A Sermon on Habakkuk 3:1-9, by John Owen. The following is an excerpt from Sermon 2 of "A Memorial of the Deliverance of Essex County".

A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Sigionoth. O Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid: 0 Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy. God came from Teman, and the holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand, and there was the hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet. He stood and measured the earth: he beheld and drove asunder the nations, and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow : his trays are everlasting. I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. Was the Lord displeased against the rivers ? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses, and thy chariots of salvation? Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.-Hab. iii. 1-9.

He that feared the word of the LORD among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses: And he that regarded not the word of the LORD left his servants and his cattle in the field.
~ Exodus 9:20-21

Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the LORD. Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place, and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king word again.
~ 2 Chronicles 34:27-28

My flesh trembleth for fear of thee; and I am afraid of thy judgments.
~ Psalm 119:120

For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.
~ Isaiah 66:2

And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
~ Isaiah 6:3

And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
~ Matthew 17:2

They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
~ Deuteronomy 32:24

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.
~ Psalm 90:2, Nahum 1:4

The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
~ Isaiah 52:10

1. Because there is an appointed period of the church's humiliation, and bearing of her iniquities. Israel shall bear their iniquities in the wilderness; but this is exactly limited to the space of forty years. When their iniquity is pardoned, their warfare is accomplished; Isa. xl. 2. They say some men will give poison that shall work insensibly, and kill at seven years end. The great physician of his church knows how to give his sin-sick people potions, that shall work by degrees, and at such an appointed season take away all their iniquity: then they can no longer be detained in trouble...

2. Because the church's sorrows are commensurate unto, and do contemporise with, the joys and prosperity of God's enemies and hers. Now wicked men's prosperity hath assured bounds: the wickedness of the wicked shall come to an end. There is a time when the iniquity of the Amorites comes to the full;' Gen. xv. 16. it comes up to the brim in the appointed day of slaughter. When their wickedness hath filled the ephah, a talent of lead is laid upon the mouth thereof, and it is carried away on wings, Zech. v. 6–8. swiftly, certainly, irrecoverably. If then the church's troubles contemporise, rise and fall with their prosperity, and her deliverance with their destruction; if the fall of Babylon be the rise of Sion; if they be the buckets which must go down when the church comes up; if they be the rod of the church's chastisement, their ruin being set and appointed; so also must be the church's mercies.

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