394 FORGIVF.NE$S OF SIN. ceive their beauty, order, use, and course 1 The con- sideration hereof caused the Psalmist to cry out, " O Lord, our Lord, how excellent and glorious art thou!". Psalm 8 : 1. And what is the rise, spring, and cause of these things 1 Are they not all the effect of the word of the power of this glorious God 1 And doth he not in them, and by them, speak us into a reverence of his greatness 1 The same also may be said concerning the mighty and strange works of Providence in the rule of the world. Is not this he who brought the flood of old upon the world of ungodly men 1 Is not this he who consumed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from heaven, setting them forth as examples to those that should afterwards live ungodly, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire 1 Is it not he who destroyed Egypt with his plagues, and drowned Pharaoh with his host in the Red Sea 1 Is it not he, one of whose servants slew a hun- dred and fourscore and five thousand in Sennacherib's army in one night 1 who opened the earth to swallow up Dathan and Abiraml and sent cut fire from the altar to devour Nadab and Abihu 1 And have not all ages been filled with such instances of his greatness and power 1 The end why I have insisted on these things, is to show the reasonableness of the duty we are pressing : to wait on God quietly and patiently in every condition of distress. For what else becòmes us when we have to do with this great and holy One 1 II. This waiting for God respects the whole of the condition expressed in the psalm ; and this contains not
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