more. For God's ways are not as our ways, or his thoughts as our
thoughts. His ways are unsearchable, and his paths past finding
out. Who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him,
or even settle what the Lord means by doing this or that?

All we can say is--and that is a truly blessed thing to be able to
say--that floods and earthquakes, fire and storms, come from the
Lord whose name is Love; the same Lord who walked with Adam in the
garden, who brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, who was
born on earth of the Virgin Mary, who shed his life-blood for sinful
man, who wept over Jerusalem even when he was about to destroy it so
that not one stone was left on another, and who, when he looked on
the poor little children of Judaea, untaught or mistaught, enslaved
by the Romans, and but too likely to perish or be carried away
captive in the fearful war which was coming on their land, said of
them, 'It is not the will of your Father in heaven, that one of
these little ones shall perish.' Him at least we can trust, in the
dark and dreadful things of this world, as well as in the bright and
cheerful ones; and say with Job, 'Though he slay me, yet will I
trust in him. I have received good from the hands of the Lord, and
shall I not receive evil?'



SERMON V. ABRAHAM



(First Sunday in Lent)