And Hezekiah had his answer by Isaiah the prophet:  and more than an answer.  The Lord took the matter into His own hand, and showed Sennacherib which was the stronger, his soldiers and horses and engines, or the Lord God; and so that terrible Assyrian army came utterly to nought, and vanished off the face of the earth.

Now, my friends, has this noble history no lesson in it for us?  God forbid!  It has a lesson which ought to come nearer to our hearts than to the hearts of any nation:  for though we or our forefathers have never been, for nearly three hundred years, in such utter need and danger as Jerusalem was, yet be sure that we might have been so, again and again, had it not been for the mercy of the same God who delivered Jerusalem from the Assyrians.  It is now three hundred years ago that the Lord delivered this country from as terrible an invader as Sennacherib himself; when He three times scattered by storms the fleets of the King of Spain, which were coming to lay waste this land with fire and sword:  and since then no foreign foe has set foot on English soil, and we almost alone, of all the nations of Europe, have been preserved from those horrors of war, even to speak of which is dreadful!  Oh, my friends! we know not half God’s goodness to us!

And if you ask me, why God has so blest and favoured this land, I can only answer—­and I am not ashamed or afraid to answer—­I believe it is on account of the Church of England; it is because God has put His name here in a peculiar way, as He did among the Jews of old, and that He is jealous for His Church, and for the special knowledge of His Gospel and His Law, which He has given us in our Prayer-book and in our Church Catechism, lighting therein a candle in England which I believe will never be put out.  It is not merely that we are a Protestant country,—­great blessing as that is,—­it is, I believe, that there is something in the Church of England which there is not in Protestant countries abroad, unless perhaps Sweden:  for every one of them (except Sweden and ourselves) has suffered, from time to time, invading armies, and the unspeakable horrors of war.  In some of them the light of the Gospel has been quenched utterly, and in others it lingers like a candle flickering down into the socket.  By horrible persecutions, and murder, and war, and pillage, have those nations been tormented from time to time; and who are we, that we should escape?  Certainly from no righteousness of our own.  Some may say, It is our great wealth which has made us strong.  My friends, believe it not.  Look at Spain, which was once the richest of all nations; and did her riches preserve her?  Has she not dwindled down into the most miserable and helpless of all nations?  Has not her very wealth vanished from her, because she sold herself to work all unrighteousness with greediness?