The Cause and Cure of the Cattle Plague

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Title: The Cause and Cure of the Cattle Plague - A Plain Sermon
Author: Cowan, James Galloway
Language: English
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PLAGUE***

Transcribed from the 1866 William Skeffington edition by David Price.

THE
CAUSE AND CURE
OF
THE CATTLE PLAGUE.

* * * * *

A Plain Sermon.

* * * * *

BY JAMES GALLOWAY COWAN, M.A.,
_Perpetual Curate of St. John’s_, _Hammersmith_.

* * * * *

LONDON:
WILLIAM SKEFFINGTON, 163 PICCADILLY.

1866.

A PLAIN SERMON.

ISAIAH XLV., V. 5 & 7.

“I am the Lord, and there is none else. There is no God beside me .
. . I form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create
evil: I, the Lord, do all these things.”

THAT God is the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and
invisible; that He orders all things in heaven and earth according to His
own will; that all parts of the universe have their origin, their
functions, their capabilities from Him; that they operate or are
suspended at His word; that He exalts to prosperity, and lays low in
adversity; that He kills and makes alive—are truths which, asserted in a
_general_ way, I suppose all of you would readily acknowledge. But,
brethren, would it not be _only_ in this general way? In particular and
individual instances of what are called nature’s operations, is not the
great moving or permitting power often lost sight of, ay, and virtually
denied to be at work? Much of this oversight, this practical infidelity,
is due, I doubt not, to our use of the word “nature.” We talk of the law
of _nature_, we admire and wonder at the works of _nature_, until we
all-but deify nature, and dethrone nature’s God. Some may say that when
we speak of nature we mean God. But do we? Does not the expression
suggest to our minds some indescribable, some unknown essence, working in
a mechanical, perfunctory, necessary, inevitable, compulsory way, more
frequently than present to us any thought of the LORD JEHOVAH?

And not less frequently are secondary or subordinate causes so
contemplated and insisted on as to exclude from our minds all
consideration of the great first cause.

There are indeed _laws_ by which all the movements and productions and
changes of the natural world are effected; but we often forget that it is
God who originally ordained these laws; that they are not, in themselves,
_powers_, but only the _rules_ by which His power operates: that, in
fact, these rules for the direction of His power resolve themselves
simply into the consistent motions of His infinite wisdom: that, as by
Him everything was arranged at the beginning, so in conformity to the
laws suggested by His wisdom He has been superintending and directing all
things ever since—the laws themselves being, of course, subject to their
all-wise framer and, both by their regular operation and their occasional
wonderful diversion or suspension, subserving the great purposes of His
sovereign government. Now, looking only into what is called the Book of
Nature, simply making our own observations on these laws without the aid
of the light of revelation, we cannot fail to discern that they are good
in themselves, and that they generally operate for good. We see, indeed,
that they _can_ work for evil: the nipping of the frost, the blasting of
the lightning, the overwhelming of the flood, the withering of the
drought—these are specimens of what power of destruction there is in
God’s elements. Yet they are not their general operations; frost and
electric fluid, and heat and water, and a drying sun or wind, being in
themselves good agents, agents only occasionally productive of injurious
results. If now from these our own discoveries we turn to what God has
discovered to us in the Book of His word, we shall have all our former
observations confirmed, and the reasons for the occasional evil tendency
of what are called nature’s operations fully and clearly explained. Fire
and hail, sun and vapour, and stormy wind fulfil His word. He maketh the
winds His messengers, and flames of fire His servants. He employs
ordinary agents to effect special ends. Instead of sending forth new
agents to perform His will, He diverts the old ones from their usual
course and makes _them_ fulfil it.

Now when God thus makes use of naturally beneficial agents to bring about
destructive ends He does so for some particular purpose. Calamities are
never brought upon any of God’s creatures from what we call caprice. God
never _willingly_ afflicts or grieves; that is, He never does it simply
to satisfy His own will, or to exhibit His own power. God’s thoughts and
ways are not as our thoughts and ways. Man, if he knows himself to be
possessed of a certain power, often exercises it without care or thought
that he is thereby injuring others, or for the bare purpose of display.
But not so God. If He afflicts, it is because there is some need of,
some good in the affliction; most often, though by no means exclusively,
it is to correct offenders, and to warn others (by their chastisement)
not to follow their example. We have only to glance at the history of
the Israelites and the circumstances in which God afflicted them, to be
convinced that such visitations—whether of consuming fire, of
overwhelming water, of destroying sword, of famishing dearth, or of
noisome pestilence—are called forth by the conduct of those on whom they
come. We, therefore, call these visitations _judgments_, judgments of
punishment, of correction or of warning. They are chastisements which,
after all gentler methods have failed, our Gracious Father, desirous of
our reformation and eternal safety, employs, and employs most
reluctantly, as among the last efforts to recall us into His paths. How
sad it is to think that very many of the objects of these visitations
allow them to come and go unheeded, and, therefore, of course,
unimproved! How much sadder that men who heed them and feel them, in the
deceitfulness and unbelief of their hearts, refuse themselves to learn
and labour to unteach others the deep and salutary lessons which God, by
His judgments, arrests us to hear, and through them utters to us, as it
were, with an audible voice! Amid these heaven-sprung calamities, there
are to be found, not only _careless_, _heedless_ men everywhere, but
alas! close observers, full of care, so-called philosophers (one begins
almost to hate the name from its constant mal-appropriation by the
sophist and the infidel) who will observe these calamities, note the
signs of the times, speculate about what ought to be done, and yet not
dream of recognising, yea, refuse to recognise when it is pointed out to
them, the interposition of their God! How marvellous this is! What
utter folly is it! They acknowledge that there is a God. They believe
that he has charge of all the elements; they know the general tendency of
those elements to be for good; they see them working evil; yet they will
not perceive that God has done it. Every cause is made mention of but
the great first cause. Every influence is sooner believed in than His.

Here are we, for instance, visited with a grievous plague among our herds
and flocks. Every one feels some measure of the calamity. All are alive
to the necessity of prompt and great efforts to stay the progress of and
cure the murrain. There are hundreds of sage suggestions as to the
origin of such things; every conceivable precaution and pains is taken to
prevent the communication of them, to remove local provocations and
incentives, to discover remedies and cures. But who says or imagines
“The hand of the Lord hath wrought this”? Who exhorts, “Come and let us
return unto the Lord, for He hath torn and He will heal us”? I am not
making this appeal to encourage disregard of natural causes and
influences. These being the agents and instruments which God uses for or
against us, which he requires us to foster if they are good, to remove if
they are bad, it would be desperate folly, and most provoking sin, to
disregard them. By all means let men follow on as they have begun, in
scientific inquiry, sanitary precaution and improvement, and the like;
but, besides, let them do what hitherto they do not seem to have done at
all sufficiently, namely, recognise and acknowledge the hand of the Lord
in these plagues. But you will say “Have they not done this? Is not our
presence here to-day a proof that we, at least, have done it? Are there
not thousands and thousands in the land who will assemble as we have
done, if their pastors invite them? Has there been any objection to, has
there not been loud approval of, the special Collect which the
authorities in Church and State have appointed for daily use—is not that
Collect itself an acknowledgment, and a discerning acknowledgment, that
the Lord has sent the murrain among us?”

My brethren, if I could have felt that men generally assented in _heart_
to the doctrine of that Collect, and were endeavouring to act out its
prayers in their life, I should have uttered none of the reproof that has
passed my lips. But is it not the fact that men are betaking themselves
to God in this way only as one of possible remedies and preventives—not
tracing the infliction to Him, but merely asking the removal, of Him?:
“_Somehow_ we are in trouble; will God deliver us out of it?” Well is
it, indeed, when men thus far believe in a God of Providence; for the
human dogmas of our days about fixed laws, necessary and certain
revolutions or wars and plagues to keep down the population and so forth,
have reasoned and calculated too many into the belief that prayer for the
alteration, at least of temporal circumstances, is altogether idle, if
not profane. Well is it then, if we still believe that God _can_
interfere in the operations of the world, and that if we will call upon
Him there is hope that He will. But, my brethren, we shall not have
drawn near with acceptable prayer if we have only asked Him to heal us,
if we have not also acknowledged that He has torn us. The prayer will
not be acceptable, because He _will_ be acknowledged in all His ways,
worshipped for His Majesty as well as His goodness; seen in His wrath, as
well as sought in His clemency. And, moreover, it will not be effectual
prayer; for His visitations always have a purpose (“Ye shall know that I
have not done without cause all that I have done”), and how shall we have
responded to the purpose, if we have not recognised the visitation?

Do you ask me what I suppose to be the purpose of this visitation—and
what, therefore, we have to do as a nation and as individuals by way of
repentance and amendment? I venture not to answer _particularly_,
picking out the precise sins which characterise us as a people, for which
God is provoked, to visit us with present wrath, or for which He is but
graciously chastising us, that we may cease from them ere they bring
forth His displeasure. I rather bid you consider for what reasons God
sent His sore plagues among His people of old, and then ask yourselves
what there is in us like unto them, what we lack that God thus laboured
to produce in them. I do not even venture to say that God is visiting
sin at all. He is the Judge, not I. When I am called to the bedside of
a sick man, I am bidden by the Church to admonish him—“Whatsoever your
sickness is, know you certainly that it is God’s visitation.” There may
be a natural cause for it—he may know it, and I may know it—he may have
inherited it, or “accidentally and innocently,” as we say, caught it, or
by wicked conduct incurred it; he may be able to connect it throughout
with its earthly origin, tracing the effect clearly and completely to a
natural cause. Nevertheless, I tell him “It is God’s visitation.” I
then enumerate some of the purposes of God’s visitations: to try
patience, to increase faith, to correct what is amiss. If I know his
life—or he opens his mind to me and reveals it—I point out what seem to
be provoking sins, or crying defects, and bid him consider whether these
are not among the probable causes of his trouble—anyhow, (I tell him)
they are things which he is now admonished to correct; and, if he accuses
and condemns himself for all that he can discern as amiss, and resolves
by all means to draw nearer to God, this will be accounted an
acknowledgment of God’s ownership and rule of him, which will cause the
Holy One to return from His hiding-place, and show again the favour of
His countenance.

So would I speak, brethren, to you and to myself at this time. Assuredly
God’s visitation is upon us. It may be all favour like Job’s trials,
nothing may have provoked His wrath, He may simply be fitting us for and
leading us on to greater blessedness. (We shall hardly, however,
persuade ourselves that we are so righteous in His sight!) It may be
loving correction, meant to make us abandon certain paths that lead
downwards out of His favour. Or it may be wrath that can no longer spare
the guilty. From what we know of ourselves, brethren, do we not fancy
that there is a probable explanation of it all, in the growing contempt
for God’s sanctions and restrictions in our law-making (as for instance
in the marriage laws) in the wide-spreading persuasion that all that
happens on earth can be accounted for without supposing the intervention
or even the existence of a God, in the self-sufficiency, self-reliance,
self-laudation which characterise us in our living only for time and for
ourselves? What is needed, then, is that we should turn indeed to God,
that we should see and acknowledge His hand in all our circumstances,
that we should live under His rule and by His laws, that we should
_exhibit_ His rule and proclaim His praise, and spread far and wide His
glory; that we should feel that we exist for these ends; that, if we
forget God’s purposes respecting us, we must expect Him to remind us of
them in the ways He has ever followed; that, if we frustrate His
purposes, He will most surely visit us with His wrath.

This, my brethren, is our Nation’s duty, and its several parts are ours
to do. Let each of us then set about examining ourselves; and, trying to
discern what _in us_ provokes God’s visitation, let us humble ourselves
before Him on account of it and repent of it, and resolve to forsake it,
and ask for grace to do so; let us pray to Him to make us think and speak
and move henceforth in the remembrance that, in Him, we have our being;
that He is our God, and we are His people.

* * * * *

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