ftone in the mighty ocean, and is no more found. So must all his enemies perish. The catastrophe of Bayblon, like that of Pharaoh at the Red Sea, is beheld by the faints and fervants of the Lord with admiration, and furnishes them with a theme for a fong of triumph to his praife. This may be properly ftyled facred mufic indeed. It is commanded, infpired and regulated, by the Lord himself. The performers are all interested in the subject, they who fear God, and are devoted to his fervice and glory. And though perfons of this character are comparatively few upon earth, hidden, and in a manner loft, among the crowd of mankind; they will be, when brought together at last, a very large company. Their united voices are here compared to the voice of many waters, and of mighty thunders, and this is the folemn close, the chorus of their fong, Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

The impreffion, which the performance of this paffage in the Oratorio, ufually makes upon the audience, is well known. But however great the power of mufic may be, fhould we even allow the flights of poetry to be truth, that it can foften rocks, and bend

the knotty oak, one thing we are fure it cannot do. It cannot foften and change the hard heart, it cannot bend the obdurate will of man. If all the people who fucceffively hear the Meffiab, who are ftruck and aftonifhed, for the moment, by this chorus in particular, were to bring away with them an abiding fenfe of the importance of the fentiment it contains, the nation would foon wear a new face. But do the profeffed lovers of facred mufic in this enlightened age, generally live, as if they really believed that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth? Rather, do not the greater part of them live, as they might do, if they were fure of the contrary ? as if they were fatisfied to a demonftration, that either there is no God, or that his providence is not concerned in human affairs? I appeal to confcience; I appeal to fact.

I apprehend that this paffage, taken in the ftrictest sense, refers to a period not yet arrived. Babylon is not yet fallen. The fervants of God in the present day, will most probably fulfil their appointed time upon earth, like those who have lived before them, in a state of conflict. They must endure the crofs, and fuftain oppofition for his fake.

The

The people who shall live when the kingdoms of the world become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, when the nations shall learn war no more, are yet unborn. But even now we may rejoice that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, and that Jefus is King of kings, and Lord of lords. I must confider my text as referring to him. Many of the heathens

believed that God reigned. The chriftian doctrine is, that the Lord God omnipotent, exercifeth his dominion and government in the person of Chrift. The Father loveth the Son, and hath committed all things into his hands*. And thus our Lord, after his refurrection, affured his difciples, All power is committed unto me in heaven and in earth†. He has already taken to himself his great power, and reigneth. His right of reigning over all, is effential to his divine nature; but the administration of government in the nature of man, is the effect and reward of his obedience unto death. But in the union of both natures, he is one perfon, Chrift Jefus the Lord. All the riches and fulness of the Godhead, all the peculiar honours of + Matt. xxviii. 18.

* John iii. 35.

VOL. II.

N

the

the Mediator, center in him. They may be diftinguished, but they are infeparable.

Happy are they who can, upon folid and fcriptural grounds, exult in the thought that the Lord reigneth, and can make his government the subject of their hallelujahs and praifes! Happy they, who fee, acknowledge and admire, his management in the kingdom of providence, and are the willing fubjects of his kingdom of grace. Let us take a brief furvey of his reigning glory in these kingdoms.

I. Great and marvellous is this Lord God omnipotent in his kingdom of Univerfal Providence! His mighty arm sustains the vast fabric of the univerfe. He upholds the stars in their courses. If we attentively confider their multitude, their magnitudes, their distances from us and from each other, and the amazing swiftness, variety and regularity of their motions, our minds are overwhelmed, our thoughts confounded, by the vastness and the wonders of the fcene. But He spoke them into being, and they are preserved in their stations and revolutions by his power and agency. If we fix our thoughts upon the earth, though in comparison of the immenfity

menfity of his creation, it is but as a point, or a grain of fand, it is the object of his inceffant care. All its various inhabitants derive their existence and their fupport from him. He provides for the young ravens when unable to fly, and for the young lions that traverse the woods. The inftinct of animals, whereby they are unerringly inftructed, in whatever concerns the welfare and prefervation of their fpecies, fo vaftly exceeding the boafted wisdom of man, that he can neither imitate nor comprehend it, is communicated by him. He teaches the birds to build their nefts, the spider to weave his web, and inftructs the communities of bees, and infignificant emmets, to form their admirable policies and government among themselves. If we fpeak of intelligent beings, He does what he pleafes in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth. He directs and overrules the counfels and purposes of men, fo that though they act freely, the event of all their different interfering fchemes, is only the accomplishment of his purposes. When they are employed as his inftruments, from small beginnings, and in defiance of difficulties ap. parently

N 2