An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh chapters of…

Secondly, When we want rain, let us go to God for it. 'Tis the prerogative of God alone to help us in that strait; and therefore the holy prophet sends a challenge to all other powers, or declares them disabled for this help (Jer. 14.22.) Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain, or can the heavens give showers? neither the one nor the other can. The heavens cannot dispose of a drop, though they possess a sea of water. God must hear the heaven, before the heavens can hear the earth, that is, answer the necessities of the earth. And as the heavens cannot give man rain, so neither can the gods of mans making and placing there, such are all the vanities or vain Idols of the Gentiles. The prophet having showed us that these cannot, showeth us who can give rain in the next words, Art not thou he, O Lord, our God (surely thou art he) therefore we will wait upon thee, for thou hast made all these things. Solomon, at the dedication of the Temple, puts this as one special case wherein they were to apply to God by prayer (1 Kings 8.35.) When heaven is shut up and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee, If they pray, &c. then hear thou in heaven. The prophet sends the people in that exigent to God (Zec. 10 1.) Ask ye of the Lord rain, in the time of the later rain. As if he had said, if ye would have rain you must ask for i•, and be sure ye ask it of none but him; ask of the Lord. As it is God that gives out or with-holds the rain, so he gives it our or with-holds it at the voice of prayer. The Apostle saith of Elijah (Jam. 5.17.) he was a man ⟨p. 391⟩subject to the like passions that we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth, by the space of three years and six months; and he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain. At hi• word the Lord stopped rain, and at his word he gave rain. Let us therefore confess that God is the author or father of the rain; He causeth vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth, he maketh lightnings for the rain (