OF ?UTILIC EVENTS. 549 God on earth for a more intimate blessed converse with .him in the world of sight and enjoyment. 4. Those who regard not the works of the. Lord, ." provoke him to deprive them of all the blessings of life, and to abandon them to utter ruin." How can they ever hope that the Lord will bestow repeated mercies upon them,, when they take no notice of his power and his hand in the blessings they have already received ? How camthey expect to enjoy the continuance of present comforts :" " Israel did not know that I gave them corn, and wine, and oil, therefore I will return and take away my corn in the season thereof, andmy wine in its season, and I will recover my wool which was given to cover their nakedness ;" Hos. ii. 8, 9. If this be our practice, we may justly expect to be left of God, and bereaved of the mercies that relate to this life and the life to come. If we like not to retain God in our knowledge, and to glo- rifÿ him as God, we may justly fear to be given up to a reprobate mind and to final destruction ; Rom. i. 21, 28. Let such stupid and regardless sinners read the threaten- ings of the Lord against such brutish people in the words that follow my text. " Therefore my people shall go into captivity, because they have no knowledge; their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried Grp with thirst ; Therefore hell hath enlarged itself; and opened its.mouth without measure, and their glory and their multitude and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth shall descend into it." A just vengeance on such impi- ety ! I proceed now to The third General head which I proposed, and that is to " apply the sense of my text to the particular event of the last week." And I shall divide the circumstances of this great event, viz. the death of one king, and the suc- cession of another, together With the notices we should take of it, under the three particulars before mentioned, viz. We are called to consider what there is in,it of ari awful and afflictive kind ; what blessed mixtures of _mercy attend the afflictive providence, and what are our present duties, both to God and man, which are derived thence. I. Let us consider what there is in this providence that is awful and afflictive, and what lessons of serious instruc- tion we may draw from it. 2 N 3
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