and repentance, cry, O Lord, “we have sinned with our fathers, we have done amiss and dealt wickedly;” [5f] but “Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them who call upon Thee!” [5g]  Alas! because we see not the “outstretched arm” of Omnipotence, which governeth the nations; because we hear not the “mighty voice” which universal Nature obeys; we too often forget that “the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear:” [6a] we too often forget that it is “God that ruleth in Jacob, and unto the ends of the world.” [6b]

But is it sufficient to call upon a people, suffering under the apprehension or infliction of Divine judgments, to assemble in the courts of the Lord’s house, to acknowledge the justice of their punishment, and to humble themselves before their God?  Let the volume of inspiration again reply, “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord?” [6c]—“Wash ye, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings before mine eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” [6d]  “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” [6e]

Much has been effected when a nation has been brought to prostrate itself before God, and, through a deep sense of its guilt, weakness, and misery, to flee unto Him, who alone is mighty to save; but incalculably more has been accomplished, when to the prayer for mercy has been added one for grace; and it has been truly, not less the language of the heart than of the lips, “Sanctify to us this thy fatherly correction, that the sense of our weakness may add strength to our faith, and seriousness to our repentance.” [7a]  May God, of His great mercy, vouchsafe to the people of this land, “to know the time of their visitation;” [7b] to humble themselves before Him, who “in faithfulness has caused them to be troubled;” [7c] to “seek the Lord while He may be found, and to call upon Him while He is near;” [7d] and to “repent and turn themselves from all their transgressions: so iniquity shall not be their ruin.” [7e]  Oh that the practical infidelity, which exists to such a fearful extent in the present day, may not withhold from a suffering people the deliverance and blessing which God alone can bestow!  A neglect and distrust, if not a denial of God’s Providence, in the preservation and government of nations and individuals, is one of the most crying sins of the day.  Because the natural eye does not perceive the visible workings of a Divine economy in the course of events, it practically ascribes all to human means, and relies on human aid.  But, as if “the finger of God” was to be revealed as pointing in wrath to this great truth of natural and revealed religion—a Divine providence—one of the most remarkable and terrible features of this fatal pestilence, through which so many millions of human beings have been swept away, is, that whilst human prudence has been completely baffled in its plans of prevention, human science has failed in its attempts at cure.  What a salutary lesson does this teach, in a day when earthly is often elevated above heavenly wisdom in the estimation of men, and when the arm of flesh appears more confided in than the arm of Omnipotence, for the accomplishment of events!

May the great Disposer of events, who, in the dispensations of His Providence, is graciously pleased to educe real good from seeming evil, make this awful visitation productive of religious advantage to this and other nations.  May earthly sovereigns learn that the Lord, by whom “kings reign, and princes decree justice,” [8a] is their defence, and “the Holy One of Israel, their King:” [8b] may the rulers of the people remember, that “except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” [8c]

For although God’s providence governs all things in heaven and in earth, still the great Sovereign of the universe, “the King of kings, and Lord of lords,” “waiteth to be gracious,” nor suffers His truth to fail.  He shuts not up His loving-kindness in displeasure, but listens to the prayers of the meanest of His servants; and in answer to them, He often suspends, and sometimes averts his just judgments.  The guilty cities of the Plain would have been spared for the sake of ten righteous, if that number of the servants of the true God could have been found amongst the inhabitants. [9a]  Nor is the prayer of