and smitten-not a word of Salmanazer nor Nebuchadnezzar, but their offended God is their smiter. And so no recourse to other powers for this deliverance-but let us return to him, he will heal us. O then let us all be persuaded to repentance; and certainly all they who do truly mind the honor of God, and the good of his church, will not be negligent at such a time as this. I trust that God, who heareth prayer, will have regard to their prayers, and his own glory. Amen. SERMON II. ISAIAH viii. and xvii. And I will wait upon the Lord that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. B ESIDES the personal trials and sorrows that are the lot of the godly in this life, every one of them hath a share in the calamities and troubles of the church; not only when some part of these troubles reaches them, for so they are personal and private, but in the remotest and most exempted condition. There is a living sympathy which this cannot divest, and for both their own and Zion's griefs, they have but one support to stay their souls from fainting under the burden of them. But it is a great one, and strong to bear all the weight that can be laid upon it. And it is this the prophet here resolves on, I will wait upon the Lord, &c. Amongst the many sins that the prophets had to contend with in the people, one and a main one was, their unbelief, which indeed is the root of all disobedience and perverseness; the very natural motion of the heart possest with it, being as the apostle speaks, "to depart from the living God," and turn it aside to dead helpless helpers; makes it run to and confide in any thing rather than in him, besides whom, there is nothing at all to be confided in. To this folly the prophet here opposes God's command, and his own resolution contrary to it. And |