Hos. viii. 2, 3. Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we knoiv thee. Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him.
THERE is not a more intimate connexion between any two things than between sin and misery. How- ever specious an appearance any hypocrite may make in the world, God, who sees his heart, will sooner or later expose and punish his hypocrisy. The Israelites on different occasions professed to repent, and to return to God : but they were " as a deceitful bow," that effected not the purpose for which it seemed to be bent : on which account God commanded the prophet to " set the trumpet to his mouth," and to proclaim their speedy destruction. The prophet's testimony is then confirmed by God himself in the words before us : in which we may see,
I. The vain confidence of the ungodly —
All men have, to a certain extent, the very con- fidence expressed in my text. As amongst the Jews, so amongst ourselves, the grounds of that confidence are diverse, whilst the confidence itself is the same.
[Some found it on their bearing of the Christian name. They have been born of Christian parents, and educated in a Christian country, and therefore they account themselves children of the Most High ; exactly as the Jews claimed to be the children of God, because they were descended from the stock of Abraham, and had been admitted into covenant with God by circumcision. Hence we find them confidently assert- ing that " God was their Father3."
Others found it on their belongiyig to a peculiar Church. As the Jews said of themselves, " The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are theseb," so persons belonging to the Church of England esteem themselves especially favoured of the Lord on that account, whilst all the various classes of dissenters arrogate to themselves the same high privilege, as arising out of their separation from the Established Church, and the imagined superiority of their re- spective advantages for spiritual instruction.
Others found their confidence on their moral conduct, and their regular observance of all the external duties of religion. But like the Pharisees of old, whilst their regular deportment makes them objects of admiration to those around them, they shew by their whole conduct that they have only " the form of godliness without any of its power." Yet do they value themselves as standing high in the favour of God, and would
a John viii. 33, 39, 40, 41. «> Jer. vii. 4.