Jer. ii. 19. Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee : know therefore and see, that it is an evil thing, and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God.
SIN and misery are very nearly connected ; and the nearer we are to God by relation or profession, the more immediately will our transgressions be fol- lowed by tokens of his displeasure. The Israelites were God's chosen people ; yet, while the Amorites, and other idolatrous nations, were left to fill up the measure of their iniquities, before they were visited according to their deserts, the Jews, especially while journeying through the wilderness, were speedily chastened for their iniquities, and made to feel the evil and bitterness of sin. Thus, only in a more secret and silent manner, does God now punish the back- slidings of his people ; nor does he notice only the grosser violations of his law, but the more hidden abominations of the heart, and secret declensions from the spiritual life. Indeed, he makes sin its own punishment, according to what is written in the text : to elucidate which, we shall shew,
I. In what respects our own backslidings correct us — It is not unfrequently that, even in our temporal concerns, we suffer loss by relaxing our diligence in spiritual duties : but it is invariably found, that back- slidings from God are attended with very painful consequences :
1. They wound our conscience —
[Conscience, if duly attended to, is a faithful monitor, and will upbraid us for declensions, however secret, and trans- gressions, however small : and when it testifies of wilful deli- berate sin, when it summons us into the divine presence, and accuses us before God, it will make a Felix tremble, and a Judas abbor his very existence. This is a correction, which, as no enlightened person would willingly endure, so neither, till he return to God, or have his " conscience seared as with an hot iron," can he hope to escape.]