stroying them; which was a remarkable dispensation of Providence. For the inhabitants of the land were at that day very wicked, though they grew more wicked afterwards. This appears by Gen. 15: 16. "In the fourth generation they shall come hither again; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" as much as to say, though it be very great, it is not yet full. And their great wickedness also appears by Abraham and Isaac's aversion to their children marrying any of the daughters of the land. Abraham, when he was old, could not be content till he had made his servant swear that he would not take a wife for his son of the daughters of the land. And Isaac and Rebecca were content to send away Jacob to so great a distance as Padan-Aram, to take him a wife. And when Esau married some of the daughters of the land, we are told that they were "a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebecca."

Another argument of their great wickedness, was the instances we have in Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which were some of the cities of Canaan, though they were probably the most notoriously wicked, and likely to have the most bitter enmity against these holy men; agreeable to what was declared at first, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." Their holy lives were a continual condemnation of the prevailing wickedness. They must have been often reproving such wickedness, as we find Lot was in Sodom; who, we are told, vexed his righteous soul with their unlawful deeds, and was to them a preacher of righteousness.

And they were the more exposed to them, being

strangers and sojourners in the land, and having as yet no inheritance there. Men are more apt to find fault with strangers, and to be irritated by any thing in them that offends, as they were with Lot in Sodom. He very gently reproved their wickedness; and they say upon it, "This fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a ruler and a judge;" and threatened what they would do to him.

But God wonderfully preserved Abraham and Lot, Isaac and Jacob, and their families, amongst them, though they were few in number, and, they might quickly have destroyed them; which is noticed as a wonderful instance of God's preserving mercy towards his church. Psalm 105: 12-15. "When they were but a few men in number; yea, very few, and strangers in it. When they went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people. He suffered no man to do them wrong; yea, he reproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm."

This preservation was in some instances very remarkable, when the people of the land were very greatly irritated and provoked; as by Simeon and Levi's treatment of the Shechemites, Gen. 34: 30, &c. God strangely preserved Jacob and his family, restraining the provoked people by an unusual terror on their minds. "And the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob." Gen. 35 : 5.

And God preserved them not only from the Canaanites, but from all others that intended mischief to them. He preserved Jacob and his company when pursued by Laban, full of rage, and a disposition to

overtake him as an enemy. God met him, rebuked him, and said to him, "Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob, either good or bad." How wonderfully did he also preserve him from Esau his brother, when he came forth with an army, with a full design to cut him off! How did God, in answer to his prayer, when Jacob wrestled with Christ at Penuel, wonderfully turn Esau's heart, and make him, instead of meeting him as an enemy with slaughter and destruction, meet him as a friend and brother, doing him no harm!

Thus was this handful, this little root that had the blessing of the Redeemer in it, preserved in the midst of enemies and dangers; which was not unlike preserving the ark in the midst of the tempestuous deluge.

IV. The next thing I mention is the awful destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neighboring cities. This promoted the great work designed in two ways:

First, it tended powerfully to restrain the inhabitants of the land from injuring those holy strangers that God had brought to sojourn amongst them. Lot was one of those strangers; he came into the land with Abraham; and Sodom was destroyed for their abusive disregard of Lot, the preacher of righteousness. And their destruction came upon their committing a most injurious and abominable insult on Lot, and the strangers that were come into his house, even those angels, whom they probably took to be some of Lot's former acquaintance come to visit him. They in a most outrageous manner beset Lot's house, intending a monstrous abuse of those strangers, and threatening to serve Lot worse than

them. But in the midst of this God smote them with blindness; and the next morning the city and the country about it was overthrown in a most terrible storm of fire and brimstone. This dreadful destruction was in the sight of the rest of the inhabitants of the land, and doubtless struck a dread and terror on their minds, and made them afraid to hurt those holy strangers; and probably was one principal means of restraining them, and preserving the patriarchs. When the reason is given, why the inhabitants of the land did not pursue after Jacob, in their provocation by the destruction of the Shechemites, that the terror of the Lord was upon them, it is very probable this was the terror referred to. They remembered the amazing destruction of Sodom, and the cities of the plain, that came upon them for their abusive treatment of Lot, and so durst not hurt Jacob and his family.

Another way that this awful destruction tended to promote the great work of redemption, was, that hereby God remarkably exhibited the terrors of his law, to make men sensible of their need of redeeming mercy. The work of redemption never was carried on without this. The law, from the beginning, is made use of as a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ.

But under the Old Testament there was much more need of some extraordinary, visible, and sensible manifestation of God's wrath against sin, than in the days of the Gospel, since a future state, and the eternal misery of hell, is more clearly revealed, and the awful justice of God against the sins of men has been so wonderfully displayed in the sufferings of Christ. And therefore the revelation God gave

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of himself in those days, used to be accompanied with much more terror. So when God appeared at Mount Sinai to give the law, it was with thunders and lightning, and a thick cloud, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud. Some external, awful manifestations of God's wrath against sin, were on some accounts especially necessary before the giving of the law and before the flood, the terrors of the law handed down by tradition from Adam served for that purpose. Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years himself, to proclaim God's awful threatenings denounced in the covenant made with him, and how dreadful were the consequences of the fall; and others, that conversed with Adam, lived till the flood. The destruction of the world by the flood served to exhibit the terrors of the law, and manifest the wrath of God against sin; in order to make men sensible of the absolute necessity of redeeming mercy. And some that saw the flood were alive in Abraham's time.

But this was now in a great measure forgotten; therefore God was pleased again, in a most amazing manner, to show his wrath against sin, in the destruction of these cities; which was the liveliest image of hell ever exhibited, and hence the apostle Jude says, they "suffer the vengeance of eternal fire." Jude, 7. God rained storms of fire and brimstone upon them; probably by thick flashes of lightning. The streams of brimstone burned up all these cities; so that they perished in the flames of divine wrath. By this might be seen the dreadful wrath of God against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men; which tended to show the neces