despised redeeming love, trodden under foot the Son of God, counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and done despite to the Spirit of grace ? Should we account it a light matter, if we ourselves were treated thus by our servants and children ; if they cast off all regard for us, and poured contempt upon us, and set at nought our authority, neglecting every thing that we commanded, doing every thing that we forbade, and persisting in such conduct for years together, in spite of every thing we could say or do to reclaim them ? And if we should resent such conduct, shall not God much more ? But, whatever we may think of these things, God calls them ''evils," and such too as may well excite "astonishment" amongst all the hosts of heaven : " Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this ! "
Nor is the folly of such conduct less than the ma- lignity. Suppose only that one half the labour which we have used in the pursuit of vanities had been employed in the service of our God ; or sup- pose that only the Sabbaths (a seventh part of our time) had been improved with that assiduity and constancy which we have exerted on other days in the pursuit of this world ; I will venture to say, that had even that measure of piety been exercised by us, we should have been far happier here, and should have had infinitely better prospects in the eternal world. What amazing folly, then, have we been guilty of! Truly, if the fact were not proved beyond a possibility of doubt, it would not be credited, that persons possessed of reason could act so irrational a part. But, to view it in a proper light, we should attend to the representation given of it in the text. It is true, the picture is so strong, and yet withal so exact, that we shall scarcely endure to look at it. But let us contemplate it a moment : let us imagine to ourselves a person dwelling close to a perennial spring of water, and yet with great labour and fatigue hewing out first one cistern, and then another, and, after multiplied disappointments, dying at last of thirst. By what name should we designate this ?