(3.) The wild beasts 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 strait brings them near the dwellings of men, which otherwise they would shun, Hos. iv. 3.

(4.) The fowls of the air groan, and are hard put to it, to make shift for their lives, and they mourn after their kind, for the hand of God is heavy upon them: Hos. iv. 3, "Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish; with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea shall be taken away."

(5.) The flocks groan, for God has locked up their pasture: Joel i. 18, "How do the beasts groan? the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate." They are-fruitful creatures, but God threatens to pluck up the tree with its fruit;-harmless, yet they sadly suffer for the sins of men, their owners;-useful creatures, and because of their singular usefulness, a singular weight of the stroke lies on them. They cannot help themselves, and men cannot help them; so they groan and cry unto the Lord: Joel i. 20, "The beasts 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 arrest. They have been long crying that their influences are bound up, but God has not yet heard them: Hos. ii. 21, " And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth." The machine of the world, in some sort, has long stood; because God has holden still the heavens, the main spring; but the heavens cannot help the earth, nor the earth the grass, nor the grass the beasts of the field, till God see meet.

2. We may learn, that when the whole creation groans for man's sake, it is no wonder God make man himself to groan heavily. It has been a groaning time through Scotland now for a long time, and these 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 itself. Besides, that as the world is now distempered by the corruptions of men, it is morally impossible but that violence, rapines, and other disorders, will fall out in such a case, which some heavily feel, however easy others may live, and that whether the armies be for or against us. It is groaning under a most causeless rebellion, raised by men of a perverse, malignant, Antichristian spirit, who, to get a limb of Antichrist on the throne,

and to ruin religion, have made all this disagreeable work. Hence the nation groans under a drawn sword, deeply bathed in blood, and thirsting for more. The blood of many has been shed in the field like water, many precious souls sent to eternity in a moment, in the hurry of war, and the carcases 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 case have many of the nobility and gentry of Scotland brought themselves! which, though it be the just judgment 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 oppression, of which the southern parts have had but a few days, and yet made so great an outcry. Some groaning there, because their houses are made unpleasant to them; some, because they and their families are scattered; some groaning because they are harassed: others because they are solitary, &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 oppressed,-under our own unchristian divisions, by which she is rent into many pieces ;-under the just withdrawing of her Lord, by which she is become heartless. Many congregations of the land are groaning under the want of gospel-ordinances, the weight of silent Sabbaths. Her serious ministers and members are groaning, while they behold, on every hand, matter of lamentation and woe. Nay, she is groaning this day, to see the great red dragon standing before her to swallow her up. A limb of Antichrist set 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 beast that supports the whore. Her members are in no good case to give a draught of their blood to the scarlet-coloured whore, and therefore in hazard to drink the cup of the wine of her fornication, if she had once access to put it to them.

Thus the church and nation are groaning together. No sort of persons, from the throne to the dunghill, are exempted. Our only rightful and lawful Sovereign, our Protestant King, whom God, by an admirable step of favourable providence, brought seasonably to the throne, groans for the unnatural rebellion raised against him. The nobles and gentry, who used to escape other strokes, smart un

der the confusions in the land by that means.

Ministers have a load

of many weights to groan under this day; and to all the rest, not a few of them are threatened with suffering for a cause which their souls abhor as much as any in the nation. People of all sorts groan; the husbandman, because the earth, being as iron, will not allow his labouring; and the store masters, because of the particular distress of the beasts of the field.

3. This lets us see what is the cause of all this groaning. Is there not a cause? Yes; men's sins are the cause of all the distress on the creatures, and on themselves. We have procured all our miseries with our own hands. All ranks in the land have gone out of course, and therefore the very creation is put out of its course: Isa. xxiv. 20, "The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage, and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again."—The Lord is contending with us,

(1.) Because that the sins of our fathers have not been sufficiently mourned over by the generation. National perjury and bloodshed are crying sins that are making the land to mourn this day. Without controversy, God is fulfilling that scripture in our eyes this day, Lev. xxvi. 25, "And I will, bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant; and when you are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you, and ᎩᎾ shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy." God is making inquisition for the blood of the slain witnesses of Jesus; 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 sometimes thought, "O! why has God made choice of poor Scotland to be the field of blood? Are there not sins against God in the neighbouring land, as well as amongst us?" But I have been silenced by this consideration, Scotland was the place where the witnesses were slain, in a special manner, in the late times: "True and righteous are thy judgments, 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 pass under the light of the gospel, that all religion was laughed at by many; so that there was a necessity that God, by some new argument, should 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 consciences, that at least they may get their precious souls for a prey!-The Lord is contending,

(3.) Because of the horrid profanity of the generation: Hos. iv. i. -3, "Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel; for the

Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God, in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall 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 courses. Can these things escape a mark of God's displeasure? It has broken in like a flood, and gone through the land; so that they are indeed but rare persons who have not entertained one branch or another of it; either they are swearers, or liars, or such like, and there is no reforming of them. The word cannot do it.-The Lord is contending,

(4.) Because of our abuse of mercies, and God's good creatures. We have had long peace, and God has wrought wonders for our deliverance. But we were surfeited with peace ere the war came. The good creatures of God prospering and thriving were but fuel to our lusts, and so snares to lead us away from God, that it is no wonder they get a stroke, like idols of jealousy, wherewith God has been provoked. The Lord is contending,.

(5.) Because of that woeful security and unconcernedness for the public cause of God and of religion which prevails. God is a jealous God, and when he is going out against a land, he calls all the inhabitants thereof to fear and to tremble; and he cannot endure indifference when his cause is at stake. This provokes him to blast people's private concerns: Haggai ii. 14-17, "Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation, before me, saith the Lord; and so is every work of their hands, and that which they offer there is unclean. And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord. Since those days were, when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the pressfat, for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty. I smote you with blasting, and with mildew and hail, in all the labours of your hands, yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord." This woeful selfishness has prevailed in an amazing manner among us. Little were we concerned with the distresses which many others of the nation were under; very indifferent were we as to what way public matters should go, as if we had been set here to be idle spectators of the reelings of the nation. But we see God has many arrows in his quiver, and will even have us to groan with the rest. And if people go lightly under the burden of the public,

God knows, your

he will give them a burden of their own to bear. distress by this storm has lain near my heart, as I bear a part in all your afflictions; but seeing, with grief of heart, your prevailing temper to be such, that I could not call you together to wrestle for the public cause, I could not have confidence before the Lord to do it upon an inferior cause, though in itself a very weighty one.-The Lord is contending with us,

(6.) Because of the contempt of the gospel, and unfruitfulness under the means of grace. This makes a land to groan, and the creatures in it to bear a share.

4. Let the groans of the creatures stir us up to repenting groans before the Lord. Shall we be groaning under trouble, and the creatures groaning for our sakes, and yet not groan for sin, which is the cause of all? For the Lord's sake, sirs, be pliable to the word, and do not think yourselves above warnings, but receive convictions from the word, and be humbled under the hand of God, and take a look of your ways, and repent, and reform yourselves and your families. Wrath is gone out from the Lord against the land and us. Let us try to quench it ere it go farther, lest it break out like fire, that none can quench it. Let us be concerned for the public cause, and take a lift of Zion's burden this day. Be not indifferent in the cause of a Protestant king, and a Popish pretender. Ye have had fair warning to prepare to meet the Lord, and God followed the closing of our sermons on that subject hard at the heels with the stroke. And if this do us no good, take heed it come not next from the stall to the hall, and men and women be as sore straitened as the poor dumb creatures are this day.

5. Let us come here, and learn various other lessons. We know the book of the creation is an instructive book; every day we may have a lesson from them, from the highest, Psalm viii. 3, 4, to the lowest, Prov. vi. 6, 7, 8, namely, from the heavens to the ant. But in such a day as this we may learn more from them than ordinary; now they speak much and loud to us. God makes them groan thus for our instruction, as he cursed the fig-tree, for a lesson of faith to his disciples; and slew the cattle of Egypt, to make the owners see what they might expect. The creatures groan out these lessons to

us:

(1.) That God is angry with us. He is angry with the land, has a controversy with our mother, and he is angry with the creatures, for they smart under it. We may say, as in Hab. iii. 8, "Was the Lord displeased against the rivers? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea? that thou didst ride upon thine horses, and thy chariots of salvation." Sure if it is so, it is for VOL. IX.

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