Jeremiah 44:30

REFLECTIONS

READER! we are engaged, in the perusal of this Chapter, in a most solemn and awful history. Israel, given up to idolatry, and their neck hardened against all the calls of the Lord's long suffering and patience. Let us pause over it, and remark the tremendous and fearful condition of such a state. There is, indeed, in every man, by nature, a blindness, an ignorance, and even an enmity, against God. Our wills, our inclinations, our faculties, are all on the side of rebellion; and until an act of grace is wrought upon the heart, there is none that will seek after God. But, when added to this, a judicial blindness follows, this is most alarming indeed! Thus the Lord by his servant proclaims, My people would not hearken to my voice, and Israel would none of me. Intimating the natural hardness and impenitency of the heart, shut up in unbelief. So I gave them up unto their own heart's lusts; and they walked in their own counsels. As if the Lord had said, Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone! Oh! precious, precious Lord Jesus! thou that art the hope of Israel, and the Saviour thereof! blessed forever be thy gracious interposition, in coming to take away sin by the sacrifice of thyself! Lord! open our hearts, and keep them open by thy grace, that they may never more be shut against thee!