"Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.”

IT has pleased our gracious Sovereign, with the advice of his privy council, to command this day to be observed by all his subjects, as a day of fasting and humiliation, on account of our national visitations. For, besides the periodical distresses which, of late years, have pressed upon our country, an alarming and ravaging disease has visited our land; and has already cut down about two

Preached on the 21st of March, 1832, being the day appointed for a national fast and prayer.

2 The cholera morbus.

thousand of our fellow subjects. It is not this disease alone that threatens the kingdom. The state of the country generally, in its present unsettled position, exhibits a gloomy appearance; and a dark cloud appears to be hanging over our head as a nation; and that cloud may ere long break in awful and devastating storms, sweeping away with a terrific force, all that is dear to us as men, as Britons, as Christians.

That the Lord God has a controversy with this nation, as he had with the Jewish nation of old, is, and has been, the decided opinion of many reflecting and observing men. And this opinion seems to be well sustained by the review of the provocations which the Lord God is daily receiving from man; and from man, as is the case in this empire, endowed with so many signal privileges and blessings; so many opportunities and incentives to know and serve the true God.

It is no small aggravation of our sins that we exclude Almighty God from the government of the world, by an atheistical denial of his providential agency in the affairs of kingdoms and of individuals. Our successful enterprises or our reverses we ascribe to our own wisdom and skill, or to chance. Of us it may be said, as it was said of Israel of old," She did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold,

which they prepared for Baal. Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her

nakedness."3

In the history of the Jewish nation, we find that the national iniquities brought down national judgments; and on the nation's repentance and humiliation before God, he remembered his mercy and turned away his wrath.

The chapter from which our text is taken, opens with terrible threatenings against Israel for their sins. But in the chapter we see that God in his wrath remembers mercy. Having proclaimed his awful judgments to alarm, he sends forth from the mercy seat an exhortation to repent, accompanied with an announcement of his gracious and merciful disposition, to win upon the wayward nation, and to allure it to return. "Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart and not yonr garments, and turn unto the Lord your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil." We shall notice,

3 Hos. ii. 8, 9.

I. THE EXHORTATION TO THE PEOPLE TO RE

TURN UNTO T THE LORD;

II. THE DIRECTION FOR THEIR RETURN; AND III. THE ENCOURAGEMENT PRESENTED TO THEM

TO RETURN.

We notice,

I. THE EXHORTATION TO THE PEOPLE TO RETURN UNTO THE LORD.

"Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me"-" and turn unto the Lord your God." The exhortation is introduced with, "the Lord saith." Jehovah speaks, let his voice command silence and reverence. Though his words be communicated through man, they are the words of Him at whose bidding universal nature moves and obeys; it is he who stilleth the raging of the tempest and restraineth the madness of the people. "The Lord saith;" and what saith he? "Turn ye even to me." What is the nation to turn from? From its evil ways. When we speak of the nation, we speak of the individuals who compose the nation. For, as a family is made up of individual members, so the nation is made up of individuals. Then as we who are present compose a part of the nation, our business this day lies chiefly with ourselves; and we should regard the text as addressed to each one of us now present.

The exhortation contained in the text implies that the people there addressed, had turned from God. Is this not true of us? Have we not, to use the emphatic confession which we profess to make every time that we assemble in the house of prayer, have we not "erred and strayed" from God's " ways like lost sheep;" have we not "fol

lowed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts"? To take a survey of, and describe the various evil ways by which men depart from God, would be too great a task for one discourse. We shall notice only a few of the most common and notorious.

Ungodliness. This country is denominated a christian country. We glory in so honourable a denomination. There is in the empire much profession of Christianity: and, blessed be the Lord God, there are many God-fearing and God-serving men among the rich and the poor. They are the salt of the country. If ten righteous men had been found adequate to the preservation of Sodom; the ten thousands found in Great Britain will, we trust, be found, under God, the means of preserving our beloved country, our altars, our homes, from the desolations that sweep through empires which know not God. Still, it is to be feared, that of the great mass of our population, there are but few comparatively who truly fear and serve God,