nations, as well as to all individual Christians, who having accepted GOD for their king, allow themselves to be weary of subjection to Him, and think they should be happier if they were freer, and more like the rest of the world. I do not enter into the question, whether visible temporal judgments are to be looked for by Christian nations, transgressing as those Jews did. Surely common sense and piety unite, in representing this inquiry as, practically, one of no great importance. When it is once known for certain that such and such conduct is displeasing to the KING of kings, surely common sense and piety concur in setting their mark of reprobation on such conduct, whether the punishment, sure to overtake it, come to-morrow, or a year hence, or wait till we are in another world. Waving this question, therefore, I proceed to others, which appear to me, I own, at the present moment especially, of the very gravest practical import. What are the symptoms, by which one may judge most fairly, whether or no a nation, as such, is becoming alienated from GOD and CHRIST? And what are the particular duties of sincere Christians, whose lot is cast by divine Providence in a time of such dire calamity? The conduct of the Jews, in asking for a king, may furnish an ample illustration of the _first_ point: the behaviour of Samuel, then and afterwards, supplies as perfect a pattern of the _second_, as can well be expected from human nature. I. The case is at least possible, of a nation, having for centuries acknowledged, as an essential part of its theory of government, that, _as_ a Christian nation, she is also a part of Christ’s Church, and bound, in all her legislation and policy, by the fundamental rules of that Church, the case is, I say, conceivable, of a government and people, so constituted, deliberately throwing off the restraint, which in many respects such a principle would impose on them, nay, disavowing the principle itself; and that, on the plea, that other states, as flourishing or more so in regard of wealth and dominion, do well enough without it. Is not this desiring, like the Jews, to have an earthly king over them, when the LORD their GOD is their king? Is it not saying in other words, “We will be as the heathen, the families of the countries,” the aliens to the Church of our Redeemer?