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after their kind, for the hand of God is heavy upon them Hof. iv. 3. "Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein fhall languish; with the beafts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fifhes of the fea fhall be taken away."

(5.) The flocks groan, for God has locked up their pafture: Joel, i. 18. "How do the beafts groan the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of theep are made defolate." They are fruitful creatures, but God threatens to pluck up the tree with its fruit;-harmless, yet they fadly fuffer for the fins of men, their owners;-useful creatures, and because of their fingular usefulness, a fingular weight of the ftroke lies on them. They cannot help themselves, and men cannot help them; fo they groan and cry unto the Lord: Joel, i. 20. "The beafts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of water are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness."

(6.) The heavens groan, Deut. xxviii. 23. (quoted already), for God has laid them under arreft. They have been long crying that their influences are bound up, but God has not yet heard them: Hof. ii. 21. "And it fhall come to pafs in that day, I will hear the heavens, and they fhall hear the earth." The machine of the world, in fome fort, has long ftood; because God has holden still the heavens, the main fpring; but the heavens cannot help the earth, nor the earth the grass, nor the grafs the beafts of the field, till God lee meet.

2. We may learn, that when the whole creation groans for man's fake, it is no wonder God make man himself to groan heavily. It has been a groaning time through Scotland now for a long

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time,

time, and thefe groans are not over yet. God grant they be not but beginning!

(1.) The nation is groaning under the weight of two armies, which, whether friends or foes, must needs be heavy to a poor land, that has enough ado to maintain itfelf. Befides, that as the world is now distempered by the corruptions of men, it is morally impoffible but that violence, rapines, and other diforders, will fall out in fuch a cafe, which fome heavily feel, however eafy others may live, and that whether the armies be for or against us. It is groaning under a moft caufeless rebellion, raifed by men of a perverfe, malignant, Antichriftian fpirit, who, to get a limb of Antichrift on the throne, and to ruin religion, have made all this difagreeable work. Hence the nation groans under a drawn fword, deeply bathed in blood, and thirfting for more. The blood of many has been fhed in the field like water, many precious fouls fent to eternity in a moment, in the hurry of war, and the carcafes of men laid like dung in the open field; parents left childless, children fatherless, and their mothers widows, while the lives of many others are made to them more bitter than death. Into what a wretched cafe have many of the nobility and gentry of Scotland brought themfelves! which, though it be the juft judgement of God upon them, for which we are to praise him, yet it makes the nation groan, as the cutting off a gangrened member is painful to the whole body. Thus David lamented over Saul, 2 Sam. i. 17. The northern parts of the nation have been long groaning, who have had many months of that oppreffion, of which the fouthern parts have had but a few days, and yet made fo great an outcry. Some groaning there, because their houfes are made unpleasant to them; fome, because they and

their families are fcattered; fome groaning because they are haraffed; others, becaufe they are folitary, &c.

(2.) The church is groaning for the weight of the Lord's anger gone out against her. Our mother is in mourning, and the gates of Zion lament. She groans under the weight of these mischievous decrees laid on in the latter end of the last reign, not yet removed, by which she is greatly oppreffed, -under our own unchristian divisions, by which she is rent into many pieces ;-under the just with-. drawing of her Lord, by which she is become heartlefs. Many congregations of the land are groaning under the want of gofpel-ordinances, the weight of filent Sabbaths. Her ferious ministers and members are groaning, while they behold, on every hand, matter of lamentation and woe. Nay, fhe is groaning this day, to fee the great red dragon ftanding before her to fwallow her up. A limb of Anti

chrift fet up for a king, to be a captain, to lead back the nation to Egypt, and to give the kingdom, if he had it at his will, to the Romish beaft that fupports the whore. Her members are in no good cafe to give a draught of their blood to the fcarlet-coloured whore, and therefore in hazard to drink the cup of the wine of her fornication, if she had once accefs to put it to them.

Thus the church and nation are groaning together. No fort of perfons, from the throne to the dung-hill, are exempted. Our only rightful and lawful Sovereign, our Proteftant King, whom God, by an admirable ftep of favourable providence, brought feasonably to the throne, groans for the unnatural rebellion raised against him. The nobles and gentry, who used to escape other strokes, fmart under the confufions in the land by that means. Ministers have a load of many weights to groan

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groan under this day; and to all the reft, not a few of them are threatened with fuffering for a cause which their fouls abhor as much as any in the nation. People of all forts groan; the husbandman, because the earth, being as iron, will not allow his labouring; and the ftore-mafters, because of the particular diftrefs of the beafts of the field.

3. This lets us fee what is the caufe of all this groaning. Is there not a caufe? Yes; men's fins are the caufe of all the distress on the creatures, and on themfelves. We have procured all our miferies with our own hands. All ranks in the land have gone out of courie, and therefore the very creation is put out of its courfe: Ifa. xxiv. 20. "The earth fhall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and fhall be removed like a cottage, and the tranfgreffion thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rife again.”—The Lord is contending with us,

tion.

(1.) Because that the fins of our fathers have not been fufficiently mourned over by the genera National perjury and bloodshed are crying fins that are making the land to mourn this day. Without controverfy, God is fulfilling that fcripture in our eyes this day, Lev. xxvi. 25. "And I will bring a fword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant; and when you are gathered together within your cities, I will fend the peftilence among you, and ye fhall be delivered into the hand of the enemy." God is making inquifition for the blood of the flain witneffes of Jefus and it will be a wonder if, before the quarrel be ended, God make not the lives of hundreds of others go for one of theirs. I have fometimes thought, O! why has God made choice of poor Scotland, to be the field of blood? Are there not fins against God in the neighbouring land, as well

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as amongst us? But I have been filenced by this confideration, Scotland was the place where the witneffes were flain, in a fpecial manner, in the fate times: "True and righteous are thy judgements, O Lord!"-The Lord is contending with

us,

(2.) Because of the atheism and contempt of God in the land. Matters were come to that pafs under the light of the gofpel, that all religion was laughed at by many; fo that there was a neceffity that God, by fome new argument, fhould prove the truth of his being, which he has already done, to the cost of many that were deeply engaged in these atheistical ways. May God bear it home on their confciences, that at leaft they may get their precious fouls for a prey!--The Lord is contending,

(3) Becaufe of the horrid profanity of the generation: Hof. iv. 1.--3. "Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Ifrael; for the Lord hath a controverfy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God, in the land. By fwearing, and lying, and killing, and ftealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore fhall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein fhall languifh, with the beafts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the fea alfo fhall be taken away.' How many are there up and down the land, that glory in their shame, and take a pleasure to affront the God that made them by their profane courfes. Can thefe things efcape a mark of God's difpleafure? It has broken in like a flood, and gone through the land; fo that they are indeed but rare perfons who have not entertained one branch or another of it; either they are fwearers, or liars,

or

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