rebuilt ; and therefore it was justly doubted, by those who yet remained in Babylon, whether it was proper to continue those fasts, now that the judgments on ac- count of which the fasts were instituted were removed. This was a question which could not be satisfactorily answered, but by one who was inspired of God to declare his will respecting it. But before a direct answer was given to it, the prophet was instructed to reprove the whole nation, priests as well as people, for the manner in which those fasts had been observed. They are not blamed for instituting the fasts, but for the hypocrisy which they had manifested in the observance of them.
The reproof here given to the Jewish nation fur- nishes us with a lit occasion,
I. To inquire into the principles by which we have been actuated in our religious duties —
External acts are of no value in the sight of God, any farther than as they express the real dispositions of the mind. It is to the principle from which we act, and not to the mere act itself, that God looks : and it is to that that we also must look, in order to form a right estimate of our character. Consider then,
1. To whom we ought to have performed all our religious services —
[That " fasting and mourning" were religious services, is obvious: and that " eating and drinking" are here used in the same sense, is also obvious. The Jews were ordered by the Mosaic law to carry up their tithes, and their first-fruits, and their free-will offerings, to Jerusalem, and to eat them in the temple before the Lordc: and not being able to carry them thither, they observed the same rites in Babylon. Hence we may properly notice our own religious services in general, whether those of greater solemnity, as public fasts, or those which are of more ordinary occurrence, both public and pri- vate : in all of them we ought to have had respect to God ; to his will, as the cause ; his word, as the rule ; his glory, as the endd. If not done for him, they are not acceptable to him: and the more entirely we have respect to him in them, the more pleasing they are in his sight. But if we examine our religious services in this view, how few will be found to have
c Deut. xii. 17, 18. d 1 Cor. x. 31.