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SERMON XII.

GOD NEVER FORSAKES HIS PEOPLE.

ANNUAL THANKSGIVING, NOVEMBER 27, 1800.

FOR the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake: because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people. - 1 SAMUEL, Xii. 22.

THE children of Israel, having long experienced the evils of anarchy and confusion, earnestly requested Samuel to make them a king. Though this request was displeasing to God as well as to Samuel, yet God directed Samuel to anoint Saul to reign over his people. At this critical juncture of public affairs, Nahash the Ammonite came with an army into Judea, and encamped against Jabesh-Gilead. The inhabitants of the city were willing at first to capitulate upon reasonable terms; but Nahash insisted on the hard condition, that they should tamely suffer him to pluck out all their right eyes, "and lay it for a reproach upon all Israel." This inhuman proposal the elders of Jabesh rejected with proper disdain, and demanded a truce for seven days. In that interval they sent to Saul for immediate assistance, who in a high tone of authority commanded all the fighting men in the kingdom to appear in the field. They readily obeyed the mandate of their new sovereign, and came with one consent, to the amount of three hundred and thirty thousand. At the head of this numerous host Saul attacked and completely destroyed the whole army of the Ammonites. While this signal victory was spreading joy through all Judea, Samuel invited the tribes of Israel to repair to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there. Accordingly we are told, "All the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal: and there they sac

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rificed sacrifices of peace-offerings before the Lord: and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly." Many individuals however felt very differently on that occasion, and especially Samuel, who knew the character of Saul, and was apprized of the evils which the nation would suffer during his unhappy reign. Accordingly he took that favorable opportunity to resign all his civil offices, which he had long and faithfully discharged; to make some just observations on the late revolution of government; and to remind the people of the great things which God had done for them, and which, he tells them in the text, gave them just ground of hope and confidence in their present critical situation. "The Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake: because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people." This was a natural and just way of reasoning. Samuel had a right to conclude from the perfection of the divine character, that God would, by a wise and consistent course of conduct, eventually answer the ends he proposed, in making the children of Israel his peculiar people. And the same mode of reasoning is still equally just and conclusive. As far as God has been pleased to make any nation his peculiar people, so far that people have reason to expect that he will not forsake them. Hence the spirit of the text suggests this general observation:

That since God has been pleased to make our nation his peculiar people, he will not forsake us.

In illustrating this subject, it is necessary to consider how God has made us his peculiar people, and what grounds we have to hope that he will not forsake us.

I. Let us consider how God has made our nation his peculiar people.

Here it may be proper to premise, that God has never taken us into a federal relation to himself, as he did the children of Israel. He made a public and mutual compact with them, in which he avouched them to be his people, and they avouched him to be their God. But though God never entered into such a national covenant with us or with our fathers, yet he has been pleased in various other ways to make us his peculiar people.

1. It hath pleased the Lord to separate us in a peculiar manner from other nations. It was by such a separation that he made the seed of Abraham his peculiar people. "I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people." This circumstance Solomon pleads in their favor, while interceding for them before God, at the dedication of the temple. "Thou didst separate them from among all the people of the earth, to be thine inheritance, as thou spakest by the hand of

Moses thy servant, when thou broughtest our fathers out of Egypt." And Moses makes use of the same circumstance to enforce their obedience to the divine commands. "Or hath God essayed to go, and to take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?" Here we may discover a very great analogy between our separation and that of the Israelites. Were they taken from the midst of another nation? So were we. Were they planted in the midst of a barbarous and idolatrous people? So were we. Were they conducted to the place of their destination by extraordinary interpositions of providence? So were we. Did they become a peculiar people by their peculiar separation from other nations? So did we. God's taking our fathers from their native country, and bringing them a thousand leagues across the mighty ocean to this then dreary wilderness, was practically `setting them apart for himself, and making them his peculiar people.

2. It hath pleased the Lord to make us the objects of his peculiar care and protection. Thus he distinguished his ancient chosen people. While he fixed his heart and eye upon them, he spread over them the broad wing of his providence. Of this we have a beautiful description in the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy. "The Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead them, and there was no strange god with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat of the increase of the fields; and he made him suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." God displayed the wonders of his goodness to his people, not only while they were in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness, but all the while they remained in the land of promise. They were planted in the midst of the nations, and surrounded by enemies far and near. The Egyptians and Chaldeans were their distant enemies, while the residue of the Canaanites remained" as pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides." But God graciously guarded them on every hand, by both a visible and invisible providence; and made it appear to the world that they were his peculiar people. Hence Balaam, who was employed to curse them, was constrained to say,

"How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied? For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel." Though no proper miracles were wrought in favor of our fathers, yet God afforded them, as he did the Israelites, his peculiar presence and protection. He caused their enemies, at first, to flee before them; and afterwards, when they stood in perishing need of their help, he put it into their hearts to supply their wants. He sent, from time to time, the pestilence and the sword among the natives, by which they were gradually diminished, and effectually restrained from doing mischief. While, on the other hand, he caused our fathers, who were a few individuals, to spread far and wide, and multiply into a great and powerful people, and at length to become a free and independent nation, notwithstanding all attempts to destroy them. By such a series of signal interpositions in our favor, God has visibly owned us, and marked us for himself, in the view of surrounding nations. It must be added,

3. The Lord has been pleased to form us for his peculiar service, by making us, from the beginning, a religious people. The Israelites were more eminently the people of God on account of religion, than on any other account; yea, in that respect, they were the only people of God in the world. They were separated from the rest of mankind, for the great purpose of preserving and propagating the true religion, in opposition to the attempts of all other nations, to spread superstition and idolatry over the face of the earth. Hence God told them by the mouth of Moses, "Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." And again he said by Jeremiah, that "he had planted them a noble vine, wholly a right seed." Their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were eminently holy, and prepared the way for the continuance and prevalence of vital piety among their distant posterity, until they were formed into a religious nation, and furnished with peculiar means of grace. "Behold," says Moses, "I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it: Keep therefore and do them : for this is your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the nations which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh them as the

Lord our God is, in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?" Thus God formed his ancient peculiar people of religious characters and for a religious purpose. And did he not form our nation of similar characters, and for a similar purpose ? Did not our fathers resemble the ancient patriarchs in sincere and fervent piety? Did they not leave their native country, and sacrifice their dearest temporal interests, for the sake of enjoying and promoting real religion in this dark corner of the earth? Did not the spirit and principles of religion govern them in their public as well as private transactions? Did they not make ample provision for maintaining the public worship of God among themselves? Did they not use all the means in their power to civilize and christianize the native savages ? Did they not lay broad and permanent foundations for the promotion of religion and the diffusion of christian knowledge to the latest generations? In a word, was not our nation formed for religious purposes, founded on religious principles, and highly distinguished by religious advantages? And in this way did not God visibly set us apart as his own peculiar people? If we trace the uniform conduct of God towards us, from the day our forefathers landed on these inhospitable shores to the present moment, it will appear that he has done more to raise us up, to preserve and deliver us, to make us holy and happy, and to fit us for his service in building up his kingdom, than he has done for any other nation since the christian era. And notwithstanding our present degeneracy in morals and religion, we even now appear in the eyes of all the world, as God's peculiar and favorite people. I proceed as proposed,

II. To show what ground we have to hope that God will not forsake us.

It appears from the preceding observations, that he has done a great deal to form us for himself. He separated the founders of our nation from their friends and from their country. He carried them through the dangers of the sea, and planted them here in a howling wilderness. He protected them amidst savage foes, and guarded them against foreign enemies. He granted them great and peculiar religious advantages. He enlarged their borders, increased their numbers, and caused them to grow up into a large and wealthy people. He carried them through a long and dangerous war, and finally made them a free, separate, independent nation. For almost two centuries he has been forming and owning us as his peculiar people. And does not this give us ground to hope that he will not

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