Note 522 — Chapter IV

‘The present dearth and famine quhilk seases vpon many, quhairby God his heavie wrath is evidentlie perceaved to be kindlit against vs.’ Selections from the Minutes of the Synod of Fife, p. 98. ‘Smiting of the fruits of the ground.’ Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 277. ‘Makes fruits to wither.’ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 183. ‘Hee restraines the clouds, and bindeth up the wombe of heaven, in extreme drought.’ Rutherford's Christ Dying, p. 52. ‘Sometime hee maketh tho heauen aboue as brasse, and the earth beneath as iron; so that albeit men labour and sow, yet they receiue no increase: sometime againe hee giues in due season the first and latter raine, so that the earth renders abundance, but the Lord by blasting windes, or by the caterpillar, canker-worme and grasse-hopper doth consume them, who come out as exacters and officers sent from God to poind men in their goods.’ Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 433.