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A SERMON
PREACHED FOR THE DUANE-STREET CHURCH, AND ALSO IN THE RUTGERS-
STREET CHURCH, ON SABBATH DECEMBER 20, 1835 J
ON OCCASION OF THE DESTRUCTIVE FIRE,
IN THE FIRST WARD IN THE CITY OF NEW-YORK,
ON THE NIGHT OF DEC. 16—17 PREVIOUS.
By JOHN M. KREBS,
PASTOR OF THE RUTGERS-STREET CHURCH.
[Published by request of the Trustees and Session of the Duane-street Church.]
NEW-YORK:
LEAVITT, LORD & CO., 180 BROADWAY.
1836.Wot 4. Trow, Pra.New-York, 21st December, 1835.
Rev. John M. Krebs :
Reverend and Dear Sir—In the name of the Session and Trustees of the
Duane-street Congregation, we thank you for the solemn and very import-
ant discourse you delivered to us yesterday morning.
“ A word spoken in season, how good is it!”
You came to our desolate church, deprived, for the present, of its stated
ministry, and found us crushed beneath the mighty hand of God, under
that dreadful visitation wherewith it has pleased Him to overwhelm our
devoted city—and involve us, in common with our fellow-citizens, in pecu-
liar trials and deep distress. It was indeed a word “fitly spoken—like
apples of gold in pictures of silversolemn, tender, admonitory, consoling,
and encouraging. We are instructed to solicit this sermon for publication,
that its important truths may be disseminated and pondered, and the minds
of many be directed to a right understanding and just estimation of the
awful calamity which the Almighty, in His just judgment, has sent upon
us as a community, to rebuke us for our sins, and warn us to repentance.
Your kind compliance with our request, you may be assured, will be
duly appreciated by all our people, and we trust may be made instrumental,
in God’s hand, of much good, not only to them, but to all who may be
permitted to participate therein, which is the earnest hope and prayer of,
Reverend and dear sir,
Yours, very respectfully,
WM. HOWARD,
President of the Board of Trustees.
Tho. Masters, Stated Clerk of Session.
To the Session and Board of Trustees )
of the Duane-street Church:	{
Dear Brethren: But for your solicitation, I should never have thought
of committing the following discourse to the press.
It was prepared, with immediate reference^ (as I announced., when it was
preached,) to the people of my own charge: but being called on unexpectedly,
to address you also, on the same day, I felt that I could select no subject more
generally appropriate., than the refections suggested by the recent appalling
calamity, with which the city has been visited.
In consenting to your united and urgent request for its publication, I am
aware that your approbation and estimate of its adaptedness to do good,4
must arise from our common and intense sympathies with the occasion to
which it refers; and from the simple conviction, which you have intimated,
that, in the present condition of our community, when there is such easy
access to the emotions of the heart, even a very plain, and humble and im-
perfect attempt to improve the event, and fix the thoughts on God and His
wise providence, by directing attention to the declarations of the Bible, may
obtain a hearing, and assist in raising the heart to Him, on whom we de-
pend for “ life and breath and all thingswhile, in other circumstances,
these pages, which contain mere sketches of appropriate thought,—and often
disjointed hints and notes, hastily thrown together, of necessity, were bet-
ter kept from public view.
I submit the discourse, therefore, to your service, as it was written and
preached, with no other alteration than the addition of such few, brief sen-
tences, as a rapid revision suggested, for the clearer illustration of the argu-
ment.
Committing it to God, I join with you in the prayer, that it may do
good, in “stirring up the minds of Christians to remembrance” of His
power, wisdom and goodness, who is “our hope,”—in leading the afflicted
to trust Him,—and, in inclining all who may deign to read it, to regard His
supremacy, and return to their allegiance to our Saviour and Ruler, Jesus
Christ.
With very great respect,
I am, gentlemen,
Your friend and servant in the gospel,
JOHN M. KREBS.
New-York, Dec. 21st, 1835.SERMON.
Amos iii. 6. Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people be
not afraid ? Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not
DONE IT?
Psalm cxxvii. 1. Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain
THAT BUILD ITS EXCEPT THE LORD KEEP THE CITY, THE WATCHMAN
WAKETH BUT IN VAIN.
Every event in the providence of God is worthy of
our notice. We are placed here as spectators of His
works ; and it is his design that we should receive instruc-
tion. When His judgments are abroad in the earth,
the inhabitants thereof will learn righteousness. But
we are also affected by the movements of His power and
wisdom; and in the complex, and ramified, and widely-
extended relations of causes and effects, there is noth-
ing, great or small, which may not be regarded, as having
an important bearing on our interests and destinies. In
manifold instances, we may even trace the influences of
catenated events, in determining for us a lot of blessedness,
or one of disaster;—while the enjoyment or the distress
of to-day, may be ultimately seen as the prolific occasion
of future results, for good or for evil, the magnitude of
which, eternity alone can calculate. A revolution in the
old world; an earthquake, or a conflagration ; a famine
or a pestilence, reaches across the ocean in its influences,
and operates for years, in shaping the character, in de-
termining the habitation, in stimulating or retarding the6
prosperity of men, in nations most remote, like the cast-
ing of a pebble into the bosom of a placid lake, whose rip-
pling agitates the surface to the surrounding shores.
But there are events again, that immediately affect us, or,
in their nearer relations, demand our most excited sym-
pathies, and touch our interests in a manner that we can-
not fail accurately to appreciate. Such"is the nature of
that calamity, on which our appalled vision has so lately
fallen ; which has concentrated so much disaster in the
midst of us; which has blighted so many hopes ; which
has spread fear and consternation over our city; which
fills the thoughts of every mind ; and stimulates the emo-
tions of every heart; and makes the absorbing theme of
every tongue ; which has destroyed such riches ; which
has made poor so many; which has arrested such enter-
prise ; which has ramified its influences through all the
relations of society ;—taught us our mutual connections;
—and caused every man to feel that this calamity is the
calamity of the community ; that it is his calamity; and
that he cannot sever his interests, whatever be their na-
ture, from those of his neighbour, any more than he can
remove them from under the perfect control of the God of
providence. Whether we have been personal, immediate
sufferers in the recent conflagration or not, it is equally
our concern. It not only occupies the memory with im-
ages of awful terror ; but it fills us every moment with
alarm, and agitates every bosom, with apprehension of
what may yet be, in the now more distressful results of
succeeding conflagrations ; or in the effects on property
and mercantile reputation, and commercial prosperity,
and mechanical ingenuity and enterprise, for months
and years to come. It is your calamity, my hearers ; it
is mine; it is that of our children. We do not always7
feel, or appreciate, or notice the relations of occurrences
comparatively smaller, and apparently more confined in
their effects. There is sometimes an indifference and a
selfishness which heed not events, melancholy as they
are, that are yet of less marked general importance; a
buoyancy and energy of spirit that mounts superior to the
ruin,—as I doubt not with the favour of God will yet be
manifested in this disaster;—a courage and enterprise
which repairs the desolation, and, rising like the fabled
phoenix from her fires, in the freshness of youth and
with strength renewed, rejoices in ultimately more exalt-
ed prosperity. But events of the same kind are compa-
ratively greater or smaller; and here is repeated on a
large scale, in a wider theatre, before a nation’s gaze and
for a nation’s sympathies, an ordinary occurrence of Di-
vine providence, near, increased, accumulated, till it fills
the eye and the heart too, and compels us to pause and
reflect, amid the whirl of worldly excitement, on the start-
ling operations, the grander movements, the loud voice of
God’s great providence in manifested supremacy,—when
the still small voice, and even the fire and the thunder,
the earthquake and the pestilence, were previously un-
heeded.
While then the attention ,of all minds is engaged in
amazed or melancholy contemplation of our terrible cala-
mity, let us open the book of God, and read the lessons
of wisdom, which His revelation suggests for the im-
provement of His providence. For in such a time as
this, we are reminded of that God who is in Heaven,
whose throne rules the Universe, who comes forth to show
the hidings of his power in the earth,—and burning
coals go forth at His feet.	“ Shall there be evil in a
city, and the Lord hath not done it ? Shall a trumpet
N8
be blown in the city, and the people be not afraid ?”
The Scriptures teach us, and His providence bears wit-
ness of itself, in illustrating the truth,
That the providence of God is concerned
IN THE AFFLICTIONS AND DISTRESSES WHICH BEFALL
MANKIND.
Yfe have assumed the fact of Divine providence, in
our previous remarks; and we always shall assume it,
since it is written so clearly before our eyes—and with
the noontide brilliancy of the sun. But it is useful to
appeal to some outline hints in evidence of the fact, and
to stir up your minds by way of remembrance, in pre-
senting the bearings of the argument.
And here, we leave out of view the relations of the
subject to the moral world. Our present concern is with
providence, as it governs natural events, and is employed
more particularly in the infliction of temporal evils.
The providence of God is a doctrine which results
from the very Being of God; from every essential attri-
bute ; by necessary and direct inference from His perfec-
tion. Not only is He the great Creator of the planets
“ which wheel unshaken in the void immense,” but He
also formed the tiniest atom that floats in the sun-beam.
Nor is He only their creator. By Him, the stars maintain
their courses,—and “ hold their midnight festival around
the throne,” obedient to His nod. By Him is appointed
the number of our months. He saith to the snow, Be
thou on the earth ; likewise to the small rain and to the
great rain of His strength; He causeth it to come,
whether for correction, or for His land, or for mercy.
Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without Him. So
the Scriptures assert; so reason. All the works of His
hands bear the impress of wise design ; and the highest9
idea we can form of the wisdom and goodness of God
comprises the supervision of all things, and their adapta-
tion and direction to the best results. With this idea is
blended a sublime and splendid impression of His mighty
power : in all places of His dominion, He maintains His
rule ; according to the eternal counsels of His sovereign
will, He executes His pleasure, in the armies of heaven,
and among the inhabitants of the earth.
But it is directly asserted in the Scriptures that he
controls the actions of meu, and conducts them to de-
signed results, by the agency of second causes. He dis-
poses of them; sends them prosperity by the exercise of
His constant vigilance, as the Father of lights, and the
Giver of every good and perfect gift;—and also takes
away their delights, and sends defeat and disappointment
to their wisest plans.
There is, in the Bible, a particular ascription to God,
of an agency of which no creature is independent; which
is specific and minute; which detects the thoughts of our
hearts, and numbers the hairs of our heads; an agency
which is so comprehensive, in causing all things to work
together for good to them that love Him, that we cannot
exclude from the idea o’f His providence either present
natural evils that thus are made to work for good ulti-
mately, or those ultimate evils which are not simply
fatherly chastisements, but are the visitations of his puni-
tive anger.
While our sinful heart deceives our judgment,—loth
to admit a righteous providence in our deserved afflic-
tions,—and we ascribe them to men, or to chance, in the
spirit of atheism,—the book of God declares that afflic-
tions spring not from the dust. He represents Himself
as the moving and directing energy. I form light and
210
create darkness; I make peace, and I create evil; /,
the Lord, do all these things. “ The dreadful evils
which sometimes scourge the earth and afflict mankind,
such as war, famine, pestilence, God calls His great
plagues. With these He chastised Israel, and poured out
fury on their enemies.” Sometimes he sent an army of
locusts and caterpillars,—before them was a fruitful field,
behind them a desert; blasting and mildew, and drought,
were among His instruments;—and the resources em-
ployed by His agency are manifold and countless.
Against Egypt and Babylon, Damascus and Tyre, and
Samaria, he threatened, by the mouths of Jeremiah and
Amos, to send the devastating fire that should kindle upon
their walls and devour their palaces ; and amply did this
destroying agent—not poured down from Heaven, as on
the cities of the plain, but lighted by the hand of men,
and seeming accident, accomplish the denunciation of the
Almighty. To Jerusalem, he also said: If ye will not
hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath-day, and not to
bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusa-
lem on the Sabbath-day ; then will I kindle a fire in
the gates thereof; and it shall devour the palaces of
Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched. How remark-
ably was this fulfilled by the hands of the Babylonians—
and especially when, centuries after, their city and tem-
ple were destroyed by the armies of the Homans !
Men limit their inquiries to the influence and agency
of natural causes, and forget that “ all nature is but a
name for an effect, whose cause is God.” To Him true
philosophy refers. What power is there in natural causes
independently ? In all their operations, God announces
His presence and agency, to correct His ungrateful and
rebellious creatures.11
a There are some things apparently so uncertain in
their issue, and some which occur so unexpectedly and
so contrary to all human calculation, that they cannot
be reduced to any laws of man, or ascribed to any known
regular causes in nature; and about which, of course,
we are all in darkness. These, instead of referring to
the decision and providence of God, we give into the
hand of some unintelligible thing called chance, or for-
tune, or accident. But what says our divine philosophy?
How often do we see the clouds, which are filled with
fatness for the earth, and to which the husbandman looks
with longing eyes and anxious heart, carried hither and
thither high above our heads, by contending winds !—
now, they seem about to pour their treasures upon this
field; and now on that. A thousand hopes are disap-
pointed; a thousand calculations falsified. Who shall
say whither they shall be carried ? to what distance they
shall be hurried, ere they fall, leaving far behind the mur-
muring expectants ? c It is all chance/ says the atheist;
i these clouds are the sport of winds, and may yet fall on
the very place where they are least needed.’ We have a
book which tells us, that it is the Lord who causeth it
to rain on one city ; and it is the Lord who causeth it
not to rain upon another city. Take another instance.
When one man, by an unlucky blow, undesignedly takes
away the life of another, we call it chance : but the Scrip-
ture says:	The Lord hath delivered such an one to
death. As when a man goeth into the wood with his
neighbour to hew wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke
with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slippeth
from the helve, and lighteth upon his neighbour that he
die,—c This is chance/ says the atheist,— The Lord hath12
delivered him into the hands of him who slew him, saith
the Scripture.”*
There is an absolute necessity of referring to the
agency of God, in all things. How idle and sad the idea
that He abandons all thought of the world, and leaves it
at loose ends, and exposed to min ! How consoling to
know that he can restrain the wrath of man, and make
it praise him !—that he can set bars and doors to the
rolling flood, and to the devouring flame; and, while He
permits the deluge, has affixed the bounds of its ruins,
and said, Hitherto shalt thou come and no further; and
here shall thy proud waves be stayed.
Will it be said, He has impressed general laws, and
infused a sustaining energy into nature ; relieving Him-
self from an omnipresent and universal agency ? What
energy is there at all, but from His present power? Let
that be withdrawn, and we die. We must admit His
eternal plan of providence ; and that His present agency
is concerned in the execution of His wise decrees. And
to exclude his agency, is to take from the glory of His
throne; to blind the light of those eyes which are in
every place ; to exclude God from the care and manage-
ment of His own world. Yet it is said, by those who
profess to believe the being of God and the general su-
perintendence of His providence, that He cannot take
part in trivial occurrences; that they are too small for
His notice. My hearers ! there is nothing trivial in the
eye of God ; there is nothing great in His sight—these
are comparatives for men :
“ He sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish—and a sparrow fall;
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world:—”
* Bishop Mead’s Sermon before the University of Virginia.13
But not with the indifference which infidels ascribe to
Him. Nothing is too small for His notice. Have we not
seen that He numbers our hairs 7 that not a sp rrow
falleth to the ground without Him ? And He, too,
guides, preserves, and controls that which is of more
worth than many sparrows. Even we, whose eye is so
short-sighted, and our comprehension so limited, and our
adventurous imagination is baffled, and starts back ap-
palled, when it essays to penetrate the clouds and dark-
ness which enshrine the deep things of God, and where
are hid from mortal gaze the dreadful glories of His
throne,—even we can sometimes see the changing value
of those things, which are great or small, comparatively
and alternately, according to the points from which we
contemplate them, and the relations they sustain to other
objects.
What is a city compared with the world ? What is
the “ great globe itself and all that it inherit,” but a speck
in the immeasured universe ? What a century, or the
age of the earth, or the life of angels, compared with the
eternity of God, with whom one day is as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day ? And what
is the universe itself, but an aggregation of individuals,
each fixed divinely in its place, and divinely appointed
and adjusted to its functions? And can it be, that God
attends to the general administration of the universe, and
by any possibility neglects the particular parts of which it
is composed ? Is not the government of a nation found
exerting its specific influence by an agency that leaves
not unvisited the obscurest hamlet ? And who can mea-
sure the relative importance of the smallest objects and
the minutest portions of time, which, in veriest atoms,—
a mere jot and tittle,—have their place, and send their in-14
fluence abroad into all the earth, and onward throughout
eternity ! A spark is small; but let it fall by some acci-
dent , as men call it, on a powder-magazine, and it may
devastate a city. What is seemingly so unimportant, in
itself, as that trivial act of neglect, which, whatever its
nature, a few nights ago, resulted in a disaster, whereby
God has made of a defenced city a ruin. How great a
matter a little fire kindleth, truly ! And who shall
measure and survey the influences of the event ? The
falling of an apple gave the mind of Newton to the world :
a trivial disaster in a nursery made way for the ambition,
extravagance, and spreading tyranny of Louis the Four-
teenth. On a slight shifting of the winds, depended the
success of that revolution of England which brought Wil-
liam of Orange to the throne, and confirmed the Protes-
tant ascendency. Small matters, my hearers, are the
starting points of great affairs; the pregnant origin of
mighty ruin, or abundant prosperity. Every thing that
occurs has connections. Every thing in the universe
affects every thing else. All events are links in a vast
chain which binds that ultimate result, on which the
thrones and dominions, the 'principalities and powers
of the universe shall be summoned to gaze ; whose won-
drous excellency shall be sounded for ever on the harps of
God. All events, great or small, with mutual connec-
tions and dependencies, are all adjusted and essentially
contribute to the accomplishment of that majestic scheme,
which was represented wheel within wheel to the eye of
the prophet by the waters of Chebar; which compre-
hending all things, is conducting the universe to eternal
harmony and subjection under the everlasting throne.
Let but a pinion or a pivot start, and the whole power of the
vast machine may drive asunder the disjointed fragments,15
and disperse every where the flying ruin, devastation, and
death. But, in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.
He hath founded His throne upon the seas, and esta-
blished it upon the floods. His hand is every where ,\in
sovereign control. Known unto Him are all His
works. Lo, these are parts of His ways ; but how little
a portion is heard of Him ? and the thunder of His
power, who can understand ? As without His Eternal
Word, was not made any thing that was made, so are
all things for Him. He is not as men are. That
which He made, He governs: and it is beneath Him to
do neither the one nor the other. And, ah! my breth-
ren, if God does not govern in the affairs of men, we and
the world are at the mercy of the winds. Who would
wish to live in such a world ? Even a pagan emperor
could say, “ I could not bear to live another day, in the
world, if it were not under the government of Provi-
dence.”
But we are taught again, that no means of de-
fence ARE SUFFICIENT TO WARD OFF ANY APPREHEN-
DED EVIL, EXCEPT THOSE WHICH ARE FURNISHED IN
THE COVENANT FAITHFULNESS OF God.
I take my argument, here, from the very circumstan-
ces which have suggested the subject of this discourse,
and to which its application is designed. And it is but
a practical inference from the universal providence of
God. The distinction of the remark is founded on this
fact, that the Lord’s agency was not only concerned in
our present calamity, but that His agency is absolutely
irresistible where He decrees to exert it.
But a few days ago, we assembled in His courts, to
thank Him for the multitude of His mercies. And, in
the view of them we congratulated ourselves on the un-16
exampled prosperity of the past year ; nor could we omit
to notice the goodness of His providence to this favoured
city. When we spoke of the sins that courted rebuke,
we forgot not our pride and worldliness,—our too fre-
quent forgetfulness of God. We have too often rejoiced
in our boastings; and all such rejoicing is evil. We
have been proud of our prosperity ; we have boasted of
our situation like Tyre, at the entrance of the sea, a
merchant of the people for many isles. We boasted be-
cause our borders were in the midst of the sea, and our
builders had perfected our beauty. We thought our
commercial opulence could receive no shock. Alas! we
feared nothing: or if there came a momentary thought
of danger, who apprehended the conflagration 7 This
was not the form in which we looked for disaster. For,
if it menaced, and when it came, we trusted not in God,
but, against His providence, relied on the skill of our
intrepid firemen, and beyond that, on the strength of a
policy of insurance ! We said in our heart, we shall not
be moved. But what has one night accomplished 7 God
spake and it was done. He brought our counsel to
nought. He made the devices of the people of none
effect. In the very theatre of our commercial enterprise;
where speculation was busiest, and where its origin was,
—where the merchandise of many lands was concentra-
ted,—where every foot of the soil was a mart,—and there
the genius of commerce had reared for our merchant
princes her monuments, in piles of magnificent architect-
ure,—the palace-like structures devoted to the purposes
of mercantile convenience, and the proud temple where
her shrine was erected, and the fine arts at once con-
tributed to her adorning, and evinced the characteristic
gratitude and liberalizing spirit of her achievements,—17
there where uncounted treasures lay, and busy hearts
and anxious spirits matured their plans of wealth and
grandeur,—there where the city placed her resources,
and we stood by and admired our glory,—even there, a
moment introduced an undreaded enemy;—a foe that
we despised, laid his flaming hand upon the boasted ex-
cellency ; and the pride of architecture, and the rich
fabrics of the loom, and all the varied productions of in-
dustry that there were stored, and the sculptured glories
of the statuary, crumbled and wasted beneath the touch
of the destroyer. Nor did it even spare the sanctuary of
God ; the elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the
ground and keep silence ; her gates are desolate ; her
virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness, saying,
Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fa-
thers praised thee, is burned up with fire, and all
our pleasant things are laid waste. What an illustration
was then afforded, of what we once thought the almost
too highly figurative declaration of the Bible, that riches
certainly make themselves wings and fly away!
Who can resist Almighty power ? When He would
pluck up and cast down, who can escape the control of
Him who rides upon the wings of the winds, or holds
them in His fists, and makes his ministers a flaming
fire, and all the elements the chariots of His Omnipo-
tence ? What a conjuncture of circumstances made the
visitation of Wednesday night so dreadful! And was
this combination produced by chance ? Fire and hail,
snow and vapour, and stormy winds fulfil his word.
Before Him the arm of the hardy fireman is paralyzed.
The devouring flame leaps from edifice to edifice, and runs
through every street; envelopes in a fiery embrace the
ill-fated city ; and curling toward high heaven in glaring
splendour, madly exults over the ruin, and laughs and
318
triumphs over all opposition. Then, God scattereth his
hoar-frost like ashes ; He casteth forth His ice like mor-
sels ; who can stand before His cold ? The frozen aque-
ducts refuse their aid :
“ The liquid streams forbear to flow,
In icy fetters bound.”
The ruin triumphs over every defence \ and the strong
munitions of men are broken and dispersed; and desola-
tion reigns, because the Lord would do evil in the city.
What a proof was this, that except the Lord keep the
city% we wake, and watch, and labour in vain!
There is no king saved by the multitude of a host;
a mighty man is not delivered by much strength. A
horse is a vain thing for safety ; neither shall he deliver
any by his great strength. Behold the eye of the Lord
is upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in
His mercy ; to deliver their soul from death, and to keep
them alive in famine. Our soul waiteth for the Lord,
He is our help and our shield.
My brethren, our resource and defence is in His mighty
providence. He stayed the progress of the flame when
its work was done. And he directed it, too, with discri-
minating care,—I mean not only so as to give promise
that
“ Those ruins shall be built again,
And all that dust shall rise
but what extremes of suffering should we now endure,
had the flames fallen upon an equal number of dwellings
and exposed the many sick, and thousands of helpless
women and children, to the uncertain escape of midnight,
and the blast of the furious tempest, to shiver and to die,
unhoused wanderers, under the inclemency of a wintry
sky—or had overwhelmed with fiery ruin unnumbered19
lives of men ! He tempers his judgments. He stayeth
his rough wind, in the day of the east wind. But, be-
side all this, we are just as safe from future calamity, as
we ever were, and no danger can assail us now, if His
benignant providence watch over us; and nothing can
save us, if it do not. We have been taught, indeed, that
we are completely dependent upon Him. But let us con-
template our dependence, and feel that our safety is in
better hands than when we thought it was in our own.
When the inhabitants of this city lay down to rest on
Thursday night, there was a universal consciousness
that they had no longer any security against the Provi-
dence of God. The frozen fountains—the crippled con-
dition of the fire department—and policies of insurance
that were little better than blank paper—left us exposed,
and we had no resource but that of the Providence of
God. But what a resource was this !—We could just as
reasonably lie down and be quiet from the fear of evil;
for it is He only, who, at any time, maketh us to dwell in
safety. The eye that never slumbers kept guard over
every couch of repose, and the angels of the Lord en-
camped around our habitations, when we feared Him ;
and we were better kept than before.
What other resource have we ? None. And what
had we last week ? Experience tells us, NONE.
We are no less secure than we were then—we were then
no better defended than now. Had this calamity been
postponed until next week; and you were told to-day of
the uncertainty of human possessions, and warned to lay
up treasures in Heaven, why, how many would think the
preacher sought to alarm them with imaginary dangers !
But what hath God wrought ?—and would you be any
more secure to-day, than you would have been, if this
calamity were yet future? Is not the earth in the20
hand of the Lord? If it were yet future, and were fore-
told to you, you would but see the coming experience of
real insecurity, now—then—for ever,—except in God.
And to-day you only realize what the Bible has declared
for a thousand years—a dependence on Providence no
more complete at this hour than it was a year ago. You
have the advantage, my hearers, of knowing the fact; and
it is well to know it:—Shall a trumpet be blown in the
city and the people not be afraid ? But that which God
has done, He could do again, ten times over. Are we
not left then to Him; and to the confidence of His mighty
arm ?
I am aware that I address myself to many that have
lost their property, not only directly by the fire con-
suming it, but in the stocks, as insurers,—and in in-
stances suffered severely. You feel not only the insecu-
rity of what remains—but God has taken away your
husbanded means. The principle of the remarks just
made, governs your case, my brethren. You, in the
midst of your distress, may take consolation from the fact,
that you are in the hand of Providence, and can suffer
no further than He permits; and that a week ago you
were, in fact, no safer than you are now. There is this
difference. You have more room for faith ; that obsta-
cle which may have prevented its exercise is taken away;
and you are now called upon to exert it. You can see
that it is vain to trust in uncertain riches, and that
your confidence must refer to Him who is the Preserver
of men—and a faithful Creator. Is it not true that except
the Lord keep the city, the watchman walketh but in
vain. While some trust in chariots, and others in horses,
remember ye the name of the Lord our God. Behold the
works of the Lord, and the desolations He hath made in
the earth : He breaketh the bow: and cutteth the spear insunder ; He burneth the chariot in the jive. Be still and
know that He is God. He will be exalted among the
heathen ; He will be exalted in the earth. But He is
our refuge and strength—a very present help in time
of trouble. The Lord of Hosts is with us ; the God of
Jacob is out refuge. He feeds the raven ; He clothes the
lily; the sparrow finds a house, and the swallow a nest
for her young by His altars ; and shall He not care for
you as well as ever, and as long as you need ? Let faith
adopt the language of the prophet—Although the fig-tree
shall not blossomy neither shall fruit be in the vine ; the
labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no
meat; the flocks shall be cut offfrom the fold, and there
shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the
Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. Learn to
say with the man of Uz: The Lord gave and the Lord
hath taken away: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
I add one more remark. God has a design in all that
He does. And does not his providence teach us to
fear Him ? /Shall a trumpet be bloivn in the city, and
the people not be afraid 7 The trumpet is the signal of
danger at hand; it calls for alarm, and preparation.
And when afflictions befall us, are we not rebuked, and
rightly bidden to hear the voice of the rod, and who hath
appointed it 7 We are cast down, but not destroyed.
But we can readily appreciate now, that if we provoke
Him, yet a worse thing can come upon us. Is it adven-
turing too nigh the prerogative of God, to suggest the in-
terpretation of His Providence, with the Bible in our
hands ? Surely the Lord God will do nothing but He
revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets.
The lion hath roared; who will not fear 7 the Lord
God hath spoken, who can but prophesy 7
Does He not call upon us to humble ourselves for our22
sins? Speaks He not to the church to reproye her
worldliness, and show the worthlessness of those posses-
sions, which so engross our time, our labours, our con-
versation ; and trench upon the duties of piety, and the
business of the closet, and the thoughts and feelings ap-
propriate to the house of God—for which, nevertheless,
she has been so ready to sell her heritage ? Oh that
God were known even now in His palaces for a refuge!
It is his way to hedge up the course of His people with
thorns,—to allure them and bring them into the wilder-
ness, that He may speak comfortably unto them, when
they are made to say, I will go and return unto my first
husband, for then was it better with me than now. Does
he not speak to you, O ! men ? is not His voice unto the
sons of men ? To them who did not know that he gave
corn and wine and oil and multiplied their silver and
gold, which they prepared for Baal; Therefore, saith
the Lord, will I return and take away my corn in the
time thereof, and will recover my wool, and my flax
given to cover their nakedness. Speaks not wisdom to-
day ? >She uttereth her voice in the streets ; she crieth
in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the
gates,—in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How
long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and the
scormers delight in their scorning, and fools hate know-
ledge? Turn you at my reproof. Go up and down and
visit the scene of devastation, and say whether any divine
can preach to you like the providence of God,—and we
pray you, heed His admonition. He does not forbid the
fit enterprises of commerce, nor the exertions of human
industry. He encourages them. He promises prosperity
to righteousness ; and he will give it, for He is the living
God who giveth us all things richly to enjoy.
But honour the Lord with thy substance, and He will23
increase it, for good; while He will correct by chastise-
ments the abuse of this world. When He visits with
bereaving calamity, we know that it is for our iniquity;
that it is to wean us from the love of earth ; that it is to
provide some better thing for us; and often to prepare
the way, as in the case of Job, for giving twice as much
as we had before. But He warns us not to be greedy of
gain. He shows us that the fashion of this world passeth
away. For how expressively does calamity declare the
folly of setting our affections on the things that are on
the earth, to the disparagement of those which are above,
where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God! He
commands us to seek first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness ; and to obtain those treasures of wis-
dom, the merchandise of which is better than the mer-
chandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold :
she is more precious than rubies ; and all the things
thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. He
commends to you, to forego every thing for the pearl of
great price; and to acquire, by faith in Jesus, a title to
the house of many mansions ; and through the regene-
rating grace of the Holy Ghost, a rejoicing inheritance,
incorruptible, undefiled, unfading, in the city which hath
foundations, whose maker and builder is God. For
must you not die ? Do not all go to the grave ? For all
flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower
of grass; the grass wither eth, and the flower thereof
falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for
ever.
Ah! my brethren, while God thus loudly speaks, He
would persuade! His precious gospel explains his pro-
vidence ; and furnishes consolation for sorrow. It dis-
covers a refuge from sin, and from all that the curse
involves. The hope of glory in Heaven, through Jesus24
Christ, can never perish. Nothing that he redeems can
be lost; but He will raise it up at the last day. The
body and the soul shall survive the tomb, and the wreck
of a dissolving worlds—and, from the fires of universal
conflagration, ascend to God, and be fixed for ever in His
high abode, the house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens. Then let your heart choose Him, rather
than the riches of earth. Nor let it be troubled amid
surrounding desolation ; but believing in Christ, inherit
ye the peace that passeth understanding.
Do I speak to those that prefer sin to affliction 7 When
will ye be wise 7 Is God’s voice to be unheard; and will
ye harden your hearts 7 Alas ! how many, even now,
fear Him not! How many, in this calamity, look not
above the clouds, for its origin, and confine all their
thoughts to the earth ! They studiously avoid the name
of Providence. They are not afraid at His voice ; they
boast of their future plans. But let them know, that if
there be evil in the city, the Lord hath done it. Let them
know, that except the Lord build the city, they labour in
vain that build it again: That except the Lord keep
the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Wherefore
should not our future enterprise glorify the Lord, and
bring for us, from Him, a better and a more enduring
prosperity? And, whether men will hear or whether
they will forbear, let them remember that the word of
God bids them repent, lest He come upon them and smite
them. The day is approaching when you shall come up
out of your graves; when the earth and all the works that
are therein shall be burnt up ; and forward to that day of
eternity, this question looks, and gathers fearful impor-
tance for the impenitent and unbelieving :— Who can
dwell with devouring flames 7 Who can lie down in
everlasting burnings 7