476 The Stone that became a Mountain The Hebrew Youths in the fiery Furnace Nebuchadnezzar's Dream verified and JEREMI A H. MXXVI. THE INGRATITUDE OF MEN. Jer. ii. 4-6. Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? Neither said they, Where is the Lord, that brought us up out of the land of Egypt? HOW [OW marvellous is the condescension of Almighty God! There is not in the universe a man that would bear with his fellow-man as God beareth with his people. Amidst all the indignities that they offer him, he follows them with entreaties, reasonings, expostulations, if by any means he may prevail upon them to turn to him, and thus to avert from themselves his merited displeasure. In my text, all Israel are challenged by him to assign a reason for their contemptuous treatment of him. As by the Prophet Micah he says, "O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me:" so here he challenges them all to say, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me?" 66 Here we are called to consider, I. The complaint he makes Grievous, indeed, had been the departure of God's people from him, and their insuperable attachment to idols. Jeremiah says of them: "It is the land of graven images: "they are mad upon their idols"." VOL. IX. a Mic. vi. 3. B b Jer. 1. 38. And this was the more wonderful, because they believed that Jehovah had brought them out of Egypt, and led them through the wilderness, and established them in Canaan; and yet they did not, as one might have supposed, desire to know and serve Him, but turned their backs upon him, and sought in preference "the vanities of the Heathen," even their idols of wood and stone. But if God utters this complaint against his ancient people, how much more justly may he urge it against For there is in us, alas! 148. 1. The same folly [What has been the uniform tenour of our lives, but one constant state of departure from God, and a preferring of every vanity before him? True, we have not bowed down to idols of wood and stone: but we have cared for nothing, yea, and thought of nothing, but the pleasures, or riches, or honours of this vain world. Look at persons in early youth; see them growing up to manhood; see them in full maturity of mind and body; yea, look at them when grey hairs are come upon them, aye, and when bowed down with the infirmities of age; what is it they are seeking after? and what is it to which they look for satisfaction? It is the world, in some shape or other. Though they have found all that they ever enjoyed to be, in fact, nothing but "vanity and vexation of spirit," yet they go on in the same infatuated course from year to year, withholding their hearts from God, who alone. can make them happy, and setting their affections upon things which never did, nor ever can, administer to their comfort. În a word, "they forsake God, the fountain of living waters, and hew out to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no waterd."- -] 2. The same ingratitude [If their ingratitude was base, who inquired not after Him. who had redeemed them from Egypt, what must ours be, who have been redeemed from death and hell; and redeemed, too, not as Israel, by a mere act of power, but by the blood and righteousness of our incarnate God! Consider, in reference to the points specified in the passage before us, from what bondage we have been delivered; what provision God has made for us in the way; and what a rest he has prepared for us at the ende! What were the afflictions of Egypt, in comparison of the • Deut. xxxii. 21. Jer. xiv. 22. a ver, 13 e ver. 6, 7. |