4. It will prevent much sin.
God, and pleaded all those wonderful deliverances God had wrought instrumentally by it. No doubt but he carried it with him to shew to God for a plea, as well as to the Israelites, to spirit their resolutions against their enemies.
4. It will prevent much sin.
A forgetfulness of his former works is one cause of our present provocations. It was so in the case of the Israelites' sin: Ps. 106:7,
'They remembered not the multitude of his mercies; but provoked thee at the sea, even at the Red Sea;' they had lost the memory of so many miracles in Egypt, and which aggravated their sin, 'they provoked him at the sea, at the Red Sea;' they provoked him under a present indigency, as well as against former mercy; they provoked him in that place of straits where all the powers on earth could not have relieved them had heaven neglected them. The provocation you may see, Exod. 14:11, 12, which sprang from a forgetfulness of his kindness so lately shewed to them. How apt are we to forget old mercies, when we are so naturally apt to blot out of our memories mercies newly received! If this were well considered by men, it would prevent their enterprises against the church, and consequently their shame and ruin. Are there records of any who have hardened themselves against God and prospered? Job 9:4. How might in that reflection be seen the frustrations of counsels, disgracing of attempts, showers of fury and vengeance from heaven upon the heads of such! The reason why the wonderful works of God were to be made known to posterity, was 'that they might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation of men,' Ps. 78:6, 8. If they did consider those transactions of God in and for his church, they could no more think to stop the breath of perpetual powerful providence, than to bridle in a storm, or stop the motion of the sun.
To conclude this: God's providential judgments are to be remembered; though they are for the punishment of the age that feel them, they are also for the instruction of the age which succeeds them; tell, מררן, number, be as exact as in your accounts, wherein you take notice of every number, minute, and cypher. The works of