A CHRISTIAN, GOD'S TEMPLE. 295
That generation of vipers, those evil neighbours of God's inheritance everywhere, that have been devouring it, and taking of it away, their doom is read in the prophet, and will come upon them in God's ap- pointed time. The great sin that is upon the nation, and which we ought to bewail, and be humbled for, is the violence they have done to God's portion. It hath not been done by this and that person ; — no man hath cared for Zion, none hath pitied her ; there have been none to plead her cause, none to relieve her, while her friends have died in prisons, been impoverished, banished, etc.
Use 2. There are sins with us, even with us also, against the Lord our God. And our great sin is this, — that notwithstanding all the violence that hath been showed us, all the fears, troubles, perplexities that we have undergone, yet we have not been willing to come out from among them, and be separate, but we have cleaved greatly to the unclean thing. There may be a time, and there hath been, when God calls his people to a local separation. So he did to his people in Babylon : " Come out of her, my people." And Ave can remember the day when God carried many of his people out of this nation into a wilderness, and there hid them for a season. They were under the call of God to a local separation. I see no ground for that now. God binds men down by his providence to their stations ; relation and duty bind them down to bear a testimony to the ways of Christ against all those wicked oppositions that are made unto them. But to sepa- rate more in the holiness of our lives and conversations, to keep more from the uncleanness and vanities of the world, all the abominations of it ; — God's call is upon us all for this. These two things being thus met together, — namely, violence upon the portion of Christ, upon God's separate ones ; and neglect of duty in those separate ones, to separate themselves more and more from the world — who can save ? who can deliver ? and what can be our expectation while this frame doth abide ? I wish I had a little more time to press this upon us, that if we intend to be made partakers of the last thing in my text, — which is the promise that God will " receive us, and be a Father to us," and use us as his sons and daughters, — if we would be made partakers of it, when an apprehension of an interest in it will be worth ten thousand times more than all this world can afford ; then let us stir up ourselves to this great duty of farther and daily separation from the world in things moral and spiritual, in our minds, in our spirits, in our ways, in our whole course ; that if it be the will of God, there may be some interposition for the saving of the land.
296 god's withdrawing his presence,
SERMON xxrvv
god's withdrawing his presence, the correction of his
CHURCH.
" O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inherit- ance."— Is A. lxiii. 17.
These are words that carry a great deal of dread in them; — tremendous words, methinks, as any in the book of God. And, ac- cording as our concernment shall be found in them, they require veiy sad thoughts of heart. It is come now to the last; this is the last cast; if we miss in pursuing this great inquiry, we are undone for ever : " 0 Lord, why hast thou caused us to err from thy ways ? why hast thou hardened our hearts from thy fear?" God is in this matter, whereof we have been complaining.
It is the true church of God that speaks these words. This is plain in the acting of faith as to the great interest and privilege of adop- tion, in the verse foregoing, where they say, " Doubtless thou art our Father;" — "However things are with us, 'doubtless thou art our Father/" When all other evidences fail, faith will secretly maintain the soul with a persuasion of its relation unto God ; as you see by the church in this place. They were " all as an unclean thing;" and their " holiness all faded away as a leaf," Isa. lxiv. 6. And yet faith main- tains a sense of a relation to God; and therefore they cry, " Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel ac- knowledge us not: O Lord, thou art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting." And I am persuaded some of you have found it so, — that faith hath maintained an interest in a relation to God, when all particular evidences have failed. So it is in our head, Jesus Christ, when he cried, " My God, my God, why hast thou for- saken me?" When all particular evidences fail, he can still say, " My God, my God." So is it here with this miserable and distressed church and people of God ; — all is lost and gone, and yet faith cries, " Doubtless thou art our Father." And if, in the matters of this day,