Page images
PDF
EPUB

contemptible: (and so you treat me with contempt.) And yet their consciences did not smite them, and therefore the Lord adds; And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? (or, am I so mean and contemptible, that to do so ought not to be looked upon as an affront? I appeal to the common sense of mankind.) Offer it now unto thy Governor, will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts; (and if your Governor will take it as an affront, much more may I,) for I am a GREAT KING, saith the Lord of hosts, (ver. 14.) Here it is plain that it was their mean and contemptuous thoughts of God which made them think it would do to turn him off any how, and with any thing: and just so it is in the case before us: men's thoughts of God are infinitely mean: he is very contemptible in their sight; and hence, although they love themselves, their own honour and interest, above the Lord and his glory, and prefer other things, and take more delight in that which is not God, than in God himself, yet they say, "Wherein do we despise the Lord, affront his majesty, or cast contempt upon him? We pray in secret and in our families; we go to meeting and to sacrament, and help to support the gospel; and is not all this to honour the Lord? And wherein do we despise him?" Just as if going into your closet twice a day, to quiet your conscience, and saying over the old prayer, by rote, in your family, that you have repeated morning and evening ever since you kept house; and, in a customary way, going to meeting and to sacrament, and paying your minister's rate, (and, it may be, not without grudging,) just as if this was an honouring of God, when, at heart, you do not love him one jot, not care for his honour and interest at all, nor would do any thing in religion but for the influence of education and common custom, or from legal fears and mercenary hopes, or merely from some other selfish consideration: Yea, just as if this was an honouring of God, when, all the time, you cast such infinite contempt upon him in your heart, as to give your heart to another; to that which is not God; to yourself, and to the world! Let a woman treat her husband so, will he be pleased with it, and will he accept her person? If she does not love her husband

[blocks in formation]

at all, or delight in his person, or care for his interest; if she loves another man; has a separate interest of her own, and does nothing for her husband but to serve her own views, will he now think she is a good wife, because morning, noon, and night, she prepares his food, though she does it carelessly, the victuals always cold and poorly dressed, hardly fit to eat; and he knows it is all from want of love? And besides, she thinks she does a great deal for him, and expects her pay, like a hired maid! and she says to her husband, "Wherein do I despise you? Am not I always doing for you?" And she does not feel herself to blame, because her husband looks so mean and contemptible in her eyes and she cares so little for him, that any thing seems good enough for him, while, all the time, her adulterous heart is doating on her lovers. "You do not love me," says her husband," but other men have your heart, and you are more a wife to them than to me:" But, says she, "I cannot love you, and I cannot but love others;" and now she seems to herself not to blame. So, a wicked world have such mean thoughts of God, that they cannot love him at all, and have such high thoughts of themselves, that they cannot but love themselves supremely: they have such mean thoughts of God that they cannot delight in him at all; but they see a glory in other things, and so in them they cannot, but delight wholly And because they are habitually insensible of God's infinite glory, hence they are habitually insensible of the exceeding sinfulness of these native propensities of their hearts. So that we see that mean, contemptuous thoughts of God are the very foundation of the peace, and quiet, and security of men, in a mere form of religion. If they did but see who the Lord is, they could not but judge themselves and all their duties to be infinitely odious in his sight. Psalm 1. 21, 22. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes: Now consider this, ye that forget God. Men have such mean thoughts of God, and so little regard him, that they are naturally inclined to forget that there is a God, and to feel and act as if there were none. Hence (Psalm xiv. 1.) The fool saith in his heart, there is no God; i. e. he is inclined to feel and act

:

as if there was none; and, therefore, it is added in the next words, Corrupt are they. So, the children of Eli who treated the worship of God with great contempt, are said to despise the Lord, and kick at his sacrifice; and yet their consciences did not smite them: and the ground of all was, their mean, contemptuous thoughts of God. 1 Sam ii. 12. 29, 30. The sons of Eli were sons of Belial, they knew not the Lord. And thus we see that our native disposition to love ourselves supremely, live to ourselves ultimately, and delight wholly in that which is not God, is, (whether we are sensible of it or not,) directly contrary to God's holy law, and exceedingly sinful. And I add,

This native bent of our hearts is the root of all sin, (the positive root, I mean, in opposition to à mere privative, cause,) of all our inward corruptions and vicious practices: both of those which are contrary to the first and to the second tuble of the law; of those which more immediately affront God, and of those which more especially respect our neighbour.

From this root arises all our evil carriage towards the Lord of glory. This is the root of a spirit of self-supremacy, whereby we in our hearts, exalt ourselves and our wills above the Lord and his will, and refuse to be controlled by him, or be in subjection unto him. Jehovah assumes the character of most high God, supreme Lord, and sovereign Governor of the whole world, and commands all the earth to acknowledge and obey him as such; but we are all naturally inclined, Pharaoh-like, to say, Who is the Lord, that we should obey him? we know not the Lord, nor will we do his will. And hence mankind, all the world over, break God's law every day, before his face; as if they despised his authority in their hearts. And when he crosses them in his providences, they, as though it was not his right to govern the world, quarrel with him, because they cannot have their own wills, and go in their own ways. was always the way of the children of Israel, those forty years in the wilderness, whose whole conduct exemplifies our nature to the life, and in which glass we may behold our faces, and know what manner of persons we naturally are. Men ove themselves above God, and do not like his law, and hence are inclined to set up their wills above and against his, and if

This

[ocr errors]

they can they will have their wills, and go in their ways, for all him; and if they cannot, they will quarrel with him. And hence the apostle says, their carnal mint it enmit against God; is not subject to his law, neither indeed can be. Rom. viii. 7. And from this root, arises a spirit of slf-sufficiency and independence, whereby we are lifted up in our own hearts, and hate to be beholden to God; and, having different interests and ends from him, naturally think it not safe, and so, upon the whole, not liking to trust in hun, choose to trust in ourselves, or any thing rather than him. We have a better thought of ourselves than of God, as knowing we are disposed to be true to our own interests and ends, and therefore had rather trust in ourselves than in him; and besides, we naturally hate to come upon our knees to him for every thing. Hence, that in Jer. ii. 31. is the native language of our hearts: We are lords, we will come no more unto thee. We love to have the staff in our own hands, for then we can do as we will; and hate to lie at God's mercy, for then we must be at his control; yea, we had rather trust in any thing than in God, he being, of all things, most contrary to us. And hence, the Israelites, in their distress, would one while make a covenant with Assyria, and then lean upon Egypt; yea, and rob the treasures of the temple to hire their aid, rather than be beholden to God. Yea, they would make them gods of silver and gold, of wood and stone, and then trust in such lying vanities, rather than in the Lord Jehovah. And as face answers to face in the water, so does the heart of man to man. Prov. xxvii. 19. This is our very nature.

Again, from the same root arises a disposition to depart from the Lord; for other things appear more glorious, and excel-lent, and soul-satisfying than God; wherefore the hearts of the children of men secretly loathe the Lord, and hanker after other things, and so go away from God to them. Job xxi. 12. 14. They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. Therefore they say unto God, depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. Mal. iii. 14, 15. It is in vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? We call the proud happy. Meditation and

:

prayer are a burden to men; they had rather be almost any where than in their closets, because they secretly loathe the Lord but in other things they find comfort: one in his farm, and another in his merchandize: the young man in his frolics, and with his merry companions: the old man in his wife, and children, and cattle, and swine, and house, and lands: the rich man in his riches: the ambitious man in his honours: the scholar in his books: the man of contemplation in his nice speculations; and, in any thing, men can take more comfort than in God himself. That which angels and saints in heaven, and believers on earth, prize above all things, men have naturally the least account of. Psal. lxxiii. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is nothing on earth I desire besides Thus saith the Lord, What ini

thee. Jer. ii. 5. 11, 12, 13. quity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and become vain? Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? But my people have changed their glory, for that which doth not proft. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

And, from the whole, we may see there is the greatest contrariety between the nature of God and the nature of the sinner and hence God hates sinners, (Hab. i. 13.) and sinners hate him, (Rom. viii. 7.) and when sinners come to die, and go into the eternal world, they will feel then that they hate him, though their nature then will be just the same as it is now; and they will then know that the great reason they did not feel their hatred of him in this world, was because they did not think nor would believe that he was such an one.

And hence we may see whence it is that we are so averse to right apprehensions of God, and whence it is that our insensibility of his glory, in being what he is, is so invincible, viz because he is, in his very nature, in such perfect contrariety to us, and we to him; for to account that infinitely glorious in being what it is, which is of a nature perfectly contrary to us, is as unnatural as to account ourselves infinitely hateful in being what we are; for that necessarily implies this. So far, therefore, as sinners love themselves for being

« PreviousContinue »