wedded. And so it follows: "For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name: and thy Redeemer the holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called." But I will come to my text, which is full of comfort to these poor Gentiles.

"O thou afflicted!" Many are the afflictions of the righteous: and these poor Gentiles, upon their receiving the gospel and turning to God from idols, were wretchedly used by those that abode by the old idolatry. These fell violently upon them. The devil stirred up the whole world to make new gods, and to oppose the gospel, and persecute its converts; as it follows: "The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came. They helped every one his neighbour: and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the sodering: and he fastened it with nails, that it should not be moved." But God encourages Gentile Zion under all this: "Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God." "Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee, shall fall for thy sake,” Isaiah liv. 15. Dreadful were the persecutions which these poor creatures endured. But, besides all this, they were sorely afflicted within; for, being bred up in idol wor

ship, and this being deeply engraved on the heart; the word must cut as deep as the root, and pierce and wound dreadfully before this false religion could be cut off at the fibres, and destroyed in all its branches; no less than a mighty power could effect it. 66 Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed." Again: when the false gods which they had been led to worship and adore were discovered, by divine revelation, to be nothing but vile creatures, apostate angels, devils, the enemies of God, and the only destroyers of men, this must, when charged home, and these charges seconded by an enlightened conscience, make dreadful work within; especially when the fall of man was discovered, a broken law understood, and sins, by that glass, set in the light of God's countenance. "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted!"

The holy law of God, when the Almighty applies it in all its purity, holiness, and spirituality, to the conscience of the poor sinner, is a figurative tempest, as Paul calls it, a mount burning with fire, blackness, and darkness, and tempest, Heb. xii. 18. For, as in a tempest the heavens are black with clouds, so, while this storm lasts, there is nothing but cloudy and dark days, Ezek. xxxiv, 12. There is in the soul a gross darkness,

yea, a horror of great darkness; darkness that may be felt, and is felt; and God himself seems hid in terrible clouds also, which appear to keep us more and more at a distance, when we are labouring night and day to draw nigh, and endeavouring to find acceptance. "Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through."

In a tempest there is generally a strong wind; hence it is called a windy storm: "O that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest." The dreadful spirit of bondage, which is called the north wind, makes the sinner tremble, and is attended with such horrors and terrors that the soul is abashed, confused, bewildered, and confounded, and neither knows what he is, where he is, nor what he is about. And, under all this dismal and horrible gloom, there is a dreadful sound in his ears, Job xv. 21; terrors take hold on him as waters, a tempest stealeth him away; and, as a storm, threatens to hurl him out of his place, Job xxvii. 20, 21. The curses and threatenings of the law, like violent claps of thunder, roll over, one after another. God answers the sinner in the secret place of thunder, and proves him at the waters of strife. At such times every minister of Christ is a Boanerges, a son of thunder. And it is with the sinner as it is described in the 6th chapter of the Revelations; at the opening of every seal there is nothing heard from the cherubim, but the noise

of thunder, crying, Come, and see, Rev. vi. 1. And sometimes it appears as if seven thunders had uttered their voices all at once.

Moreover, the law is a fiery law; it reveals the hot displeasure of God at all the unrighteousness of men, and like lightning flashes cutting convictions, which, being attended with the piercing sword of the Spirit, wound, scorch, wither, and dry up, the spirits; "For by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many." God himself compares the case of the poor Gentiles, under these their afflictions, to the deluge in the days of Noah: "For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." According to the above account the wrath of God is the thunder and lightning which had attended Gentile Zion in this storm and tempest; and this God owns: "For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee," Isaiah liv. 7, 8. And, in order to comfort her, and to calm her fears, and dissolve her doubts, he

swears to her that he never will be wroth with her nor rebuke her in a vindictive way any

more.

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Now, as God compares the great inundation of the Gentiles' affliction to the deluge in the days of Noah, I shall drop a few words upon that subject, or upon the account of God's proceedings; in which it is said, "The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened," so that the torrents from above, and the fountains from beneath, both conspired together. And just so it appears to be with the poor sinner when God takes him in hand: It is said, Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest." And the beginning of such a storm the convicted sinner feels, and he fears the whole contents; for this raining snares is nothing else but the heavens revealing our iniquity, Job xx. 27. Sins are the snares of the soul; and what has been kept secret in the book of God's remembrance is revealed and set in order before the sinner's eyes when God takes him in hand, and in the light of God's countenance; and they appear more in number than the hairs of our head; and strength fails under the load. But this is not all; for as sure as God applies his law, attended with his hot displeasure at sin, and discovers our iniquity in that glass, so sure, at the same time, do all the corruptions of the heart boil up, and discover themselves too; enmity, rebellion, desperation, unbelief, every