the wisdom of men into folly; to frustrate the
tokens of the liars, and make the prophets mad. How men blow great
bubbles, and God bursts them with the slightest touch. How, when
all seems well, and men cry peace and safety, sudden destruction
comes upon them unawares. How, when men say, 'Soul, take thine
ease, eat, drink, and be merry; thou hast much goods laid up for
many years,' God answers, 'Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be
required of thee.'

My friends, we see God doing thus in these very days by great
nations, by great branches of industry. Look at the American war,
look at the Manchester cotton famine, and see how God can confound
the strong and cunning, and blind their eyes to the ruin which is
coming till it is come in all its might. And then think, If it be
so easy for him to confound such as them, is it less easy for him to
confound you and me, if we begin to fancy that we can do without
him, and ask, 'Doth God perceive it? Or is there knowledge in the
Most High? We are they that ought to speak. Who is Lord over us?'

Yes, in this sense God is indeed a jealous God, who will not give
his honour to another. And a blessed thing for men it is that God
IS a jealous God, that he WILL punish us for trusting in anything
but him--will punish us for trusting in ourselves, or in our wisdom,
or in wealth, or in science, or in armies and navies, or in
constitutions and laws; in anything, in short, save the living God.

For if he left us alone to go our own way without trusting or
fearing him, we should surely go down and down (as the Chinese seem
to have gone down), generation after generation, till we became only
a mere cunning and spiteful sort of animals, hateful and hating one
another. But when we are chastened for our folly, we are chastened
by him that we may be partakers of his holiness; that we may be his
children, looking up to him as our father, from whom comes every
good and perfect gift; the Father of Lights, with whom is no
variableness or shadow of turning; and who therefore will and can
give us, his children, light, more and more to understand those his
invariable and eternal laws, by which he has made earth and heaven;
who has given us his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and will with him
likewise freely give us all things.

SERMON XVII. THE GOD OF THE RAIN

(Fifth Sunday after Easter.)

DEUT. xi. 11, 12. The land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land
of hills and valleys,