The Cause and Cure of the Cattle Plague: A Plain Sermon — Reading Notes

The Problem with 'Nature'

Cowan’s central target is the habit of treating natural laws as autonomous. He insists that these laws are merely 'the rules by which His power operates' and are 'subject to their all-wise framer.' The sermon repeatedly contrasts a vague, mechanical view of nature with the personal, sovereign God of Isaiah 45. Cowan does not deny secondary causes but argues they are so 'contemplated and insisted on' that the first cause is forgotten. This is not a scientific argument but a pastoral one: the congregation’s language itself reveals a 'practical infidelity.' The word 'nature,' he claims, suggests 'some indescribable, some unknown essence, working in a mechanical, perfunctory, necessary, inevitable, compulsory way.' By naming this tendency, Cowan tries to reclaim the disaster as a theological event.

A Plain Sermon’s Rhetorical Strategy

The subtitle 'A Plain Sermon' signals an accessible, direct style, but Cowan’s rhetoric is carefully constructed. He begins with a general acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty—'I suppose all of you would readily acknowledge'—then pivots to challenge that very acknowledgment: 'But, brethren, would it not be only in this general way?' This move from abstract assent to concrete failure is the sermon’s engine. Cowan uses the plague to force a particular, not general, recognition of divine agency. The text from Isaiah, with its stark claim that God 'create[s] evil,' provides the theological anchor. Cowan does not flinch from the difficulty: the plague is not merely a natural event but a divine act, and the cure is not veterinary but spiritual—repentance and a return to acknowledging God in all things.

Evidence from the Excerpts

The surviving excerpt shows Cowan’s method clearly. He quotes Isaiah 45:5,7, then immediately applies it to the congregation’s likely response: they would affirm God’s sovereignty 'in a general way' but lose sight of it 'in particular and individual instances.' This is not a speculative reading; the text itself sets up this tension. Cowan also explicitly connects the misuse of the word 'nature' to the forgetting of God, a claim he supports by analyzing what the word 'suggest[s] to our minds.' The sermon’s structure—moving from general principle to specific application—is visible even in this fragment. The excerpts do not reveal Cowan’s proposed cure in detail, but they establish that the cure is theological, not practical: a change in how the congregation perceives the plague.

Readers should note that this sermon is a period piece, shaped by a specific theological framework and a specific crisis. Cowan’s argument is not about animal husbandry but about the danger of linguistic habits that obscure divine sovereignty. The excerpts give a clear sense of his rhetorical strategy and his central concern, though the full sermon likely develops the 'cure' more fully. Approach it as a document of Victorian religious response to disaster, not as a veterinary or scientific text.

That old sermon about the cattle plague stayed with me—not for the judgment, but for how desperate people get when the world stops making sense. It made me think of another kind of longing, the pull toward a different order of belonging. I found myself turning pages on Pan-Islam — Key Ideas to Explore the same quiet way, wondering what comfort we reach for when familiar answers fail.