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6 lines
9.2 KiB
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<p>Here, I. The prophet shows them what mischief their sins had done them: They <i>have turned away these things</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.5.25" href="/passage/?search=Jer.5.25">Jer. 5:25</a>), the <i>former and the latter rain</i>, which they used to have <i>in due season</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.5.24" href="/passage/?search=Jer.5.24">Jer. 5:24</a>), but which had of late been withheld (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.3.3" href="/passage/?search=Jer.3.3">Jer. 3:3</a>), by reason of which the appointed weeks of harvest had sometimes disappointed them. “It is <i>your sin</i> that <i>has withholden good from you</i>, when God was ready to bestow it upon you.” Note, It is sin that stops the current of God’s favour to us, and deprives us of the blessings we used to receive. It is that which makes the heavens as brass and the earth as iron.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">II. He shows them how great their sins were, how heinous and provoking. When they had forsaken the worship of the true God, even moral honesty was lost among them: <i>Among my people are found wicked men</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.5.26" href="/passage/?search=Jer.5.26">Jer. 5:26</a>), some of the worst of men, and so much the worse they were for being found among God’s people. 1. They were spiteful and malicious. Such are properly <i>wicked men</i>, men that delight in doing mischief. They were <i>found</i> (that is, caught) in the very act of their wickedness. As hunters or fowlers lay snares for their game, so did they <i>lie in wait</i> to <i>catch men</i>, and made a sport of it, and took as much pleasure in it as if they had been entrapping beasts or birds. They contrives ways of doing mischief to good people (whom they hated for their goodness), especially to those that faithfully reproved them (<a class="bibleref" title="Isa.29.21" href="/passage/?search=Isa.29.21">Isa. 29:21</a>), or to those that stood in the way of their preferment or whom they supposed to have affronted them or done them a diskindness, or to those whose estates they coveted; so Jezebel ensnared Naboth for his vineyard. Nay, they did mischief for mischief’s sake. 2. They were false and treacherous (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.5.27" href="/passage/?search=Jer.5.27">Jer. 5:27</a>): “<i>As a cage</i>, or <i>coop</i>, is <i>full of birds</i>, and of food for them to fatten them for the table, so are <i>their houses full of deceit</i>, of wealth obtained by fraudulent practices or of arts and methods of defrauding. All the business of their families is done with deceit; whoever deals with them, they will cheat him if they can, which is easily done by those who make no conscience of what they say and do. Herein <i>they overpass the deed of the wicked</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.5.28" href="/passage/?search=Jer.5.28">Jer. 5:28</a>. Those that act by deceit, with a colour of law and justice, do more mischief perhaps than those wicked men (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.5.26" href="/passage/?search=Jer.5.26">Jer. 5:26</a>) that carry all before them by open force and violence; or they are worse than the heathen themselves, yea, the worst of them. And (would you think it?) they prosper in these wicked courses and therefore their hearts are hardened in them. They are greedy of the world, because they find it flows in upon them, and they stick not at any wickedness in pursuit of it, because they find that it is so far from hindering their prosperity that it furthers it: <i>They have become great</i> in the world; <i>they have waxen rich</i>, and thrive upon it. They have wherewithal to make provision for the flesh to fulfill all the lusts of it, to which they are very indulgent, so that <i>they have waxen fat</i> with living at ease and bathing themselves in all the delights of sense. They are sleek and smooth: <i>The shine</i>; they look fair and gay; every body admires them. And they <i>pass by matters of evil</i> (so some read the following words); they escape the evils which one would expect their sins should bring upon them; <i>they are not in trouble as other men</i>, much less as we might expect bad men,” <a class="bibleref" title="Ps.73.5" href="/passage/?search=Ps.73.5">Ps. 73:5</a> 3. When they had grown great, and had got power in their hands, they did not do that good with it which they ought to have done: <i>They judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, and the right of the needy</i>. The fatherless are often needy, always need assistance and advice, and advantage is taken of their helpless condition to do them an injury. Who should succour them then but the great and rich? What have men wealth for but to do good with it? But these would take no cognizance of any such distressed cases: they had not so much sense of justice, or compassion for the injured; or, if they did concern themselves in the cause, it was not to do right, but to protect those that did wrong. And <i>yet they prosper</i>
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<p class="tab-1">III. He shows them how fatal the consequences of this would certainly be. Let them consider,</p>
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<p class="tab-1">1. What the reckoning would be for their wickedness (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.5.29" href="/passage/?search=Jer.5.29">Jer. 5:29</a>): <i>Shall not I visit for these things</i>? as before, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.5.9" href="/passage/?search=Jer.5.9">Jer. 5:9</a>. Sometimes mercy rejoices against judgment: <i>How shall I give thee up, Ephraim</i>? Here, judgment is reasoning against mercy: <i>Shall I not visit</i>? We are sure that Infinite Wisdom knows how to accommodate the matter between them. The manner of expression is very emphatic, and denotes, (1.) The certainty and necessity of God’s judgments: <i>Shall not my soul be avenged</i>? Yes, without doubt, vengeance will come, it must come, if the sinner repent not. (2.) The justice and equity of God’s judgments; he appeals to the sinner’s own conscience, Do not those deserve to be punished that have been guilty of such abominations? Shall he not be avenged on <i>such a nation</i>, such a wicked provoking nation as this?</p>
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<p class="tab-1">2. What the direct tendency of their wickedness was: <i>What will you do in the end thereof</i>? That is, (1.) “What a pitch of wickedness will you come to at last! <i>What will you do</i>? What will you not do that is base and wicked. What will this grow to? You will certainly grow worse and worse, till you have filled up the measure of your iniquity.” (2.) “What a pit of destruction will you come to at last! When things are brought to such a pass as this, nothing can be expected from you but a deluge of sin, so nothing can be expected from God but a deluge of wrath; and what will you do when that shall come?” Note, Those that walk in bad ways would do well to consider the tendency of them both to greater sin and utter ruin. An end will come; the end of a wicked life will come, when it will be all called over again, and without doubt will be bitterness in the latter end.</p>
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