Serious Reflections affectionately recommended to the Well-disposed of every Religious Denomination, particularly those who Mourn and Lament on account of the Calamities which attend us; and the insensibility that so generally prevails.
IF People had never seen War kindled in a Country and between neighbouring Nations, they could hardly believe that men would be so inattentive to the dictates of Reason, the tender feelings of humanity and the more sublime nature and precepts of the Gospel, * as deliberately to engage in battle for the destruction of each other. That loaded as men are with their own frailties and miseries, they should industriously labour to encrease them and contrive new ways for the ruin and slaughter one of another. They have but a short and uncertain time to live, a work of the greatest importance to perform, † and yet will not suffer those awful moments to pass away in peace. ‘Wars, [Page 2]says an ancient Father, are Spectacles by which the devil doth cruelly sport with Mankind.’ And Bishop Taylor well observes. ‘That as contrary as cruelty is to mercy; tyranny to charity, so is War and Bloodshed to the Meekness and Gentleness of the Christian Religion.’ The apostle James hath clearly answered the question with respect to the occasion of War chap. iv. 1. ‘From whence come Wars and Fightings amongst you? come they not hence even of your lusts?’ How extreme then must be that corruption which produces so desperate an effect. It is now several years since the hand of God has been lifted up in Judgment; great distress and sufferings have and still do attend us; multitudes of our Fellow-men have been hurried into eternity, and yet the People do not appear humbled nor careful to inquire into the true cause. Sinners are chastised, and yet remain unconverted. Let us look no where else but in ourselves for the cause of our miseries; our Sins are our greatest Enemies and draw upon us all the rest. We fight against those we esteem our Foes, and instead of labouring to overcome our sins, we basely, yield to their temptations,
It is the Sighing and Supplications of the contrite hearted which God will hear, and when his anger is passed over, He will remember [Page 3]his former mercies. Let us, beloved Brethren, not forget our profession as Christians: nor the blessing promised by Christ to the Peace-makers, * but let all sincerely address our common Father for ability to pray, not for the destruction of our Enemies, who are still our Brethren, the Purchase of our blessed Redeemer's blood; but for an agreement with them. Not in order to indulge our passions in the Gain and Delights of this vain World, and forget that we are called to be as Pilgrims and Strangers in it; but that we may be more composed and better fitted for the kingdom of God; that in the dispensations of his good pleasure he may grant us such a Peace, as may prove to the consolation of the Church, as well as the Nation, and be on earth an image of the tranquillity of Heaven. †
AN eminent servant of GOD, who had known deliverance from the dark powers, and experimentally felt the powers of the world to come, a few hours before his death, expressed himself in the following words: ‘There is a spirit which I feel, that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things, in hopes to enjoy its own in the end; its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty or whatsoever is of a nature contrary to itself; it sees to the end of all temptations; as it bears no evil itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other; for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God; its crown is meekness; its life is everlasting love unfeigned, and takes its kingdom with intreaty, and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind; in God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life; 'tis conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it, nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression; it never rejoiceth but through sufferings, for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken: I have fellowship therein with those that lived in [...] and desolate places of the earth, who through [...].’