Amos iii. 6. Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath
not done it ?
IT is a generally acknowledged truth, that every thing proceeds from God ; and we have the authority of God himself for affirming it : "I form the light, and create darkness : I make peace, and create evil : I the Lord do all these things*." The same truth was put in a way of appeal even to the enemies of God ; and that, too, at a time when he was denouncing against them the heaviest judgments. As surely as the roaring of a lion betokens that he has seized his
a Isai. xiv. 7.
prey ; or the capture of a bird that the snare had been set for him ; or the blowing of a trumpet the approach of danger ; so surely should the evils com- ing on his disobedient people mark the indignation of God against them : " Shall there be evil in the city, and the Lord hath not done it ?"
But as, on the incursion of evil, we are apt to trace it almost exclusively to second causes, and to over- look the hand of God in it, I propose,
I. To confirm the truth which is here intimated —
There is a great variety of evil in the world : but God is the author of it all. From him proceeds all evil;
1. Moral—
[Of course, we are not to imagine that moral evil pro- ceeds from him in a way of actual efficiency: for " God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of hjs own lust, and enticed V But, as no man would be in a capacity to perpetrate evil, if God did not invest him with the power, and allow him the opportunity to commit it, the Scripture uniformly represents God as concurring in it, even where the agency of men or devils is most manifest in the production of it. For instance ;
In the selling of Joseph into Egypt, the envy of his brethren was manifestly the first moving cause : yet, what did Joseph say concerning it ? " Be not grieved, nor angry with your- selves, that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life. God sent me before you, to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God0." " Ye indeed thought evil against me ; but God meant it unto good*1."
In the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, we must look further than to the innate depravity of that impious monarch ; for God had raised him up to the possession of royal power, that so he might have full scope for the display of all that was in his heart: yes, and he gave him up, too, to the unrestrained exercise of all his evil dispositions ; as he had before declared to Moses that he would do. And thus God himself is said, in a qualified sense, to have " hardened Pharaoh's heart," yea,
b Jam. i. 13, 14. c Acts vii. 9. with Gen. xlv. 5 — 8.
d Gen. 1. 20.