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I. A STATE OF DESERVED PUNISHMENT. It is not enough to compare England with other nations — in the glory of her institutions, in the valour of her arms, in the extent and enterprise of her commerce, in the growth of her civilisation, in the freedom of her laws, in the grandeur of her discoveries, and in the nobility and genuine heartedness of her people — and then to boast of her superiority. No. We must look upon our nation in the light of her moral and spiritual character as she stands related to the God of the universe. And what is the nature and character of the spectacle? Have we not reason for humiliation? But regard this part of our subject in an individual point of view. Let us bring the matter home to our own hearts. And do we not find in them reason upon reason why the vengeance of Almighty God should fall upon us? Well then may we exclaim, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed."

II. A REASON FOR THE DIVINE CONDUCT. "Because His compassions fail not." Thus our hopes are centred in the unchangeableness of God's mercy and love. Other things do change. The sunshine gives place to the blackness of the tempest. The life and bloom of spring and summer pass away into the fading beauties of autumn and the cold sterility of winter. The health of childhood, of youth and manhood, soon yields to the power of sickness, and perishes beneath the blight of death. Prosperity is oftentimes overcast with the gloomy shadows of adversity. The smiles of peace are changed into the frowns of war. Promises and compacts are broken — superseded by the avarice of selfishness, by the grasping aims of ambition, by the caprice of pride, and by the tyranny of despotism. But the "compassions" of God "fail not." They are ever new, and ever abiding.

III. DUTIES SUGGESTED BY THE TEXT.

1. What more consistent and natural than thankfulness and gratitude?

2. Trust in God, and not in man, is another duty founded upon the constancy and immutability of God's compassion. There is something sublime, as well as consolatory, in trust in God: sublime, as respects its object, so infinitely superior to any other in the glory and majesty of its nature, its eternity and perfectibility; consolatory, inasmuch as the human mind is cheered and strengthened with the conviction, founded upon the most certain evidence, that "they who trust in the Lord shall never be confounded." And herein, too, lies the special privilege of the Christian.

3. Another duty presented to us by the text is repentance. And what so calculated to effect this glorious result as the unfailing compassions of the Almighty?

(W. D. Horwood.)

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KJV: It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

WEB: [It is of] Yahweh's loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn't fail.