I. What blessings God is now conferring upon us —
What we are to understand by ** peace and truth" will be best seen by a reference to the preceding context —
[God had declared that the king of Babylon should in- vade Judea, and take all the wealth of Hezekiah for a prey, and carry captive his children, and entirely destroy the whole Jewish polity. But, inasmuch as these judgments should be deferred, Hezekiah, instead of beholding the subjugation and captivity of his children, should have " peace ;" and, instead of seeing the abolition of the temple worship, should have " truth" continued to him.]
Now these are the very blessings for which we are peculiarly called to render thanks this day —
[Peace is now happily once more restored: and such a peace as places our country in a state of greater security than
it has ever enjoyed since it became a nation
" Truth," also, with an undisturbed enjoyment of all reli- gious ordinances, is now secured to us. We are no longer in danger of having the temples of our God converted into bar- racks for a licentious soldiery, or magazines for the imple- ments of war. No longer have we any reason to fear lest a victorious enemy should deprive us of our religious liberty, or a yoke of superstition be imposed upon us as the only worship tolerated in the land. Blessed be God ! we enjoy the Gospel in all its purity ; and every man throughout the whole land is permitted to serve his God in the way that seems to him to be most agreeable to the Di\dne commands ]
Such blessings being now insured to us, let us consider,
II. In what light they should be viewed^
The continuance of them to Hezekiah was deemed by him a mercy, a great and undeniable mercy : " Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?" To us then is the possession of them,
1. A rich mercy —
[How rich a mercy " peace " is, we, who have never had our country the seat of war, are but ill qualified to judge. It is our happiness indeed that we cannot judge of it ; since it can only be known by an experience of those calamities which war brings in its train.
Nor can we adequately conceive how much we are indebted to God for the possession of " truth." To estimate this aright,