a difcourfe on adverfity, and alfo a difcourfe on planting the fciences, and the propagation of Christianity, in the untutored parts of the earth. With an Appendix, containing fome other pieces. By William Smith, D. D. Provost of the College and Academy of Philadelphia. 8vo. 3s. 6d. Millar, &c.

THE

HE principal defign of thefe difcourfes is, to fhew the value value of the bleffings arifing from the enjoyment of the Proteftant religion and civil liberty, and to inspire a becoming zeal for their defence. They are written with an excellent fpirit, and in a fprightly animated manner; the language is clear and forcible, the fentiments generally juft, and often ftriking.

The firft difcourfe has no immediate connection with the fubjects of the reft, and was preached on the death of a beloved pupil; the fecond was delivered when General Braddock was carrying on his expedition to the Ohio, and contains an earneft exhortation to religion, brotherly love, and public fpirit, from thefe words, Love the brotherhood, fear God, honour the King.

Our hearts,' fays the Author, would venerate those who were to be the faithful companions of our good and bad < fortune through fome strange country; and fhall not our very fouls burn within us towards the whole human race, who, as well as we, are to pass through all the untried fcenes of endless being?

Good heaven! what a profpect does this thought prefent 'to'us? Eternity all before us! how great, how important ⚫ does man appear! ow little and how trifling the ordinary causes of contention! party differences, and the vulgar diftinctions between finall and great, noble and ignoble, are here entirely loft; or, if they are feen, they are seen but as • feathers dancing on the mighty ocean, utterly incapable to tofs it into tumult.

In this grand view, we forget to enquire whether a man is of this or that denomination! we forget to enquire whether he is rich or poor, learned or unlearned! These are but trivial confiderations; and, to entitle him to our love, it is enough that he wears the human form! it is enough that he is our fellow-traveller through this valley of tears! And furely it is more than enough, that when the ⚫ whole world shall tumble from its place," and the heavens "be rolled together as a fcroll," he is to ftand the laft fhock

with

⚫ with us; to launch out into the shoreless ocean beyond; to fhare the fortunes of the endlefs voyage, and, for what we know, to be our infeparable companion through thofe regions, over which clouds and darkness hang, and from whose confines no traveller has returned with tidings!

< Another motive to brotherly love, is its tendency to foften and improve the temper. When a reigning humanity has fhed its divine influences on our hearts, and impregnated them with every good difpofition, we fhall be all harmony ⚫ within, and kindly affected towards every thing around us. • Charity, in all its golden branches, fhall illuminate our fouls, and banish every dark and illiberal fentiment. We fhall be open to the fair impreffions of beauty, order, and goodness; and shall strive to transcribe them into our own breafts. We fhall rejoice in the divine administration; and imitate it by diffufing the most extenfive happiness in our power. Such a heavenly temper will give us the inexpreffible meltings of joy, at feeing others joyful. It will lead us down into the houfe of mourning, to furprize the lonely heart with un• expected kindness; to bid the chearless widow fing for gladnefs, and to call forth modeft merit from its obfcure retreats.

To act thus is the delight of God, and must be the highest ⚫ honour and moft exalted enjoyment of man. It yields a fatisfaction which neither time, nor chance, nor any thing befides, can rob us of; a fatisfaction which will accompany us through life, and at our death will not forfake us. For then we fhall have the well grounded hopes of receiving • that mercy which we have shewn to others.'

In the third discourse, which was delivered at Bristol, in Pennsylvania, on occafion of the public faft, May 21, 1756, when the province was groaning under all that load of misery which was the confequence of Braddock's defeat, a parallel is drawn between the state of our colonies and that of the Jews, in many remarkable inftances. The fourth fhews the Chriftian foldier's duty; the lawfulness and dignity of his office; and the importance of the Proteftant caufe in the British colonies: it was preached in Chrift-church, Philadelphia, April 5, 1757, at the defire of Brigadier-General Stanwix, to the forces under his command, before their march to the frontiers.

The Author's address to the officers is as follows: And now, Gentlemen Officers, you will permit me to address the remainder of this difcourfe more immediately to you. I know you love your King and Country. I know you regard those men under your command, and would wish to

• fee

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fee them fhining in the practice of thofe virtues which I have been recommending. But yet, after all, this muft, in a great measure, depend upon yourselves.

If, then, you would defire to have any tie upon their confciences; if you would wish to fee them act upon principle, and give you any other hold of them than that of mere command-let me, Oh let me befeech you, to cultivate and propagate among them, with your whole influence and authority, a fublime fenfe of religion, eternity, and redeeming love; let the bright profpects of the gospel of Jefus be placed full before their eyes; and let its holy precepts ⚫ be inculcated frequently into their hearts!

But, above all things, let the adorable name of the everlafting Jehovah be kept facred among you! glorified angels fall proftrate before it! the very devils themselves tremble at it! and fhall poor worms of earth; dependent on a pulse ⚫ for every breath of being; furrounded with dangers innumerable; marching forth in the very fhadow of death; today here, and to-morrow in eternity-fhall they dare to blaspheme that holy name, before which all nature bends in • adoration and awe? Shall they forget their abfolute depen⚫dence upon it for all they have, and all they hope to have?

Alas! when the name of our Great Creator is become thus familiar, and prostituted to every common fubject, what name fhall we invoke in the day of danger? To what refuge fhall we fly amidft the various preffures of life? to ⚫ whose mercy fhall we lift up our eyes in the hour of death? and into whose bofom confign our fouls, when we launch ⚫ forth into the dark precincts of eternity?

Once more, then, I beseech you, let the name of the • Lord be holy among you; else have you no fure foundation ⚫ for virtue or goodness; none for dependence upon Provi<dence; none for the fanctity of an oath; none for faith, nor truth, nor "obedience for confcience-fake."

Next to religion and a fovereign regard to the honour and glory of your great Creator, it will be of the utmost importance to cultivate, in yourselves, and thofe under you̟, a noble, manly, and rational enthufiafm in the glorious caufe wherein you are engaged; founded on a thorough conviction of its being the cause of justice, the Proteftant cause, the cause of virtue and freedom on earth.

Animated by this fublime principle, what wonders have * not Britons performed? How have they rifen, the terror of "the

the earth; the protectors of the oppreffed; the avengers of juftice, and the fcourge of tyrants? How have the fons of rapine and violence fhrunk before them, confounded and ⚫ overthrown? Witnefs, ye Danube and Sambre, and thou Boyn, crimfoned in blood! bear witnefs and fay-what was it that fired our Williams and our Marlboroughs to deeds of immortal renown? What was it that fteeled their hearts with courage, and edged their fwords with victory? Was it not, under God, an animating conviction of the justice of their caufe, and an unconquerable paffion for liberty, and the purity of the Proteftant faith?

And do you think now, Gentlemen, that the cause wherein you are engaged, is lefs honourable, lefs important, or that lefs depends on the fwords you draw? No, Gentlemen! I will pronounce it before heaven and earth, that from the days of our Alfreds, our Edwards, and our Henries, downwards, the British fword was never unfheathed in a more glorious or more divine cause than at present ! • Look round you! behold a country vaft in extent, merciful in its climate, exuberant in its foil, the feat of plenty, the garden of the Lord! behold it given to us and to our pofterity, to propagate virtue, to cultivate useful arts, and to spread abroad the pure evangelical religion of Jesus ! behold colonies founded in it! Proteftant colonies! free colonies! British colonies! Behold them exulting in their li berty; flourishing in commerce; the arts and sciences planted in them; the gofpel preached; and in short the feeds of happiness and glory firmly rooted, and growing up among

them!

< But, turning from this profpect for a moment, look to the other hand direct your eyes to the weftward! there behold Popifh perfidy, French tyranny, and Savage barba rity, leagued in triple combination, advancing to deprive us "of those exalted bleffings, or to circumfcribe us in the pof⚫ feffion of them, and make the land too small for us and the increasing multitude of our pofterity!

Oh Britons! Oh Chriftians! what a profpect is this! it is odious to the view, and horrible to relate. Sec, in the van, a set of fierce favages hounded forth against us, from their dark lurking places; brandifhing their murderous knives, fparing neither age nor fex; neither the hoary fire, nor the hopeful fon; neither the tender virgin, nor the helplefs babe. Ten thoufand furies follow behind, and close up the scene! grim fuperftition, lording it over confcience! bloody perfecution fhaking her iron fcourge! and gloomy

• error

error feducing the unwary foul! while, in the midft and all around, is heard the voice of lamentation and mourning and woe; religion bleeding under her ftripes! virtue banished into a corner! commerce bound in chains, and liberty in fetters of iron!

But look again, gentlemen! between us and thofe evils, there is yet a space or gap left! and, in that gap, among others, you ftand; a glorious phalanx! a royal regiment! a royal American regiment! a regiment formed by the beft of kings for the nobleft of purposes! and formed to continue, perhaps, for thefe purposes, the avengers of liberty and protectors of justice in this new world, throughout all generations!

And now is not my affertion proved? Confidered in this light, does it not appear to yourselves that never, from the 'firft of time, was a body of Britons engaged in a more glorious caufe than you are at prefent; nor a caufe on whose ⚫iffue more depends? You are not led forth by wild ambition, nor by ill-grounded claims of right, nor by falfe notions of glory. But, confign'd to you is the happiness of the prefent age and of late pofterity. You wear upon your 'fwords every thing that is dear and valuable to us, as men and as chriftians. And upon your fuccefs it depends, perhaps, whether the pure religion of the gofpel, ftreaming ' uncorrupted from its facred fource, rational, moral and divine, together with liberty and all its concomitant bleffings, 'fhall finally be extended over thefe American regions; or whether they fhall return into the bondage of idolatry, and ⚫ darkness of error for ever!

In fuch an exalted and divine caufe, let your hearts betray no doubts nor unmanly fears. Though the profpcct may look dark against us, and though the Lord may juftly think fit to punish us for our fins, yet we may firmly truft 'that he will not wholly give up the proteftant-caufe; but that it is his gracious purpofe, in due time, to add to the reformed church of Chrift,' the Heathen for an inheritance, and the uttermoft parts of the earth for a poffeffion." The fubject of the fifth difcourfe is, the planting the fci, ences, and the propagation of the gofpel in America; it.was delivered before the trustees, mafters, ftudents, and fcholars of the college and academy of Philadelphia, May 17, 1757, being the first anniverfary commencement in that place, to- . gether with a charge to the candidates who then obtained their degrees.

REV. July 1759.

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