Zech. i. 5. Your fathers, ivhere are they ?
THE preachers of God's blessed word have in all ages had reason to complain, " Who hath believed our report ?" True it is, that a faithful ministration of the Gospel is, to a certain degree, approved : but it is also true, that the approbation given to it is very different from that entire submission which it re- quires. The very people that commend the ministry will not obey the word delivered to them. They are pleased with an exhibition of truth ; but they do not feel its force, or give themselves up to its influence. But the word of God will stand, whether men will hear, or whether they will forbear. Now, that the judgments of God are almost exclusively of a spiritual nature, and therefore invisible, we can only declare what God has spoken: but when the commands of God were enforced with temporal sanctions, the pro- phets could appeal to what he had done. God had threatened, that if his people were disobedient to his voice, they should be subjected to a great variety of calamities, and be cut off by his four sore judgments — by wild beasts, and pestilence, and famine, and the sword. Hence the prophet exhorted the Jews, after the Babylonish captivity, not to walk in the steps of their rebellious progenitors : and, to convince them of the fatal consequences that would ensue if they despised his voice, he appealed to them, " Your fathers, where are they?" that is, ' Have they not, agreeably to the predictions of former prophets, been made monuments of God's indignation? and have not you, therefore, reason to expect, that, if you resem- ble them in their disobedience, you will, like them, be made to experience also the bitter consequences of your transgressions ?'
The question thus put to them, may be considered in a twofold view : I. As a devout reflection —