An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second,…

The Lord called an assembly against me, that is, I conceive, an assembly of the Assyrians and Babylonians, an assembly of men, an army of men; he caused them to assemble and come together; he did but call, and they said, Here we are, and we will go vex Judah and Jerusalem. Thus, if the Lord call for famine and drought, if he call for an assembly of men, for men assembled with the sword of war in their hand, to punish and chastise any people for their sin; they will surely come and do his pleasure: whatever the Lord calls for, cannot but come. Take this inference from it; If the Lord have such a command upon all creatures, even the inanimate creatures; if the lightnings answer him when he calls, Here we are, Then how readily should men, the best of visible creatures answer his call and say, Here we are?

When the Lord said to Abraham (Gen. 12.1.) Get thee out of thy Country, and from thy Kindred, and from thy Fathers house, unto a Land that I shall show thee, he never disputed the case, but (saith the Apostle, Heb. 11.8.) Obeyed and went out, not knowing whither he went. He never enquired what the place was to ⟨p. 264⟩which he was to go, nor what accommodations he should find when he came thither: Abraham knew he was to go whither God called him to go, though whither he was to go he knew not. And when long after this the Lord called to Abraham (Gen. 22.1.) he said, Behold, here I am; or, Behold me; as if he had said, Lord, I am here ready to obey thy command, to go of thy errand, to carry whatever message thou shalt put into my mouth, to do whatever work thou shalt put into my hand; and that Abraham did not complement with God, it appears in the same Chapter; for though when God commanded him to offer up his Son, his only Son Isaac, whom he loved, every word was enough to wound his heart, & the last deepest (to part with a Son is hard, with an only Son harder, with a son dearly beloved, is hardest of all, especially when he must be not only passive but active in this loss, & his own hand must give the parting blow) yet Abraham being called to this hard and hot service, said, Here am I, and readily obeyed. This readiness at the call of God, David professed from his own experience (