For although God’s providence governs all things in heaven and in earth, still the great Sovereign of the universe, “the King of kings, and Lord of lords,” “waiteth to be gracious,” nor suffers His truth to fail. He shuts not up His loving-kindness in displeasure, but listens to the prayers of the meanest of His servants; and in answer to them, He often suspends, and sometimes averts his just judgments. The guilty cities of the Plain would have been spared for the sake of ten righteous, if that number of the servants of the true God could have been found amongst the inhabitants. {9a} Nor is the prayer of humble and contrite guilt disregarded. The judgments impending over Nineveh were suspended, when that mighty capital, at the preaching of a prophet, acknowledged its sin, and humbled itself before the Lord. {9b} Let, then, the prayer of repentance, faith, and submission, arise to the throne of Divine grace, from the united people of the land; and, soon as the merciful object of this visitation is answered, we may humbly trust the command, as of old, will be addressed to the destroying angel, “IT IS ENOUGH, NOW STAY THINE HAND.” {9c} For the Almighty has himself declared, “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it: if that nation, AGAINST WHOM I HAVE PRONOUNCED, TURN FROM THEIR EVIL, I WILL REPENT OF THE EVIL THAT I THOUGHT TO DO UNTO THEM.” {9d} May, then, this nation receive grace, in this their day of trial, to “TURN FROM THEIR EVIL,” before the Lord “allow His full displeasure to arise.” May they learn and acknowledge, that their only hope of safety is in the mercy and long-suffering of God, who alone can preserve them from “the pestilence which walketh in darkness, and from the sickness which destroyeth in the noon-day.” May they “offer faithfully,” and the Lord “receive acceptably,” their prayer for deliverance: “Have pity, O Lord, have pity upon Thy people, both here and abroad; withdraw Thy heavy hand from those who are suffering under Thy judgments; and remove from us that grievous calamity, against which, our only security is in Thy compassion!” {10a} And may our gracious and long-suffering Lord be pleased to arrest in its course the pestilence, now confined to few places, and to permit it not to spread dismay and death through the towns and villages of the kingdom.