May not we say, 'Our iniquities have blown us away?' What hath blown us from our callings and employments ? Is it not the pestilence ? And what brings that ? Is it not our iniquities ? So that we may all com- plain of this, ' Our iniquities have blown us away.'
We see here he lays the blame upon their iniquities. Did not the Babylonians caiTy them away ? Alas ! they were but God's instruments.
* Qu. ' day ' ?— Ed.
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God was displeased by their sins ; his wrath blew them away. So you may see here the child of God in all judgments looks to his sins. He justifies God. He murmurs not, and says this and that. No. But, it was my sins : ' We have sinned against the Lord,' Lam. v. 16 ; Micah vii. 9, ' I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him ; ' and Lam. iii. 39, * Man suffers for his sins ; ' and every one of us may say, ' It is our iniquities have taken us away.' A gracious heart justifies God and condemns itself. The children of God may complain sometimes of God's hand, but they will never censure God's hand. They justify God alway, though they may complain of the bitterness of his hand. Here they complain of the bitterness of the judgment. They were blown into another country, into captivity: They do not complain of God. God will have us complain; but as he will have us complain, so we must justify him and condemn ourselves ; just are thy judgments.
An hypocrite thinks God is beholding to him for his outward perfor- mances, and when judgments befall him, he frets and censures God. Either he thinks there is no God, or he frets and fumes against God : he is dis- contented. But a Christian justifies God, and condemns himself. * Our iniquities have blown us away.' Our sins keep good things from us.
tlse. Therefore, let us now lay the blame where it is. Search out our sins, personal and particular, and complain of them. They have a hand in this plague. God is no tyrant. He delights not to confound his crea- tures ; but sin makes him out of love with his creatures, the workmanship of his own hands. It is our sins. Therefore, let us lament the sins of the times. So far we may without hypocrisy, and ought to take to heart, and mourn for the sins of the times that we hear by others and see ourselves, and mourn for our own hearts that we cannot mourn. We must mourn for the sins of the times, as Daniel and Nehemiah, and all the blessed men of God have done. It is not the plague that hurts us. That is but God's messenger. Sin doth us more harm than all the devils in hell and all the plagues in the world. It is not outward evils we need to fear. Let us fear sin, and lay hold on God. He is the Lord of hosts. He hath all the creatures at his command. Let us get sin away, that doth all the mischief. It is that that makes bate between God and- us, and then God makes a controversy between us and the creatures. It is our sins.
And that is the reason of the necessity of humiliation for our sins, because sin breeds a separation between God and us, and between the creatures and us. When God is offended, the creatures are infected. Let us see our sins ; by them we infect the air : by our vain speeches, and oaths, and our filthiness. Our sins infect the air, and that breeds infection in our bodies. Our sins cry. They have a voice to cry to God, if our prayers do not outcry them. Therefore, let us cry to God to hear the cry of our prayers, and not of our sins. How many voices have crying sins ! There is the voice of the people oppressed, the voice of filthiness, &c. Sins clamour in God's ears. They clamour for wages due, ' and the wages of sin is death,' Bom. vi. 23. Sin cries, though it says nothing in words. It cries in God's ears, and it will not rest till he hath poured out his vengeance. The filthiness and oaths, and atheism and profaneness, the suffering of the dishonour of his name : these sins of the times are those that pull miseries upon us. ' Our iniquities have taken us away as the wind.' So much for that.
' For thou hast hid thy face from us, and we are consumed because of our iniquities.'
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THE CnURCn S COMPLAINT AND CONFIDENCE.
Sin makes God hide bis face from us, and then ' we arc consumed, because of our iniquities.' * "We melt away in the hands of our iniquities,' as the word is (i). Indeed, sin is a cruel tyrant. When God leaves us in the hand of our sins, he leaves us in a cruel hand. Christ came to redeem us from our sins. Our sins are they that torment us. It is very signifi- cant in the original.
' We are melted.' We melt away as wax before the fire, as snow before the sun, ' because of our iniquities,' when God gives up men to be handled as their own sins will handle them. Nations melt before the hands of sin, and kings, and kingdoms, and all. Let God give up men to delight in sin, kingdoms or persons, they melt and moulder away in the hand of their sins.