let us make a good use of them. Let us constantly resort to the prayers of our Church, and neglect no opportunity of receiving the holy Sacrament. And in our prayers let us be serious, reverent, and devout; shaking off that coldness and indifference which in too many is so sadly observable; and which is certainly but too well calculated to render the best of Liturgies ineffectual and contemptible.

In a word, let our practice answer to our prayers: let us live like Christians, and as becomes the members of so excellent a Church. And if we do so, our prayers will be acceptable to God, and bring down a blessing, not only upon ourselves, but upon our Church and State too, and we shall see peace in Sion, and prosperity in our Israel.

Which God of his infinite mercy grant, through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be given all honour and glory, adoration and worship, now and for evermore.

SERMON XXXI.

FROM SOUTH*.

JUDGES Viii. 34, 35.

And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side. Neither shewed they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, namely Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shewed unto Israel.

WE read, that when the children of Israel had passed seven years in cruel subjection to the Midianites, who oppressed them to such a degree, that they had scarcely bread to fill their mouths, or houses to cover their heads (for we find them hiding themselves in dens and caves; and no sooner had they sown their corn than the enemy destroyed it) in this sad and calamitous condition, in which one would have thought, that a deliverance from such op

Robert South was born 1633, and died 1716.

pression would have eternally bound them to their deliverer, God raised up Gideon, and rewarded his courage and conduct with the entire overthrow of this mighty and numerous, or rather innumerable host; and that in such a manner, and with such strange and unparalleled circumstances, that, in the whole action, the mercy and the miracle seemed to strive for the pre-eminence. And so lively a sense did the Israelites seem to entertain of the merits of Gideon, and the obligation he had laid upon them, that they all, as one man, tendered him the regal government. Then said the men of Israel to Gideon, rule thou over us; both thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, also; for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian. To which he answered as magnanimously; and, by that answer, redoubled the obligation; I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you, but the Lord shall rule over you.

Thus far, then, we see the workings of a just gratitude in the Israelites; and goodness on the one side, nobly answered with greatness on the other. Yet in the subsequent chapter, we find these very men, cutting off the very race and posterity of their deliverer, by the slaughter of three score and ten of his sons, and setting up the son of his concubine, the blot of his family, and the monument of his shame, to reign over them; and all this without the least provocation or offence given them, either by Gideon himself, or by any of his

house. After which, we can no longer wonder at the account given of the Israelites in the text: that they remembered not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side. Neither shewed they kindness to the house of Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shewed unto Israel.

It is my design, therefore, from this remarkable subject and occasion, to treat of ingratitude; and from the case of the Israelites towards Gideon, to develope the nature, principles, and properties of this odious and detestable vice. Indeed, there is not any one vice or ill quality incident to the mind of man, against which the world has raised such a loud and universal outcry, as against ingratitude. Ingratitude is never mentioned even by any heathen writer, but with the utmost detestation: and indeed it is of such malignity, that human nature must be stripped of humanity itself, before it can be guilty of it. We may define it to be an insensibility of kindnesses received, without any endeavour either to acknowledge or repay them.

To repay them, indeed, by an equivalent, is not in every man's power; and consequently, cannot be his duty but thanks are a tribute payable by the poorest. There is none so indigent, but has a heart to be sensible of, and a tongue to express its sense of, a benefit received. And surely the hands that are so often reached out to receive, should sometimes be lifted up to bless. The whole course

of nature is a great exchange, in which one good turn is, and ought to be, the stated price of another. If we consider the universe as one body, society and conversation may be said to supply the office of the blood and spirits; whilst gratitude makes them circulate. Look over the whole of creation, and you will find that the band or cement that holds together all the parts of this great and glorious fabric, is gratitude: for I know not to what else to compare it. You may observe it in all and every of the elements: for, does not the air feed the flame? and does not the flame at the same time warm and enlighten the air? Is not the sea always sending forth, as well as taking in? and does not the earth most fully balance the account with all the elements, in the fruits and productions that issue from it? and, in the light and influence that the heavens bestow upon this lower world, though it cannot equal their benefaction, yet, with a kind of grateful return, it reflects those rays, that it cannot recompense. He who has a soul devoid of gratitude, would do well to bid it learn of his body for all the parts of the latter minister to one another. The hands, and all the other limbs, labour to bring food and provision to the stomach; and the stomach returns what it has received from them in strength and nutriment, diffused into all the parts and members of the body. In short, gratitude is the spring that sets all the wheels of nature in