The Cause and Cure of the Cattle Plague: A Plain Sermon

Transcribed from the 1866 William Skeffington edition by David Price.
A Plain Sermon .
By JAMES GALLOWAY COWAN, M.A., Perpetual Curate of St. John’s , Hammersmith .
LONDON: WILLIAM SKEFFINGTON, 163 PICCADILLY.
1866.
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.