all the mountaines, Amos 4.13. Joh 38.12, 13. And they should be so numerous as the like had not been seen before, nor should be afterward for many ages. Whence learn, 1. As it is the Lords way to make a time of calamity for sin, very un∣comfortable and full of darknesse and perplexity; So this should serve to affect sinners, and to humble and stirre them up to re∣pentance; For, so much doth this day of darknesse, &c. figu∣ratively taken, import: and it is propounded here as an argument to make that exhortation, v. 1. effectual. 2. When God is provoked to punish a people for sin, he can easily multiply in∣struments of vengeance; he can make them (though small and weak of themselves,) prove strong; he can make them swiftly and suddenly execute all his counsel; and can make them hide and take away all comfort from sinners, which they might ex∣pect from heaven or earth; For, these small creatures make this time, A day of darknesse and of gloominesse, a day of clouds and of thick darknesse, as hiding any sight of the sky or heaven, by reason of their number; they swiftly cover the earth, to waste it all, and deprive men of comforts from thence, as the morning spread upon the mountains; and in Gods hand they prove a great people and a strong. 3. As the Lord will inflict singular calami∣ties, e••e he be not avenged on impenitent sinners; So such sin∣gular judgements ought to affect sinners much: For, it testifi∣eth Gods just and severe pursuing of sin, and the necessity of trem∣bling before God, that they are a great people and a strong, there hath not been ever the like, &c. 4. The Lord is so gracious, that albeit he be so provoked in every age, as doth deserve saddest stroakes; And albeit he doth pursue sin with judgements, which may be called his strange work, Isa. 28.21; Yet he but seldome inflicts singular and extraordinary calamities, that so ordinary corrections may work the more kindly upon us, that they are but ordinary; and that we may rather learn from their example who have smarted in an extraordinary way, then be put to feele them our selves; Therefore albeit he was frequently provoked in Ju∣dah, yet this is a stroak at this time, that there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. And albeit this be spoken only of one kinde of plague, and Judah after this was punished with singular judge∣ments of another kinde, Dan 9.12. yet the general holds still true, that many times their sins deserved most remarkable and rare plagues, when yet they were either spared, or their correcti∣ons moderated.