[" Consider your ways." Twice is this repeated by the prophet0: and repeatedly should it be urged on all who are guilty of the conduct before described.
" Consider your ways," in order to your humiliation. Look back, and see, how highly criminal they have been. The more fully you call them to remembrance, and the more distinctly you view them with all their several aggravations, the more you will see cause to humble yourselves before God in dust and ashes
" Consider your ways," in order that you may see ivhat in- dignation they have already excited in the bosom of an avenging God. The Jews were referred to the judgments which God in his providence had inflicted on account of their sin, as proofs of his heavy displeasure d : and, if we could with equal certainty be informed of the reasons of those chastisements which God from time to time has inflicted on us, either publicly in com- mon with the whole land, or privately in our several persons and families, there can be no doubt but that we should find our sins to have been the root and ground of all. But with- out such infallible information from above, we should not presume to interpret the dispensations of Providence in this way, except in our own particular case; and even then we should do it with great caution and diffidence. Nevertheless in many instances we may clearly read our sin in our punish- ment. We have preferred the cares and pleasures of the world ; and we have been given over to a worldly mind : we have been impenitent; and have been delivered up to hardness of heart : we have disregarded the gracious visits of our God ; and he has withdrawn himself from us altogether : he has left us to " be filled with our own devices, and to eat of the fruit of our own ways."
Once more ; Consider your ways, in order to the amending of them in future. To this the Jews were called e ; and to this we also are called : and without this, all consideration of our
ways would be to no purpose Determine then, with
David, " not to give sleep to your eyes, or slumber to your eye-lids, till your hearts are become a temple for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of JacobV]
Happy the prophet who executed his office with such fidelity ! and happy the people who were favoured with such a monitor ! may our testimony also correspond with his in,
III. The effect produced —
Great and instantaneous was the change wrought on their minds —
c ver. 5, 7. d ver. 9 — 11. e Hagg. ii. 4. f Ps. cxxxii. 4, 5.