hend.-Confider,-thefe are but part of his ways;-how little a portion is heard of him? Canft thou, by fearching, find out GOD?-wouldft thou know the Almighty to perfection?-'Tis as high as heaven, What canft thou do?-'tis deeper than hell, how canft thou know it?

Could we but fee the mysterious workings of Providence, and were we able to comprehend the whole plan of his infinite wisdom and goodness, which poffibly may be the cafe in the final confummation of all things ;-thofe events, which we are now fo perplexed to account for, would probably exalt and magnify his wisdom, and make us cry out with the Apoftle, in that rapturous exclamation,-O! the depth of the riches both of the goodness and wifdom of GOD!-how unfearchable are his ways, and his paths paft finding out!

Now to GOD, &c.

SERMON XLV.

The Ingratitude of Ifrael.

2 KINGS XVII. 7.

For fo it was,-that the children of Ifrael had finned against the Lord their GOD, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt.

HE words of the text account for the

TH

caufe of a fad calamity, which is related, in the foregoing verfes, to have befallen a great number of Ifraelites, who were furprifed, in the capital city of Samaria, by Hofea king of Affyria, and cruelly carried away by him out of their own country, and placed on the defolate frontiers of Halah, and in Haber, by the river Gozan, and in the city of the Medes, and there confined to end their days in forrow and captivity. -Upon which the facred hiftorian, inftead of accounting for fo fad an event

merely from political fprings and causes; fuch, for inftance, as the fuperior strength and policy of the enemy, or an unfeafonable provocation given,-or that proper measures of defence were neglected; -he traces it up, in one word, to its true caufe -For fo it was, fays he, that the children of Ifrael had finned against the Lord their GOD, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt. It was furely a fufficient foundation to dread fome evil,-that they had finned against that Being who had an unqueftionable right to their obedience.But what an aggravation was it-that they had not only finned fimply against the truth, but against the GoD of mercies, who had brought them forth out of the land of Egypt;-who not only created, upheld, and favoured them with fo many advantages in common with the reft of their fellow-creatures,-but who had been particularly kind to them in their misfortunes ;-who, when they were in the house of bondage, in the moft hopeless condition, without a pro

fpect of any natural means of redress, had compaffionately heard their cry, and took pity upon the afflictions of a diftreffed people,—and, by a chain of miracles, delivered them from fervitude and oppreffion :-miracles of fo ftupendous a nature, that I take delight to of fer them, as often as I have an opportunity, to your devouteft contemplations. -This, you would think as high and as complicated an aggravation of their fins as could be urged. This was not all; -for befides GOD's goodness in first favouring their miraculous efcape, a feries of fucceffes, not to be accounted for from fecond caufes, and the natural course of events, had crowned their heads in fo remarkable a manner, as to afford an evident proof, not only of his general concern for their welfare, but of his particular providence and attachment to them above all people upon earth. In the wildernefs he led them like fheep, and kept them as the apple of his eye he fuffered no man to do them wrong, but reproved even kings