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cious usurpation has still proceeded in its infuriate course, and we are unable to fore

tell at what appointed limit the word of Omnipotence will say, "Hitherto shalt "thou go, and no farther, and here "shall thy proud waves be stayed." Wherever the prospect of resistance appears, there, too, doubtless, we shall be found, abetting the spirit of resistance; and there, too, we must expect to hear the menace of the tyrant repeated, and "the mothers of England" must again prepare to mourn.

Yet, my brethren, if the world around us is destined to submit to that unhappy man, who has been taken up by the demon of Ambition into "an exceeding high "mountain," from whence he has been shewn "all the kingdoms of the world, "and all their glory," and has yielded to the voice which said, " All these things "will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down

"and worship me.” ⠀ If we must still retreat before him, yet I trust we shall retreat like that illustrious band * who, after their arduous toils and achievements, are once more treading their native soil, amid the triumph and the tears of their country; and that, after no inglorious retreat, we shall, like them, turn round upon an insulting foe, and on our own shores, the last bulwark of liberty, again make him feel what its energies are able to perform! Not building upon fallacious hopes, ́it indeed becomes us now to look forward with determined spirits to that last and dreadful conflict, and with the true intrepidity of Britons, to prepare for fighting the battles of the world upon British ground.

And now, may the God of battles strengthen our hearts and steel our arms; may he clothe us with the spirit of our

* An allusion to the battle of Corunna.

Fathers, and arm us with their steady principle, their devoted patriotism, and their unconquerable fortitude; and if, like them, we are at last called to give “a great "sum" for the preservation of "this free"dom," may he so bless our exertions, that we too may, like them, leave our children "free-born."

DISCOURSE XXI.

ON THE RISE AND CHARACTER OF

CONQUERORS.

ISAIAH, xlv. 1, 4, 5.

"Thus saith the Lord to Cyrus, whose

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right hand I have holden, to subdue "nations before him, and I will loose "the loins of kings,-for Jacob, my ser"vant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I "have even called thee by thy name."I am the Lord, and there is none else ; "there is no God beside me: I girded "thee, though thou hast not known me."

THESE prophetic words, my brethren, convey sentiments of no common so

* Preached on the day of the General Fast, 1st March

1810.

lemnity. They shew us the hand of an overruling Providence, secretly directing the arm of man, even where the splendours of apparent power seem least to acknowledge a superior. Many ages before the conqueror, who is here addressed by name, had begun his brilliant career, it was foreseen in the visions of Jewish prophecy, and an humble individual on whom probably his proud eye would not have deigned to look, was commissioned by the Most High God to describe his "goings out and his com"ings in," and to call to him, with the voice and the authority of Heaven! "Thus saith the Lord to Cyrus,—I am "the Lord, and there is none else, "there is no God beside me: I girded "thee, though thou hast not known "me."

This lofty address of the Prophet in

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