd for our Selves; That their Rebellions against God are Apt to call down Storms of Divine Fury upon the Kingdom, and, that an Universal Calamity will Affect Us in Common with Themselves.

The Deliverance of Righteous Lot from the Destruction of Sodom, was Extraordinary; And of fuch Uncommon and Extraordinary Inftances, the Spirit of God fpeaks in the xivth Ch. of Ezek.

with Relation to the feveral Kinds of National Judgments, and Particularly That, which fhould Now move our Piety, as well as our Fear: If Ifend a Peftilence into that Land, and pour out my Fury upon it in Blood, to cut off from it Man and Beaft; though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, faith the Lord, they fhall deliver neither Son, nor Daughter; they hall but deliver their own Souls by their Righteoufnefs: Though God fhould think fit to deliver fuch Extraordinary Persons, in an Extraordinary Manner ; yet even their Families, even the Deareft Branches of them, their Sons and their Daughters, fhould fall in the Common Destruction. And, in all Ordinary Cafes, the Great Inftruments of God's Vengeance, the Sword, the Famine, and the Peftilence, feem to break in, Promifcuoufly, upon Virtuous, and Vicious Men. If any Perfon be Preserved, in the very middle of Danger, by the special Interpofition of Heaven, from these Great Evils; yet do They plainly Ravage and Confume the Inhabitants of the Land, without vifible Difference or Discrimination.

So