THE royal pen-man of this Psalm, who was an excellent states-man, as well as an eminent saint, seems by the context, to be surprized at the atheism, and infidelity which prevailed in his day; and probably in his own court. Men practically denied the very being of a God: and the defection it seems was very general, for these were not any that had a sense of religion, or sought after God; but vice like a flood, or a general inundation carried all before it; so that there was scarcely a single instance of integrity. There is none that doeth good, no not one. The consequence of which is, they run into unjust and oppressive measures: and the innocent and feeble groan under their tyranny. They devour them like a grateful morsel, without remorse or reflection. Who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord. This occasions a general consternation, which shall terminate in the conviction of the aggressor, and the protection of God's people. There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous; you have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge.

[Page 4]UNDER this gloomy aspect, the devout psalmist looks forward by faith, into the promises, and there beholds a more delightful scene; and in rapture cries out. O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! O that this concussion might produce the desire of all nations!

When that happy time shall once commence wherein this miserable people shall be released from their spi­ritual bondage and captivity, and again restored to the immunities of thy covenant; universal joy shall obtain. Thy church and people shall exult in the liberties where­with the Son makes free.— Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. Not a tongue but shall sound thy praise, nor a heart but will exult in thy salvation.

DOCTRINE, That when God in his providence con­fers some great and general blessing upon his people, he justly expects that they have a proper sense of his favours; and rejoice in his goodness.

IT is a scandalous misrepresentation, vulgarly admitted, concerning religion, that it is altogether sower, requiring a dull, dupish, morose kind of life, barring all delight and mirth, all good humour; whereas on the contrary, it alone is the never-failing source of true, pure, steady joy; such as is deeply rooted in the heart, immoveably founded in the reason of things: permanent, like the immortal spirit wherein it dwells: and like the eternal objects whereon it is fixed; which is not apt to fade or cloy: and is not subject to any impressions apt to corrupt or impair it. Whereas in our text, (and in many others parallel to it) we see our religion doth not only allow, but (on special occasions) even oblige us to be joyful. [Page 5] Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. Such indeed, (says one) is the transcendant goodness of our God, that he makes our delight to be our duty, and our sorrow to be our sin; adapting his holy will to our principal in­stinct; that he would have us to resemble himself, as in all other perfections, so in a constant state of happi­ness, 1 Thes. 5. 16. Rejoice ever-more.

Here I shall endeavour to shew,

• I. How we are to rejoice, or express our sense of God's goodness towards us.
• II. WHAT special occasion we have for it at this day.

I. How as christians we are to express our sense of God's goodness towards us.—Joy is a dilating of the heart, or elevation of the soul; it is an exulting of the passions upon the receipt of something peculiarly pleasing and agreeable.—It is the reverse of sorrow or fear, which contracts the heart and depresses the spirits: and puts the subject into an uncomfortable, dejected state.—Thus the pleasures of heaven, and the happiness of a glorified state, is described by joy. Psal. 16. 11.— In thy presence is ful­ness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures for ever more.—The several passions of the mind, (as joy, sorrow, desire, fear, &c.) are formed in us by our great creator for wise and noble purposes, and are occasionally excited for the benefit of the creature, and the honour of his maker: and therefore it is that we are at present in such a checquered state, of comforts and afflictions, joys and sorrows; and these all to be improved to good and valuable purposes.

1. We are to have a grateful sense of God's goodness [Page 6] and kindness towards us. i. e. Not to treat such favourable dispensations, with neglect; or overlook them as not worth our regard.

GOD is herein not only speaking to us in his provi­dence, but he is speaking kindly and friendly: and for us not to give him a hearing, or to slight his favours, is ungrateful, and must be very offensive. By these things he is shewing us, that he has not forsaken or forgotten us; but takes pleasure in our welfare and comfort; is there­fore worthy of our trust and confidence, and expects our acknowledgements. Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Psal. 50. 15. God is to have the glory, while we have the comfort of his favours. We must not rob God of his due, by ascribing to instruments, what is due to the efficient only: to be so pleased with our own conduct, or that of our friends, as to overlook the hand of God, who has directed and over-ruled all in our favour. This would be what the prophet calls sacrificing to our own nets, and burning incense to our own drags. Should a friend be so good as to present us with some rich gift, and we be so taken with the present, as not to regard the giver; would not this be ungrateful, and abusing our benefactor? No better is it for us to be so taken up with our favours and success, as not to consider by whom we obtained them; and from whose hand we received them. This is brutish; yea, swinish, to devour the favour, but never look up to the hand that gave it. Most favours receive their value from the hand which be­stows them, rather than their own intrinsick worth, we esteem them because they are pledges of love from [...]h a friend.

So, as great and valuable as any of our worldly comforts [Page 7] be, they are doubly so, when we receive them from God as the tokens of his favour, and pledges of his love; we are not only enriched with his gift, but comforted with his favour.—Oh, when a poor christian receives a favour in answer of prayer; his greatest comfort is, not in the gift, but in the favour of God; that he is pleased to hear his poor request, and treat him as a child, or a favourite.

2. WE are to express our thankfulness, and shew our joy, by a full and ready acknowledgement of God's favours. It is not enough that we have some secret thoughts and up-liftings of heart towards God; but we must openly and publickly express our joy and thankfulness. We are in duty bound to render according to benefits received; now the benefits we have received, are not some private or secret favours, which none but God and our own souls know of; but they are open, public and general; and so should our acknowledgments be. God hath not concealed his favours, but lets all the world see them; so should our joy and praise be open, and in the sight of the sun; that all may see that we are not ashamed to own and acknowledge God in it, as the author and finisher of our favours as well as our faith. And as the favours we have received, are weighty and im­portant; and in which very much of our present comfort, and our children's after happiness consists; so our joy should be solid and real, not feigned or flashey. We ought to give our children such an acquaintance and sense of God's providential care and kindness, as may affect their hearts, and engage their trust and confidence in him. Moses under divine inspiration composed a song, upon the occasion of Israel's deliverance from Egyptian bondage which he enjoins them and their children to observe. Deut. 32. 46. And he said unto them set your hearts unto all the words which I [Page 8] testify among you this day; which ye shall command your chil­dren to observe, to do all the words of this law: for it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life; and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land.

3. WE must present our offerings of praise, in the name of Christ; expressing our joy in a proper sense of the effi­cacy of his mediation and intercession. The prophet Ze­chariah, represents the restoration of the Jews from their Babylonish captivity, to be effected by Christ's intercession. Zech. 1. 12. The angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of hosts how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusa­lem, and the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation, these threescore and ten years? And the Lord answered the angel that talked with me, with good words, and comfortable words. However earnest and importunate our friends have been, in the court of Great-Britain; yet if we had not had a friend in the court of heaven, we should never have obtained what we have. May we not suppose the angel of God's presence; the great high priest of our profession to have interceeded for us, saying, how long O Lord of hosts wilt thou have indignation against thine A­merican colonies, and suffer the oppressor to prevail? And the Lord answered with good words, and with comfortable words,—saying, I have disappointed the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise; and have taken the wife in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong: I have said touch not mine anointed, and do my people no harm.—This surely is the language of God's providence as well as his word; and it becomes us deeply to regard it, and pay our acknowledgements where they are due. External to­kens of joy and gladness, expressed by publick illuminations [Page 9] and explosions, (however proper any may think them to be on such occasions) are but saint returns, and feeble expres­sions, to what is the sincere joy of a devout soul, that is led up to God in Christ, in the sense of these favours, and exults in the language of the psalmist. Psal. 29. beginning. Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty: give unto the Lord glory and strength, give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

4. WE are to express our sense of God's goodness and kindness towards us, by our thankful and faithful returns.

WE must live as well as speak God's praises; our lives must be an evidence of our faithfulness: a well ordered life and conversation must testify for us, that we are truly thankful: and a chearful obedience best expresses the joy of heart which arises from a sense of the rectitude of God's government.—We indeed have been a favoured people, our liberties and privileges have been singular; but then they have been abused; we have waxed wanton, we have prac­tically said (as Israel of old) we are Lords, and will come no more near.

BUT since God in his providence has shewn us, that these immunities may be taken from us; and not only so, but has also once more restored, and betrusted us with them; it highly concerns us to make the best improvement of them, that it may not repent the Lord that has rescued us once more. It becomes us to live and act like a free people; especially as such who are freed from the reigning power of sin, and delivered from the bondage of our lusts and corrup­tions; that we may serve the Lord with newness of life, and with new obedience.

II. We are to shew what special occasion we have for rejoicing in the present day.

[Page 10]WE may say as the psalmist, respecting God's people of old,

The Lord bath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Whatever in its nature is engaging and endearing God has done for us. His mercies have been both preventing and restoring. He has prevented the destruction that threatned us, and has warded off the blow that was aimed at us. The 124th psalm is as accommodate to our case, as if penned upon the very occasion.

WE are to see our obligations and matter of thankfulness, rather from what we have escaped, than from what we have endured.— The snare is broken and we are escaped.

1. In the first place, we have escaped that impoverish­ment, and deprivation of the comforts of life, which our industry has procured us. Our opulency (it seems) was envied, and our generosity perverted and abused: and be­cause upon some special occasions, our people have exerted themselves for the comfort of our friends, and the honour of our colonies; we have been represented as drenched in luxury, and ought to be stript of what were our honest earnings.

WE have been represented at home (we hear) as aboun­ding in wealth, and able to pay a much larger proportion, than has ever been demanded: and under the plausible pre­tence of an equitable quota of the publick expence of the nation, so to enlarge our taxes as to weaken our hands, and break down our spirits, as thereby to prepare us for an abject state of slavery. To render us incapable of helping ourselves, and so to be dependent upon those that have made us so.

BUT blessed be God, the falsity is discovered, and the bad policy detected, and we at present confirmed in the posses­sion [Page 11] of our just interests.—Scanty meals and refuse fare, (as is the case of a great part of the lower sort of people in the nation) would but poorly suit us, who have been used to full tables, and live upon our own property, every man sitting under his own vine and under his own fig-tree.

PROPERTY is a blessing when accompanied with liberty; then it renders life comfortable and pleasant; but to be stript of all we can call our own, and be dependent upon others for our support and subsistence, must needs be very disagreable: 'tis but the life of a slave, and but half living at best. And all that we have and are, better than this, is what we have to give thanks for, and be glad of at this day.

2. WE have escaped not only poverty but slavery: our liberty as well as property, was threatned by that grie­vous act. Had that with its connections been enforced; not Egyptian bondage would have been heavier, or Israel's groans louder. There was nothing we could have called our own. Not so much as our lives or our consciences. With respect to our civil liberties, that darling branch of our excellent constitution, ( viz.) the being tried by our peers, or the liberty of a jury in many important cases, was taken away, and our persons and properties exposed to the wills of capricious men. It is impossible at present to con­ceive of the many complicated evils that would have atten­ded: what ever is oppressive and distressing we might expect would be the consequence. That same power which could impose a tax of a shilling (without our consent) could im­pose one of a pound; and no doubt but we should soon have felt it; for the late act was calculated to affect but few, and so to try the temper of the people, and make way for a land tax which would affect all that had any property, and had [Page 12] it not been prevented, would doubtless have soon taken place. By which we had been reduced to the dreadful dilemma, of either being slaves or revolters.—It is enough to make our flesh tremble, and our hair stiffen with horror: to think what would be our case, and what the consequen­ces of pursuing the advice which some gave, ( viz.) to enforce the act by power, and subject us by a military force! To enslave three million subjects at once, is more than ever Caesar or Alexander did.—And had it been attempted, and blood shed in the case, to me it looks most probable, there would have been an universal revolt!

AND America had never more been a province of Great-Britain. Most probable it would have cost the lives of one third of the active part of our inhabitants, to have defended the other two. The nation would be ruined, and the colonies d [...]populated and reduced to the greatest distress. Ere now the confusion would have begun, and things would have born a different aspect from what we see in the present day. It would have been like what is described, Luk. 21. 25, 26. Upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth. We could not long expect to enjoy our religious liberties, when once our civil liber­ties were gone. Tyranny and despotick power leaves no part of the subject free. Those who command the lives and liberties of their subjects generally claim the govern­ment of their consciences also. And to what distress both of body and mind we should have been reduced, we are not at present able to conceive; but such conceptions we may form as shew us the abundant occasion of thanks­giving and praise, for the great deliverance which God has [Page 13] graciously granted us. In a word, the transition would have been the most extraordinary that was possible: from a state of the most perfect freedom, of any people in the world, to the greatest slavery and bondage.

FROM the most unrestrained liberty of conscience, of any church in christendom, to a state, either of oppression or libertinism. So that all the dreadfuls we can conceive of, being so happily avoided, calls for our most hearty and exalted praise and thanksgiving. And the language of our hearts, should be that of the psalmist 103d Psal. beginning. Bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name, and forget not all his be­nefits.