SINFUL BUT NOT FORSAKEN.
A SERMON,
PREACHED IN THE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, FIFTH AVENUE AND
NINETEENTH STREET, NEW YORK,
ON THE
DAY OF NATIONAL FASTING,
JANUARY 4, 1861.
[BY
ALEXANDER T. Yc{GILL,
OF PRINOETON, NEW JERAEY.
[PUBLISHED BY THE CONGREGATION.]
NEW YORK:
JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 50 GREENE STREET.
1861.








SERM ON.' For Israel- hath not been forsaken nor Judah of his God, of the
Lord of hosts; though their land was filled with sin against the
Holy One of Israel." —JEREMIAH, li. 5.
To be all but gone is a condition of despair to
any man but a Christian.  While there is nothing
more than the conviction of sin against the Holy
One of Israel, men of the world will have their
hopes; and because sentence against an evil work
is not executed speedily, their hearts are fully set
in them to do evil.  But when judgments are actually upon them, and calamity comes to be realized,
they "are at their wit's end," their hands hang
down in the weakness of dismay. They have not
courage to stand " between the dead and the living,"
or go down to the bottom of deep distress, with
nothing but a confiding' hope that they are not
wholly forsaken of God. This belongs only to the




man who has God for "his God," and knows him
to be " the Lord of hosts." It is not for us to despair,when we see no possibility of relief in visible
expedients.
When Charles V. imperiously required the Confession of Augsburg to be abandoned, and gave the
Protestant leaders only six months more in which to
make up their minds finally, the cause of the Reformation was thought to be hopeless. But Luther
exclaimed, " I saw a sign in the heavens, as I looked
out of my window at night-the stars, the hosts of
heaven held up in a vault above me.; and yet I could
see no pillars on which the Master had made it to
rest. But I had no fear it would fall. ~ Some men
look about for the pillars, and would fain touch them
with their hands, as if afraid the sky would fall.
Poor souls! Is not God always there?"  The pillars of our vault so beautifully starred below the
heavens, our Federal arch, are falling, and the arch
itself is breaking, and all expedients to prop and
restore it have utterly failed. And now, the great
question in this extremity of peril is, where is our
God? We are sure he is angry with us; our sin has
found us out. But is he gone forever? Are we
now "forsaken," as a widow is left when her husband, or an orphan is left when her father, is dead?
-the true force of the term in our text. He hath




said to nations, if ye forsake me I will forsake you;
and we are met this day to try our ways, and see
how far we have forsaken him. However unlike
our circumstances in most respects may be, to those
of Israel and Judah when this prophecy was uttered, there are four particulars, in which they appear
to be strikingly similar:
1st. Our land is full of sin against the Holy One
of Israel.
2d. The punishment of sin is already upon us.
3d. There is evidence to believe that God has
not forsaken us yet.
4th. He is our only help and hope in such a
crisis.
I. The proprieties of a national humiliation before the God of our fathers, lead me to mention
only such sins as this whole nation should deplore
with ingenuous contrition. Not sins, however, my
Brethren, which belong to the nation, and not to
ourselves individually: it is even mainly because
we have sinned as individuals, that God is filling us
now with consternation and sorrow.
(1) Consider then, in the first place, that we are
a nation of "boasters."  There is not one of us,
probably, whose soul has not been lifted up with
pride for the greatness of our country, in every particular, which constitutes true national grandeur.




6
Her traditions, her immunities, her extent of territory, her advancement in resources of moral and
intellectual power, as well as material greatness,
have filled her sons and daughters everywhere, and
especially when abroad, with inexpressible pride and
exultation.
Our fathers would have looked on these things
with gratitude, more than pride. If there was one
feeling more than another, like a Christian grace,
which predominated in the breasts of those who
framed our Constitution, it was humility. With
trembling solicitude, they started what they knew
to be an experiment, which the world had never
witnessed before; except in the solitary model of
the Hebrew commonwealth, which first gave the
hint of a mixed general and state or tribal government. Although their excessive jealousy of a state
religion led them, in the opposite extreme of shunning theocratic forms, to adopt a Constitution which
might be the political creed of an atheist as well as
a Christian (for which, perhaps, God is angry with
us till this day), still they did their work with humbleness of mind.  And if, instead of leaning on the
work of their hands, more than we lean on God
our maker, if, instead of blazoning on every page
of our national literature, paeans to the immortal
instrument of our liberties and glory, we had re



7
tained the same humility, and watched over it with
the meekness and fear in which it originated, we
would not this day be covered with the shame and
confusion of a stupendous failure. God will not give
his glory to another, neither his praise to graven
images. Though graven upon eternal brass, our Constitution were not better than the idols he abhors,
when we lavish upon it the incense of such vainglorious devotion. And it is a marvellous way with
the Almighty, in punishing boasters, to do it suddenly. In one hour a king of kings was changed,
from a vaunting monarch to a grazing beast, for the
proud boast: "Is not this great Babylon, thc t I
have built for the house of the kingdom, by the
might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?"
Let us not reckon this sin to be a little one, comparatively venial on the catalogue of sins, to be
acknowledged this day.. See it, where the spirit of
inspiration has enrolled it, along with the darkest
crimes that belong to any degenerate age. Rom. i.
29-32; also 2 Tim. iii. 1-5.
(2) Prominently given in both these catalogues,
is the second sin I mention, for which we should
be humiliated as a people-covetousness.  "For
the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and
smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went




on frowardly in the way of his heart." It is said
our plan of union would hardly have been adopted
at all, but for the clamor of material interests. The
utter confusion of commerce and finance under the
old confederation, and the incurable uncertainty of
markets and exchange, without a common rule, constrained many, who were otherwise opposed to the
experiment, to try it-venturing, as they supposed,
a political peril, for the protection by a common
flag, of our sails on every sea, and our citizens in
every corner of the earth. But who does not know
that this common security has proved a snare to the
souls of men, and made our nation a proverb of
greed over all the world? He who would have us
let our moderation be known to all men, and tells us
that covetousness is idolatry; and they "who will
be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into
many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in
destruction and perdition; ". who has added to these
admonitions of his word, many a signal warning in
his providence-sending panic after panic, even
while the world was coming to buy our cotton, our
grain, and our gold; and who has so often made us
feel the very same insecurity we had escaped, in the
fluctuating policy of the Government we adored,
now at length says, in the thunder of his wrath,




9
"In vain have I smitten your children, they receive
no correction."
I speak not of enormous and fraudulent grasping
for money; the shameless corruption which seems
to reign at the Federal capitol, and every State capitol of the Union; the astounding defalcations that
make the ears of men to tingle-betraying such a
loss of public virtue, as itself to incur the avenging
displeasure of God upon the nation; but that inordinate love of the world, which prevails even among
the people of God, rich and poor-the love of
money for its own sake, and for the sake of pleasures
in the world, that " nourish their hearts as for the
day of slaughter."
(3) The bands with which we flattered ourselves
the Union was being indissolubly bound together,
have been made offensive to the Holy One of Israel.
The rivers and the railroads were thought to be like
arteries and veins in the human body, which would
bring the people of. every terminus more and more
to beat with kindred feeling and a common interest.
But these thoroughfares have been made by man's
cupidity to break the laws of God; to profane his
holy Sabbath; to cheat each other in a ruinous competition; and to rob the country at large —thousands
of poor men, whose investments have been sunk,
by guilty recklessness and actual fraud. With all




10
the honorable exceptions that should be made, the
land is filled with sin by the very spread of enterprises, which go to make one brotherhood of the
nation.
(4) It is filled with sinful abuse of rulers. " Thou
shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy
people." No matter who it is that holds the reins
of government at'Washington, in every political
agitation, the land is full of maledictions upon him.
And never, perhaps, were these so bitter and insulting as at present. Yet he is the minister of God
to us, who beareth the sword by the ordinance of
Heaven, whose venerable name should be guarded
from contempt, in the arms of " supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving.of thanks," according
to the divine exhortation. How many even of
God's own people, in this day of rebuke and blasphemy, have reason to deplore the idle words and
unclean lips, with which they have sinned in this
thing against the Holy One of Israel!
Even if our President were the most perfect
man that ever sat upon the chair of Washington, for
wisdom and patriotism, decision and courage, the
tempest of execration upon him of late is enough to
make the strong man reel and stagger; to provoke
Almighty God to take his understanding from him,
and make our chief ruler a child; in order to punish




11
the "frowardness" of a cursing republic. I have
long feared, that for this iniquity alone, in which we
have a bad preeminence, we should become a byword among the nations, and suffer the terrible
retribution, which the Bible approves: "As he
clothed himself with cursing like as with a garment,
so let it come into his bowels like water, and like
oil into hi~ bones."
(5) The land is full of sins in the family government; that holy and happy institute, which underlies
all social order, and integrity of the commonwealth.
The nurseries of piety and fraternal love, from which
every tree that gives either fruit or shade must be
transplanted to the State, have become hotbeds of
political ambition. Time was, when the most animating topics of conversation at the fireside were
lessons in the Bible and the catechism, the pastor's
sermon, the missionary's letter, and the weekly
journal, with its summary of important events. But
now the newspaper, morning, noon, and night; the
newspaper, with the returns of some election, or the
virulent dissection of some political candidate; the
newspaper, with its depraved insinuations and its
incendiary lies, to inflame the wicked passions of
the soul —is the pabulum of covenanted households,
week-day and Sabbath.. Boys are politicians. Public life is a game they are taught from infancy to




12'play without heart or conscience; the universal
trade, in which nothing is at a discount so much as the
capital of true patriotism and consistent integrity.
From the cradle to the grave our people now talk
politics. No wonder God comes down to curse a
Babel like this, with confusion of counsels and
tongues. No wonder fanaticism has left the cloisters of religious bigotry to seize on politicians,
North and South, East and West, until it now rides
on the whirlwind of passions, which have had a
life-long ferment in the animosities of party.
But where could the catalogue end of specialties in sins, which may be fairly charged upon
all the people of all sections, who are called this
day to fasting and supplication? And when we
consider that each section has its own peculiar iniquities, for which to be humbled, and that every
State apart, and every city apart, and every
family apart, and every individual apart, has
other specialties to be cast into the fearful aggregate; and not the multitude only, but the
magnitude also of our iniquities, each trespass by
itself" grown to the heavens," by reason of aggravations in the abuse of light, and liberty, and
warnings, and forbearance,-O! how should we
"abhor ourselves and repentin dust and ashes! "
II. The punishment of our sin is actually upon




13
us. So the text intimates in the original force of
the term, and so we feel in the sad realities, which
this day fill us with grief and dreadful apprehension. Every flash of the telegraph is bringing new tidings of peril and disaster. The most
fixed and trusting of God's children seem to be
" afraid of evil tidings."  Never was judgment
so swift of foot against the sins of any nation.
Centuries are days.  The gradual decay of nations with which we are familiar in the traditions
of the past, working with its bane through many
long generations, and covering with a flush of
health the body politic, while disease is on the
vitals, is not the way of death decreed to this gigantic empire. Three months ago, we were counted over all the earth as the most favored of nations.  Hitherto incredulous men that glory in
the yoke of hereditary power, were talking, in
view of the crisis at hand (our Presidential election), about the well-known elasticity of this fabric;
how it had so often withstood commotions of the
people, and was wont to settle down more firmly
than ever, from the agitations with which it had
been tossed.  But, alas;!-how changed-" our glorious beauty is a fafing flower!"   Secessionangry secession —bloody secession —all the horrors
of a fratricidal war have made bare the arm. And




14
not in sudden frenzy, or by mistake, which has
roused to fury unwonted passions; but it seems,
that wrath, long brooded, sullen, and reserved,
proclaims the unalterable purpose —by right of selfpreservation, and by the obligations of a sacred
trust committed to its keeping by Almighty God —
to dash this Government to pieces! Fanaticism
from the North, and fanaticism from the South,
seem now at length to be left alone upon the field;
and a fight like theirs must be eternal. Only the
Father of eternity can be our help and hope in such
a crisis; and let us turn from the dark picture
before us, to see what evidence we have, that he
has not wholly forsaken us.
III. (1) We have not yet been filled with that
inveteracy of sin, for which Israel and Judah were
ultimately cast off from the Lord, as we have it
described by his apostle, 1 Thess. ii. 15. The
great heart of the American people, sinful as it may
be, revolts alike from the punishment upon us, and
its proximate causes on every side.  And could
we but look away from the confusion of politicians,
to the deep yearning of millions, who have too
long intrusted their common weal to men of
selfish ambition, and hear the great constituencies
which make up the heritage of God in our land,
say to the man of conscience and unostentatious




15
talents,'the post of honor is no longer in a private station-the Lord hath need of thee to guide
the counsels of the country; and these obstinate,
corrupt, and designing  demagogues that have
brought our country to the brink of ruin, must be
discarded forever,'-then might we hope, even yet,
that the breach already made is not " wide as the
sea," and that we can all live together, as brethren,
"quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and
honesty."
(2) Family ties and friendships, bands of consanguinity and affinity, remain between the North
and the South, to draw, with cords of love, the
alienated sections together. These delicate tendrils
seem indeed to be nothing now, in the tempest of
passion. But they will be entwined to a mighty
cord, when reason is allowed to resume her throne,
and the irrepressible instincts of Christian civilization gather back the force, to which political rage
has always submitted.
(3) One church is yet undivided.  Though
great andpopular churches of the land have led
in this work of sectional strife, and anticipated the
country in the folly of disunion, and much responsibility for the calamities we mourn may be resting
on the heads of ecclesiastics, one church remains;
in more than nominal union, a union of heart and




16
soul, though sadly pained this day at the rash and
inflammatory utterances within her of eloquent
tongues. I believe the union of States might crumble into fragments, and the Old School Presbyterian
Church would not be dismembered. A very slender filament, you say, to span a gulf already made,
and widening every hour: the surges already in
the breach are too violent for any common interest
to live. But remember, that if this bond remain at
all, it must be, as it has been for a century and
more, on grounds of intelligent comprehension of
the whole question at issue, and therefore on
grounds quite sufficient to bring the country together in abiding peace. Who knows but that it
may be the glorious mission of the Presbyterian
Church, in these last and perilous days, to wipe out
the scandal which has rested on visible Christianity
ever since the days of the apostles; and instead of
civil power interposing to heal divisions in the
Church, the Church will come, with plastic hand, to
bind a shattered confederacy in better union than
ever?
(4.) The revivals of religion over all our land,
so recent, prove that God has not forsaken us-that
"God in the midst of us is mighty; he will save;
he will joy over us with joy; he will rest in his
love, and joy over us with singing." True, indeed,




ever since the day of Pentecost prepared the Church
for her martyr age, a great baptism of the Holy
Ghost has often been precursor to a baptism of
blood, upon the Church and the country. The
great awakening of the last century, under the ministry of Whitfield, Edwards, the Tennents, and
others, which filled the land with so many converts
of righteousness, came like a harbinger, to prepare
the American people for long and gloomy wars;
war with the French and the Indians, and war with
the mother country herself, in our hard Revolution.
A great revival in the early years of this century,
in which the whole country shared, and especially
that region which had been most insurgent under
the first trial of our government, came in mercy to
prepare the country for the war of 1812; in which
our whole fabric was terribly shaken, by intestine
conflicts, as well as outward foes; when the liberty
of the press was put down by mobs, and a distinguished soldier of the Revolution was murdered by
the populace of Baltimore, in a prison. That was a
time when the sages of the land were despondent,
as they are now, for the ultimate success and integrity of this Government.
What, then, if even the worst period of. our
eventful history be now upon us, and tribulation
such as the land has never seen, be now at hand, for
2




18
"the trial of the innocent," as well as punishment
of the guilty, in a common desolation? These intimnations may assure us, that God. means to stand
by us, and that "the Hope of Israel and Saviour
thereof in time of trouble," is not standing by us
only " as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring
man that turneth aside to tarry for a night."
(5) The conspicuous instrumentality, which
"the Lord of hosts" has been shaping for his own
ends, in the progress of the Gospel and redemption
of the world.  Two great nations, the freest on
earth, speaking a common language, and promulging a common faith, on opposite hemispheres, are
confederates in the hand of our enthroned Messiah,
for the salvation of men. Lately, the treasures of
the earth were put into their hands, by remarkable
discoveries, about the same time; and along with
this magnificent inheritance to each, international
jealousies have changed to confidence and kindness,
and a feeling of friendship, which at this moment is
a fervent flame.  Think you, that one of these
powers will now be taken, and the other left, in the
work of the world's regeneration? That the older
one is destined to advance with the high commission
upon her, while the younger one expires in the
convulsions of a day? That the mother must outlive the daughter; and an empire, on which the sun




19
can never set, may defy dismemberment, while we
are failing to belt a single continent with our civilization?  No: I cannot think it. Remember how
the English empire had nearly fallen to pieces, but
three years ago, and the world pronounced her
Asiatic domination at end. Yet God preserved it;
coming as the Lord of hosts, in the darkest hour of
her extremity, because he had not forsaken her.
And will he not be quite as sure to come for our
help, and preserve her ally here, with unbroken energies for the same great end-millennial peace and
glory to a ruined world?
(6) God has not forsaken us, because we are
here with him, in his sanctuary this day, invited by
his own word, and led by his own providence, to
humble ourselves, just where "he waiteth to be
gracious." Political sanctions from opposite sources,
your President and your Governor, with one voice
commend the act of this humiliation. " Our God"
will never disappoint the hope he has himself excited; he never moves the hearts of men to bow in
common contrition, without an answer of peace and
an interposition of mercy. Yet, however sure we
are, that it is good for us to draw nigh unto God,
we may not be sure, that the specialty of deliver
ance we crave is the best form for us, in which our
prayer may be answered. Let it now suffice,




20
IV. That He is our only help  and hope.
"Should not a people seek unto their God?"  All
refuge else has failed. Vain is the help of man.
His best devices only aggravate disorder, and make
the alienation more incurable. The destiny of our
"delightsome land " no sagacity of man foresees —
never was the futurity of a nation so impenetrable.
We are balancing on the finger of infinite sovereignty. We deserve the worst; we hope for the
best. All that we -can see and know is, that our
God has not forsaken us, and that he is " the Lord
of hosts "-that if he will deign to grant our literal
request, all impossibilities vanish.  "The stars in
their courses fight against Sisera." But if not, we
know that God himself is a refuge, "an hiding
place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest." If he is with us as individuals, as families,
and as churches, then may confederacies be dissolved, and all the foundations of the earth be out
of course; but leaning on his almighty arm we go
up from the wilderness, happy and safe.
The sovereignty of grace and the sovereignty
of power, which the Holy One of Israel expresses
on the face of my text, are "the two immutable
things," to which we must fly for strong consolation, in this hour of trouble. Close in with the
first, and the second will be sure to give you repose




21
and satisfaction,, whatever befalls us. You know
perhaps already, what it is to lie at the feet of sovereign power, adoring it as good, even when it has
torn from your embrace the dearest creatures on his
footstool, because you feel that sovereign grace is
yours in covenant, and better to you than the universe besides.  In such posture of the soul it is,
that we must bow to the good pleasure of the Most
High, as we leave in his hand the destiny of our
beloved country. If he will be pleased to give us
back our union, and peace, and mutual affection, we
shall adore him; and " in the name of our God we
will set up our banners." But if he will suffer man
to prevail, with the desolating fury of his passions,
and the axes of angry infatuation, to break down
the carved work of our beautiful edifice, then " a
glorious high throne from the beginning is the place
of our sanctuary;" and we turn to it with full assurance of protection and repose: "Come, my
people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy
doors about thee; hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast."
"When, in the time of the Judges, the children
of Israel gave themselves up in a shameless manner
to the worship of idols, they fell under the wrath
of God, and were eighteen years oppressed by the
Ammonites and Philistines. Still, when they came




22
to themselves, and cried to the Lord, they joined to
their repentance lowly submission, and said,'We
have sinned: do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth
good unto thee.'  This is the temper which sanctified affliction always begets, so that the prostrate
soul dares no longer to impose terms on Jehovah,
but yields itself to his sovereign discretion.  There
is peace in such surrender, a peace which is altogether independent of any expected mitigation of
the stroke."* These are the words of one who
was a great link between the North and the South;
whose voice would have been more potent in the
din of this confusion, than that of any minister who
survives him; but whom his Master, in mercy to
him, took away from the evil to come. And may
we all, with "like precious faith," when our work
is done, be gathered to the same happy home;
where " the days of our mourning shall be ended "
-where sin and sorrow can reach us no morewhere " the wicked cease from troubling, and the
weary are at rest."
* Alexander on Consolation, p. 231