PRAYER.

Grant, Almighty God, that we being admonished by such remarkable proofs of thy wrath, may learn to walk anxiously in thy sight, and so to bring ourselves into voluntary obedience to thyself, that the certain testimony to our gratuitous adoption may appear in our life; and grant that we may so prove ourselves to be sons, that we may truly invoke thee the Father, until we arrive at that blessed inheritance which has been obtained for us by the blood of thine only-begotten Son. -- Amen.

Lecture Nineteenth.

This verse contains nothing besides a repetition, unless that at last the Prophet more clearly points out what that knowledge was which he formerly mentioned, namely, that they should unwillingly feel God's power, because they had withdrawn their confidence from the Prophet's teaching. For he had said two or three times, ye shall know that I am Jehovah: now he adds the participle, and that it is I who smite you. This then is the knowledge by which God makes himself known to the reprobate, while they are compelled, whether they will or not, to feel that there is a judge of the world. The faithful indeed profit under God's chastisements, and they are at times humbled under his hand, because they do not willingly obey his word: but we said that the Prophet here triumphs over the people's pride who dared to deride all threats as if God were sleeping in heaven. He says therefore at length, that when God strikes them they should feel what they did not believe. It follows --