472 WHAT LIGHT MUST This cometh from atheism and unbelief, when men think that God will lose his cause, unless our wits and sinful shifts preserve it, as if we, and not he, were the rulers of the world. The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God, (1 Cor. vi. 9.) and seldom escape the hatred or contempt of,men. X. He that will glorify God, must know and observe the or- der of commands and duties, and that God will have mercy, and not sacrifice, and must prefer the end before the means as such. He must not pretend a lesser duty against.a greater, nor take the lesser at that time for a duty, but fora sin, when the greater should take place. God bath made his laws and our duty to be the means of our own good. It is no profaneness, but duty, to omit that which else would be a duty, when a greater is to be preferred. God calls it the sacrifice of a fool, whoknoweth net that he dòeth evil under the name of duty, when sacrifice is preferred before an obedient hearing .'of God's commands ; Eccles. v. 1-3. It was no want of holy zeal in Christ, which made himbid the unrecon- ciled, " Leave thy gift at the altar,.and first go and be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift ; " Matt. v. 24. Some zealous persecutors, censurers, and dividers, now, would think I speak like an ungodly person if , Í should say to them, ' Let your liturgy, and .your prayers, andyour worship stay till you have confessed and lamented yourinjuries to your, brethren, and then come and offer your service to God, and lift up pure hands to him, without wrath and doubting.' Yet is it no more than God often calls for to the hypocritical Jews ; Isa. i. 11, Lc. " To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices, when ye come and appear before me? Who hath required this at your hands to tread in my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense.is an abomination to me. Whenye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes ; when ye make many prayers,' I will. not hear.. Your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make youclean, relieve the oppressed ; " Isa. lviii. 2, 3, &c. " They seek me daily, and de- light to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinances of their God ; they ask of me the ordinances ofjustice ; they take delight in approaching to God. Wherefore have we fasted, and thou seest not? Have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge ? Ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Ye shall not fast as this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that Thave chosen ? A day for a man to afflict his soul? to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord ? Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness,and to let the oppressed
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