Secondly, As to nations, which is the case here ; for a national return to God preventeth national judgments. Now how hard is it to convince them of a necessity of returning to God, though they are apparently gone off from his ways !
1. Because the commonness and continuance of sin taketh away the odiousuess of it. By custom and tract of time, corruptions get esteem and veneration, that they are accounted a great part of religion ; and God is outlawed as it were, and Christ's prescriptions and institutions are looked upon as innovations, against which the zeal of the country
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is engaged. And though, in pressing men to return to God, we do not, as Moses, open a new fountain in the wilderness, but, with Isaac, dig the wells which his father had opened before, because the Philistines had stopped them and filled them up with earth, Gen. xxv, 18 ; yet the world cannot bear it ; but say unto us, as they did to him, Go from us. It was Nazianzen s plea, in reviving the doctrine of the trinity, after the church had been long oppressed by the Arians : Though we endeavour to take away the earth with which the old fountains have been obstructed and filled up, it will not do. That which hath been received by tradition from their fathers, though vain, they will not part with, 1 Peter i. 18 ; and John iv. 20, ' Our fathers worshipped in this mountain.' Inveterate superstitions are not easily removed. In the text, ' From the days of your fathers ye are gone away from my ordinances ; ' and no wonder that they said, 'Wherein shall we return ? '
2. Because of some show of worship and religion left among a people. If they be not wholly gone from God, they will not own that they are in part gone from his ordinances ; and so reformation becometh desperate, lest they should seem to lose the whole, while they yield that they have erred in part. Antichrist had not gotten such a great advantage over christian people if he did not sit in the temple of God, 2 Thes. ii. 4. And the Jews did not so often cry out. The temple of the Lord ! the temple of the Lord ! as they cry out, The church ! the church ! and all corruptions and usurpations must be borne out by the name of the church and the authority of the church, and we must not so much as peep and mutter against the church. And thus Christ's ordinances are turned against himself, and the beast pusheth with the horns of the lamb, Kev. xiii. 11. Church constitution is used to oppress Christ's interest, and the most serious people that he hath in the world. Press them to return from whence they are fallen, and still they have this buckler to ward ofi" all invitations of reformation : The church hath decreed otherwise, and the church cannot err ; and with this mormo or bugbear they fright and drive off all motions of returning to God.
3. Because they are in part reformed ah-eady, and purged from some of their defilements, and will you have them returning still ? These people had been in Babylon, but now they had built the temple, and the sacrifices and worship were restored, and therefore think they might well say, ' Wherein shall we retm'n ? ' Had they not done enough already ? Must reformations be reformed, and no end of them ? Alas ! Christ gets up by degrees, for the world disputeth it with him inch by inch. And if his messengers would be contented with half Christ, they might live in pomp and ease as others do — 8i dimidio Christi, &c. The ark and mercy-seat removes, till it was seated in its proper place, from Shiloh to Kirjath-jearim, then to the house of Obed-edom, then to the city of David, till at length placed in the temple. We accept with thankfulness as much as God alloweth us and the world will bear, and are ready to support the common Christianity with om' utmost endeavours, provided we be not bound to consent to en- croachments, and to approve imperfections and defects, as if these spots of the church were the beauty of it. We observe — All cannot be done at one time, and we must wait God's leisure. The best kings
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of Judah could not bring the people to return as far as God would have them, and they themselves would have them : 2 Chron. xx. 33, ' Howbeit the high places were not taken away ; for as yet the people had not prepared their hearts to the God of their fathers ; ' 2 Chron. xxxiii. 17, ' Nevertheless the people did sacrifice in the high places, yet to the Lord their God only.' We bless God for the abolish- ing of idolatry, for the zeal of the first reformers, the consent and allowance of our princes, that Christ is so far onward in his way ; and we abhor those that go upon that principle, the worse the better, as being wholly bent to separation, division, and destruction ; but yet we ])atiently and humbly wait for a more thorough returning to the Lord.