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cause they fancy they can easily and fully account for it another way. So it is said of the plague of locusts, that an east wind brought them, and a west wind carried them away;'-and yet, Pharaoh, by desiring Moses to intercede for their removal, confessed it to be as much the effect of God's judg ment upon Egypt as any of the other plagues. But when God, as it were, conceals himself behind his own instruments, or hides his hand in his bosom, and clouds and darkness are round about him, we are apt to forget the great Governor of the world, who directs and regulates all the secret springs; and to ascribe all the glory of success, and throw all the blame of a disappointment, on second causes; on those whom the Lord of hosts hath thought proper to employ as his instruments, to accomplish the designs of his wrath and mercy.

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This, therefore, is the first thing implied in the expression of the text, "O Earth! Earth! Earth! hear the word of the Lord"-as if he had said, "How shall I make these thoughtless creatures attend !— They are so stupid that they cannot, or so perverse that they will not, hear what I say.'

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II. It implies also the importance of the message. Its being three times repeated gives weight to what follows, and disposes the hearers to receive it with reverence and submission-" O Earth! Earth! Earth" When the Lord speaks, let the whole world be silent and attentive:'"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches:" "Unto you, O men! he calls; and his voice is to the sons of men." And infinitely important is the message he delivers: his word determines our duty and felicity. The same messenger

that brings us tidings from the army or the fleet, brings us also intelligence from heaven-intelligence infinitely more important than that with which we are so much affected. Of late we have had many frowning messages, many humbling rebukes, many loud calls and solemn warnings: and what is his language in all this? what is "the word of the Lord" which those awful providences have been for some tiine thundering in our ears? You may find it in Leviticus (xxvi. 3-38): "If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit . . . . and I will give peace in the land; and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. . . . neither shall the sword your land and ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword

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shall be my people But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague. and I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall' reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me; then I will punish you seven times more for your sins: and I will break the pride of your power and I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my

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covenant: and, when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and shall be delivered into the hand of the and I will scatter you among the enemy heathen, and will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste . .. and ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.”—

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Thus saith the Lord."-What a dreadful" word" is that! It is enough to make the ears of every one that heareth it to tingle.---But I am happy to inform you that the Lord did not stop here; he said something more than what I have just now repeated. Thus he went on (ver. 40); "If they shall confess their iniquities, and the iniquity of their fathers, with the trespass which they trespassed against me; and that they also have walked contrary to me; and that I also have walked contrary to them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I [remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land ... . . and I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord their God."

This is the word of the Lord: and surely it nearly concerns us to hear it, and seriously attend to it; for sooner shall heaven and earth pass away, than one jot or tittle of this word fall to the ground unfulfilled.

III. It carries with it an earnestness and impor

tunity, as if their not hearing the word of the Lord might be attended, with the utmost danger,

"O Earth! Earth! Earth! hear the word of the Lord" The time of your visitation is almost over; the things which belong to your peace will be soon hid from your eyes. If this warning, like all the former, be slighted; and you again turn a deaf ear to his counsels and reproofs; you shall no more hear his word, but you shall feel his hand: and if lesser judgments will not do, he will multiply his strokes and whereas before he whipt you with rods, he will soon chastise you with scorpions: to " fightings without," he will add "fears within;" and bring upon you poverty, pestilence, and desolation, all at once.'-He may make us "an hissing and a by-word;" so that all that see it may shake their heads, and say, "Lo, these are the men that made not God their trust.' Weary of expecting fruit from barren souls, he may cut us down as cumberers of the ground; and cut us off from being a people; and our name shall be no more had in remembrance among the nations.

If God had spoken such terrible things only once, one would have thought it should have thrown the whole world into agonies of grief and consternation -at least, those to whom these words were more immediately addressed;-and we never could have believed it possible that God should repeat those awful words a second and a third time, and his stupid creatures take no notice of it. But, alas! the event has shown it to be both possible and common. The shaking of the earth, nay, the ruins of a dissolving world, would leave such sinners as it found them-amazed, perhaps, and terrified; but

as ever.

still unchanged; with the same vicious inclinations The deluge in the time of Noah was the mést extensive and destructive judgment God had ever brought upon mankind; and yet it did not reform all of the very few that outlived it: so that those sins were quickly revived in the new world, which had so lately proved the ruin of the old. The Israelites were pulled up by the roots, as it were; from the land of their fathers; carried in chains to Babylon, and there made to labour so hard as rendered the Egyptian bondage comparatively light and inconsiderable and, yet, this very people, when they were delivered in so miraculous a manner that they could scarcely believe their own happinessyet, this very people, by their practice, soon declared that they had only left their chains in Babylon, but had brought away all their former vices, for which God had caused their land to mourn.Would to God we had no later instances of this kind to produce! Would to God there were not a nation this day to be found upon earth too nearly resemb ling this highly-favoured and rebellious people!Alas that this nation should be our own! "We have heard with our ears, and our fathers have told us, what works God did in their days"-But we need not go so far back for proofs of what desolation he can bring upon a land, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein. If our hearts were not waxed gross, and our ears dull of hearing, we might have heard many rebukes of Providence calling to us,

O England! England! England! hear the word of the Lord.'-But we have not hearkened Not hearkened? This doth not half express our wickedness, We have revolted more and more. So far

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