Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED*.

SERMON XXVII.

ROM. viii. 22. For we know that the whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain together until now.

H

AVING confidered in what respects the creation, or creatures, are faid to groan, and what diftreffes the creatures fo much that they groan, we now proceed to inquire,

III. How, and by what right, can the harmless creatures be made to groan for our fakes? They have not finned. True, thefe poor fheep, what have they done?-Here I obferve,

1. That there is fovereignty in this groaning. The creatures are all his own, and it is lawful for

him

*This Sermon was delivered on a Faft-day, appointed by the Prefbytery of which the Author was a member, on occafion of a fevere threatening form which then prevailed. In this difcourfe, and through the whole of this fubject, the Author has evidently a reference to the unnatural rebellion which was then raging, and appears deeply affected with the ftate of the church and nation at that period.

him to do with his own what he will, Matth. xx. 15. Solomon tells us, Ecclef. viii. 4. "Where the word of a king is, there is power, (Heb. dominion), and who may fay unto him, What doest thou?" God is the great ftore-master, to whom all the flocks and herds in the world belong: "The cattle upon a thousand hills are his," Pfal. 1. 10. He has given you the use of them, but has referved the abfolute property to himself. You have them in kain, and that is ill paid; therefore no wonder he take them out of your hand, and difpose of them in another way, whereby he may get the use of them, that is, glory to himself.—Ï obferve,

2. That the creatures are liable to this groaning, because of their relation to finful man, who has a fubordinate, limited, providential intereft in them; and that by the fame juftice that the whole which a malcfactor has, fmarts with him; as it was in the cafe of Achan, and all that he had, Jofh. vii. 24. The fun is a light to him, therefore it is overclouded; it nourishes his ground, therefore its influences are restrained. The ground feeds his flocks and herds, therefore it is inhibited. They furnish him with neceffaries, conveniences, and profits, therefore they suffer. They stand in a nearer relation to him than other creatures; they were made the fame day, and of the fame earth, and live in the fame element with him, and therefore they smart foreft, because they are nearest to him, They are nearer, and therefore it is harder with them than with fishes and fowls, which were of the water, and live, the one in the water, the other in the air.-I obferve,

3. That the creatures groan because of their ufefulness to him, by the fame right that, in war,

one

one takes from his enemy whatever may be of ufe to that enemy in the war. None fcruple to take every thing from an enemy, that so he may be difabled, and yield. Now, God is angry, and carrying on a war with us, which we began; and to oblige us to yield, he falls on the creatures that are useful to us. Pharaoh will not let Ifrael go, and the cattle, and the very trees and water of Egypt, fmart. They kill, fwear, lie, fteal, commit adultery: Hof. iv. 3. "Therefore fhall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beafts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the fea also fhall be taken away." Men are very indifferent about the intereft of God, and if they get their own intereft seen to, are little concerned as to any thing elfe and therefore God blafts their profpects; as you may fee, by consulting Haggai, i. 4.—11.—————————I obferve,

4. That the creatures groan, by the fame right one takes a sword from a man wherewith he is running at him. The creatures are idols of jealoufy often to provoke God, and therefore he trikes them down. Often, and moft juftly, does God punish finners in that wherein they have finned, so as they may read their fin in their punishment, as in Eli's cafe, and in Ifaac's, Gen. xxv. 28. and xxvi. 35. The farm, and the care about it, often keeps people from the marriage-supper of the King's Son, Matth. xxii. 5. The Gadarenes, for their liking of fwine better than a Saviour, had their wretched idols drowned in the sea.—I obferve,

5. That the creatures groan by the fame right one takes back his loan, when he gets no thanks for it, but, on the contrary, it is improved against himself: Hof. ii. 8. 9. " For fhe did not know that

I

I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her filver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the feafon thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakednefs." Alas! though we are always in God's common, for every thing we have, we are not thankful, we do not remember our holding, but facrifice to our own net. And God's favours with refpect to the creatures, though they make people more wealthy, they make them. not more holy.

Lafily, I obferve, That the creatures groan by the fame right a prince levies a fine on a man, when he might take his life. It is a mercy God deals not with ourfelves, as with the creatures for our fake am. iii. 22. “It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not confumed, because his compaffions fail not." True, men feel the stroke; and good reafon, for God makes the creatures groan for that very end, that we may feel it. But we feel only at the second hand, though it is we only that are guilty. The bands lying on the earth might have lain on us, and we pinched as fore for our food as the beafts of the field for theirs ; that as our flocks are forced to go to another part of the country, leaving our own hills defolate, fo our houfes might have been defolate, families fcattered, and fent through the country begging bread. They have had more than any of us, who yet have been brought to fuch trying circumftances.--It only remains,

IV. THAT we make fome improvement of this doctrine.

I. In an use of information. Let us notice this fcripture fulfilled in our days, in this day, and VOL. II.

D

that

There is a mourn

that in a remarkable manner. ful concert which the creatures have been making in our ears now for many weeks together, for which we are this day called to faft and humble ourselves.― Hear the groans of the creatures :

(1.) The earth is groaning under us, Deut. xxviii. 23. "And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brafs, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron.” God has laid a weight on it, and bound it so strait, that it can get no breathing, there is no perfpiration; it can get up nothing. It is run together as lead does after it is melted; Job, xxxviii. 38. “When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave faft together." Hebrew, "God has pitched it up, or pitched it all over with froft, as one would do a veffel to keep in the liquor, when they have in view to prevent others drawing from it."

(2.) The waters groan, for there is a weight on them Job, xxxviii. 30. "The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen." Men's fins have taken hold of them, and turned them into dry land: Pfal. cvii. 33. "He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the water-springs into dry ground." Verse 34. "A fruitful field into barrennefs, for the wickednefs of them that dwell therein." We have bridges of God's making, but these are no more figns of God's favour, than the turning of fea into dry land was to Pharaoh, for it proved his deftruction.

(3.) The wild beafts of the field groan for lack of food. They that take the range of the mountains for pasture, are forced into the valleys, and this ftrait brings them near the dwellings of men, which otherwife they would fhun, Hof. iv. 3.

(4.) The fowls of the air groan, and are hard put to it, to make fhift for their lives, and they mourn

after

« PreviousContinue »