b Ezek. xvi. 43. c Ps. lxxviii. 40. a Isai. lxiii. 10.
e Ezek. vi. 9. f 2 Pet. ii. 8.
" Isai. v. 1 8. with Bishop Lowth's note upon it.
h Isai. xliii. 24. ' ver. 9 — 11.
1185. J god's complaint against us. 191
he endued us with an immortal soul, capable of knowing, serv- ing, and enjoying God to all eternity ! How has he kept us through the helpless years of infancy, and brought us in safety to the present hour; while thousands have never lived to receive instruction, or been cut off in the midst of their ini- quities ! Yet in what manner have we requited him for all his mercies ? Have we blessed and adored and magnified him for all his love ? Have we endeavoured to improve our time and faculties in his service ? Have not rather the multitude and continuance of his gifts been the occasion of our entirely for- getting the Donor?
Make this your own case. If you had a servant whom you were daily loading with benefits, and yet could never prevail upon him to testify the smallest sense of his obligations to you, would you not be wearied at last, and think it right to discard such a worthless person from your service ? And do you imagine that your heavenly Benefactor is not grieved at your ingratitude? Hear how he complains of it; and judge for yourselves : "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me : the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know; my people do not consider k." "What could have been done more for my vineyard, that I have not done in it ? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes1?" Do these complaints argue no weariness on the part of God ? Do they not manifest that he is " pressed under us beyond measure," and scarcely able to sus- tain any farther load ? May we not soon expect him to say, " I am grieved with that generation ; and swear in my wrath, that they shall never enter into my restm?"]
3. Our contempt of his blessed Gospel —
[The summit of Israel's wickedness was, that " they said to the prophets, Prophesy notn. Now God has sent his pro- phets to us, to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation through a crucified Redeemer, and to declare that all who believed in that Saviour should receive the Holy Spirit, as their Teacher, their Sanctifier, their Comforter0. But how have we received their message ? Have we cordially embraced the Saviour ? Are we seeking yet daily and hourly the influences of the Holy Spirit ? Are not many of us rather ready to despise the Gospel, and to dispute against its truths as over-righteous fancies and enthusiastic dreams ? Do not even those who pro- fess to embrace the Gospel, shew by their lives how little they regard it in their hearts ? And do not the very services which
k Isai. i. 2, 3. > Isai. v. 4. ™ Ps. xcv. 10, 11.
n ver. 12. o Acts ii. 38, 39.