(2.) The cause of this fear and trembling ; — he " heard the speech of God." If you will ask what speech or report this was that made the prophet himself so exceedingly quake and tremble, I answer, it is particularly that which you have, chap. i. 5-11, — containing a dread- ful denunciation of the judgments of God against the people of Israel, to be executed by the proud, cruel, insulting Chaldeans. This voice, this report of God, makes the prophet tremble.
IV. Observation. An apjjearance of God in anger and threats against a people, should make his choicest secret ones among them to fear, to quake, and tremble.
Trembling of man's heart must answer the shaking of God's hand. At the delivery of the law with all its attending threats, so tenible was the sight, that Moses himself (though a mediator then) did " ex- ceedingly fear and quake," Heb. xii. 21. God will be acknowledged in all his goings. If men will not bow before him, he will break them. They who fear not his threatenings, shall feel his inflictings; if liis word be esteemed light, his hand will be found heavy. — For,
OF ESSEX COUNTY, AND COMMITTEE. 83
1. In point of deserving who can say/ I have purged my heart, I am clean from sin? None ought to be fearless, unless they be sense- less. God's people are so far from being always clear of procuring national judgments, that sometimes^ judgments have come upon nations for the sins of some of God's people amongst them ; — as the plague in the days of David.
2. And in point of ^ suffering, who knows but they may have a deep share ? The prophet's book is written within as well as without, -with " lamentation, mourning, and woe," Ezek. ii. 10. If " the lion roars, who can but fear?" Amos iii. 8, — fear, to the rooting out of security, not the shaking of faith, — fear, to the pulling down of carnal presi- dence, not Christian confidence, — fear, to draw out our souls in prayer, not to swallow them up in despair, — fear, to break the arm of flesh, but not to weaken the staff of the promise, — fear, that we may draw nigh to God with reverence, not to run from him with diffidence ; in a word, to overthrow faithless presumption, and to increase gracious submission.
2. Here is the prophet's request. And in this there are these two things : —
(1.) The thing\e desireth: " The reviving God's work, the remem- bering mercy."
(2.) The season he desireth it in: " In the midst of the years."
(1.) For the first, — that which in the beginning of the verse he calls God's work, in the close of it he termeth mercy; and the reviving his work is interpreted to be a remembering mercy. These two ex- pressions, then, are parallel. The reviving of God's work towards his people is a re-acting of mercy, a bringing forth the fruits thereof, and that in the midst of the execution of wrath; as a man in the midst of another, remembering a business of more importance, instantly turneth away, and applieth himself thereunto.
V. Observation, Acts of mercy are Ood's i^roper work toivards his jieople, which he tvill certainly awake, and keep alive in the saddest times.
Mercy, you see, is his work, his proper work, as he calleth "judg- ment his strange act," Isa. xxviii. 21. "He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy," Mic. vii. ] 8. This is his pro- per work. Though it seem to sleep, he will awake it ; though it seem to die, he will revive it. " Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet Avill I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven
' Job xiv. 4, XV. 15, 16; Prov. xvi. 2, xx. 9. ' 2 Sam. xxiv. 13; 2 Chron. xxxii. 25.
^ " Omues seculi }>lagaj, nobis in admonitionem, vobis in castigationem a Deo veniuut." — Teitul. Apol., cap. xlii.
: 84 A Mi<LMORIAL OF THE DELIVERANCE
thee upon tlie palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me/' Isa. xlix. 15, 16.
(2.) For the season of this work, — he prays that it may be accom- plished " in the midst of the years;" upon which you may see what weight he lays, by his repetition of it in the same verse. It is some- thing doubtful what may be the peculiar sense of these words; — whether " the midst of the years "^ do not denote the whole time of the people's V)ondage under the Chaldeans (whence Junius renders the words " interea temporis," noting this manner of expression, "the midst of the years," for a Hebraism), during which space he inter- cedes for mercy for them; or whether " the midst of the years " do not denote some certain point of time, as the season of their return from captivity, about the midst of the years between their first king and the coming of the Messiah, putting a period to their cliurch and state. Whether of these is more probable is not needful to insist upon: this is certain, that a certain time is pointed at; which will yield us, —