Ezekiel 16:15-34

We have here, under the same figure, carried on, of the sad departures which, even after grace, is too often discoverable in the Church. Israel, of old, to whom the Prophet is speaking, was remarkable for this apostacy and rebellion through their whole history. And the Church of God now may but too justly be arraigned to the question, What then are we better than they? No in no wise. Romans 3:9. Reader! let us seek personally for the profiting by this sacred scripture, and leave Israel's history to look into our own. May not you and I both behold in what is here said, as in a mirror, our own features. If we trace it to the days of our unregeneracy, we shall find the sole cause of our conversion was to the Lord's passing by, and bidding us live. And may we not equally refer our present state, that we have not totally fallen, and have been cast away, to the same cause? Had the Lord been extreme to mark what hath been amiss since, what would have been our present state? Doth not everything in us and about us say, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed? Lamentations 3:22. Yea! may we not both frequently hear, as it were with faith, that expostulating voice, Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knowest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened; for I know that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and was called a transgressor from the womb? Isaiah 48:8.