Isai. i. 4, 5. Ah, sinful 7iation, a jwople laden loitli iniquity, a seed, of evil-doers, children that are corrupters ! they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away hackivard. Why should ye he stricken any more ? ye will revolt more and more.
THE end for which God inflicts punishment upon his people, is, to bring them to repentance, and thereby prevent the necessity of punishing them in the eternal world : and when this end is not an- swered, he leaves them to themselves, to follow the imaginations of their own hearts, and to bring upon themselves an accumulated weight of wrath. But before he utterly abandons them, he sends them many solemn warnings, if that by any means he may prevail upon them to turn unto him. Extremely solemn is the reproof which he gave the Jews in the passage before us : he summons heaven and earth
to hear his controversy, and to judge between him and his people : and then, in a way of affectionate expostulation, he threatens to cease from visiting them with parental chastisements, and to leave them to fill up the measure of their iniquities.
The words of our text, accommodated as they may be to our present circumstances'", naturally lead us to set before you,
I. Our sinfulness —
The general description given of the Jews is equally suitable to us —
[We are a " nation" extremely and universally " sinful : "
we are "laden with" every species of "iniquity " We
are " a seed of evil-doers:" all ranks and orders of men amongst us are depraved: the transgressions of individuals are indeed exceeding various ; but sin of some kind is the delight of all,
yea, it is the very element wherein we live Nor are
we merely corrupt, but " corrupters " of each other, laughing religion out of the world, and hardening one another in the commission of sin — ^
Nor is the particular charge that is brought against them less applicable to us —
[It is lamentable to see what a general dereliction of reli- gious principle obtains amongst us. Men do not indeed formally renounce Christianity ; but "they forsake the Lord" as unworthy of their love or confidence ; and, by an inward " apostasy " of the heart, " provoke the Holy One of Israel to anger." We might adduce a great variety of charges in confirmation of this; but we will notice only one, namely, our dependence on our fleets and armies, rather than on God''. This is peculiarly provoking to the Deity, because it is a virtual denial of his providence, and an excluding of him from the government of the world *= ]
But besides these things, there is a further charge to be brought against us, on account of,
II. Our incorrigibleness —
What improvement have we made of our late chastisements ?
* A time of war and of great national calamity. ^ Instead of this, might be specified, our not seeing and acknow- ledging the hand of God in his judgments. <= See Isai. xxii. 8 — 11. and Jer. xvii. 1