for kings and all that are in authority. Yea, even in Babylon, were the Jews taught to pray for the peace and prosperity of their very oppressors: how much more then should we inter- cede for our native country, where we enjoy every liberty that we can desire ! Let it not be said, that our governors do not deserve our prayers ; for the injunction to pray for kings was delivered in the reign of Nero, than whom a more wicked prince could not exist. Let vis then make a conscience of this duty ; for if we know not to intercede for others, we have no reason to think that we have ever yet seen aright the value of our own souls.]
2. The benefit of public fasts —
[The honour God has put upon public fasts is well known to all; and his answers to united supplications have been as signal as the hand of God could make them. The victory given to Jehoshaphat e, the respite to Nineveh f, and the deli- verance to Peter the very day before his intended destruction g, sufficiently evince, that God will hear the united prayers of his people. Indeed, if one man, Moses, so prevailed for the saving of a whole nation, what deliverance should not nations receive, if they would all unite in prayer ! If a few individuals alone mourn for the land, they shall have at least some tokens of peculiar favour to themselves, though they should not succeed in averting God's anger from the nation at largeh. But if there be not some to stand in the breach, it cannot fail but that we must be overwhelmed'.]
3. The guilt and danger of neglecting Christ —
[Great as were the mercies vouchsafed to the Jews in Egypt, they are not to be compared with the redemption which we have experienced through Christ : as our bondage was infi- nitely more grievous, so the means used to effect our deliver- ance, infinitely enhance the value of the deliverance itself; we are bought with blood, and that blood was the blood of our
incarnate God What destruction then must not we
expect if we should forget " God our Saviourk? " Nor
is it the intercession of others that shall ever prevail to avert it from us ; we must pray, every one of us for himself : not but that mutual intercession may in this respect be productive of great benefits. Let us then " bear his great goodness in re- membrance," and let it be our song in time, as it shall be through all eternity.]
e 2 Chron. xx. 12, 15. f Jonah hi. 10. e Acts xii. 5 — 8.
h Ezek. ix. 4, 6. Zeph. iii. IS.
1 Ezek. xxii. 31, 32. Amos. vi. 1, 6. k Heb. ii. 3.