3. Those who have already begun to seek the Lord —
[Say, Whether it has been in vain to seek the Lord ? Has he been " a wilderness to you, or a land of darknesse?" Has he not done more for you than the world ever did, and rendered you happier than you ever were in the days of your vanity ? Be thankful to him then that he ever enabled you to " choose the good part, which shall never be taken away from you." If trouble come to you, you have no need to fearf ; for it is sent by him in love to purge you from your remaining dross, and fit you for his presence, where is fulness of joy for evermore.]
a See Ps. Ixxxi. 11, 12. Hos. iv. 17. Luke xix. 42.
b Isai. Iv. 6. c Luke xv. 20 — 24.
d 2 Chron. xxxiii. 10—13. e ver. 31. f 1 Pet. iii. 13.
god's complaint against the rebellious.
Jer. ii. 31, 32. 0 generation, see ye the word of the Lord : Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness ? Wherefore say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto thee ? Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire ? Yet my people have forgotten, me, days without number.
I AM perfectly astonished. I can scarcely believe my own eyes. Who is it that thus addresses us ; and
vindicates his own character against the accusations which, hy our lives at least, we bring against him ? It is none other than Jehovah himself, calling upon us to prove, if we can, that he merits at our hands the treatment he has received from us. Often does he call on heaven and earth to judge betwixt him
and his people3 But in the chapter before
us, he supposes himself to be charged with having acted unkindly, not to say injuriously, towards them: " Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel: thus saith the Lord ; What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and have become vainb ?" And again in the text, "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness ?" Behold, Brethren, I am now to you in God's stead : and I call upon you, in God's name, to answer to the challenge given you, and to the charge that is brought against you. Hear at my mouth,
I. His appeal, in answer to your charges against him —
Was he to the Jews a wilderness or a land of darkness?"
[The Jews, from their own history, could not but know what a terrible wilderness, and what a land of darkness, their ancestors had been brought into, when they came out of the land of Egypt : it was " a land of deserts and of pits, a land of drought and of the shadow of death, a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt c." In a word, it was a land where they could find no sustenance, and where, but for the Divine interposition, they must all have perished. And had God been to them in any respect like that ? Had he left them to perish ? Had he not, on the contrary, administered to their every want, going before them in a pillar of fire, and supplying them with food, and miraculously preserving their very clothes from wearing out for the space of forty years ; and, at last, putting them into a full and peaceful possession of
the promised landd? ■ — ]
Has he, in his conduct to us, deserved c humiliating imputation ?
a Mic. vi. 2, 3. h ver. 4, 5. c ver. 6.
d Cite Deut. xxxii. 10 — 14. and Neh. ix. 21 — 25.
any such
1031.1 god's complaint against the rebellious. 29