A SERMON, &c. ISAIAH XXXvi. 1. Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, that Sennacherib King of Affyria came up against the defenced Cities of Judah, and took them. HISTORY is juftly faid to be the Guide of Life *. It inftructs by example. It enables the mind, without effort, to fee the confequences of good or ill conduct, and to predict, on every occafion, with unerring certainty, that Vice will be the parent of Mifery, and Virtue and Piety, of publick and private Happiness. * Historia Vitæ Magiftra. Cic. A 3 In In this respect the Scriptures of the Old Testament are equally curious and valuable, as extending our views backwards to the remotest antiquity; as unfolding a series of ages deemed by those to whom these records were wanting, uncertain and fabulous; comprizing a period of above three thousand years †, and presenting to us in their accounts mere poetical fictions, or fome little truth difguifed by allegory, or corrupted by tradition. The moft ancient of prophane writers now extant, being but of yefterday, compared with the Jewish Hiftorians of the earliest date, who acquaint us with the origin of nations, the universal deluge, the first peopling of the earth, the creation of man, yea of the globe itself. But how ineftimable is their value when we confider them as facred writings, as proceeding from the pen of inspiration, as the words of Eternal Life; as intended not only to ferve the common purposes of History, but to unfold to us the principles of divine Government; of that heavenly kingdom which ruleth over all: which fo often oppofes the most plausible conclufions of finite reafon, and invalidates the Ex Varrone Cenforinus de Die Natali, c. 21. ↑ From the Creation to the first Olympiad, A. M. 3174. firmeft firmeft grounds of human probability. So that "the race fhall not be to the swift, nor the battle "to the ftrong; nor yet riches to men of under"ftanding, nor favour to men of fkill:" which takes the worldly wife in their own craftiness, and by things that, comparatively speaking, "are "not, brings to nought the things that are." How interefting do they become when we are informed that they were "written for our admo"nition, on whom the ends of the world are "come:" for the inftruction of not only contemporary ages, but of future generations to the confummation of all things. Surely no paffage in the facred Canon could have been more happily felected, more pertinent, more calculated to direct, admonish, and encourage us, my brethren, on the aweful occafion of this day's affembly, than the firft Leffon appointed for this morning's Service, which merits, and will, I doubt not, enfure our moft serious attention. It relates a very formidable invafion of Judea, in the reign of Hezekiah, by the army of Sennacherib, King of Affyria. His dominions extended over the greater part of Afia then known, and with Babylon, afterwards formed one of the four great Monarchies represented to Nebuchadnezzar in a vifion of an image, compofed of as many different A 4 different materials. His ambition encreafing with his power, he beheld with an evil eye a neighbouring kingdom maintaining its rights and independency, and on fome pretext or other " came "and entered into Judæa, (2 Chron. xxxii.) and "encamped againft the fenced cities and took "them;" confenting to withdraw his forces on the fole condition of their paying an enormous contribution of 300 talents of filver and 30 talents of gold. To raise which the Jewish King was obliged not only to exhauft his own treasury but that of the Temple, and to ftrip its beautiful gates and columns of their coftly and splendid covering. No fooner, however, were his demands fatisfied, but he violates the terms of the convention, and determines to fubdue the land altogether. And while he himself proceeds from Lachish to Libnah, two of its fortified towns, he fends a confiderable army under three of his Generals, Tartan, Rabfaris, and Rabfhakeh, to inveft the capital, and to fummon the inhabitants to furrender prifoners of war. In this tranfaction we have to confider the conduct of the enemy, that of Hezekiah and his people, and the final refult In the fummons, the Affyrian Commander difparages the refources of Judæa, and magnifies his own. He styles his mafter the great King: "Thus 60 9 "Thus faith the great King, the King of Affyria "What confidence is this wherein thou boastest? "Thou fayeft, but they are but vain words, I "have counsel and ftrength for the war. Now on whom doft thou truft that thou presumeft" to renounce my fovereignty, "to rebel against me?" Unable to contend with us fingle-handed, "thou trufteft on the staff of this broken reed, even upon Egypt, upon which if a man lean, "it will run into his hand and pierce it;" alluding probably to the reeds that abounded on the banks of the Nile; "But if ye fay we "truft in the Lord our God, Is not that He "whofe high places and whose altars Hezekiah "hath taken away?" during the zealous reformation of religion he had lately made, and of which you have an account in the 2d Book of Kings, which the Affyrian conftrues as a facrilegious diminution of divine worship, betraying his ignorance of the mofaic Law, by which the Jewish people were enjoined to facrifice only at the altar in the Temple; and as they were deficient in cavalry, partly from the nature of the country, and poffibly from a regard to the prohibition in the xviith of Deuteronomy, he farcaftically offers to furnish them with 2000 horses, if they, for their parts, could fet riders upon them. He |