ON HOSEA XiV.- -VERSE S. 245 burden of Christ from our shoulders, Isa. xliii. 22. our natural levity and inconstancy of spirit in any holy resolutions, continuing as a morning dew, which presently is dried up, beginning in the spirit, and ending in the flesh, having interchangeable fits of the one and the other ; like the polypus, now of one colour, and anon of another ; now hot with zeal, and anon cold with security ; now following Moses with songs of thanksgiving for deliverance out of Egypt, and quickly after thrusting Moses away, and in heart returning unto Egypt again. Such a discomposed - ness and natural instability there is in the spirit of man, that, like strings in an instrument, it is apt to be altered with every change of weather; nay, while you are playing on it, you must ever and anon be new turning it ; like water heated, which is always offering to reduce itself to its own coldness. No longer sun, no longer light; no longer Christ, no longer grace. If his back be at any time upon us, our back will immediately be turned from him ; like those forgetful creatures in Seneca, who even while they are eating, if they happen to look aside from their meat, immediately lose the thoughts of it, and go about seeking for more. And we ought also to be jealous of the manifold decays and abatements of the grace of God in us, our aptness to leave our first love, Rev. ii. 4. How did Hezekiah fall into an impolitic vain-glory, in show- ing all his treasures unto the ambassadors of a foreign prince, thereby kindling a desire in him to be master of so rich a land, as soon as God left him unto him- self, 2 Kings xx. 12, 13. How quickly without con- tinual husbandry will a garden or vineyard be wasted and overgrown with weeds ! How easily is a ship when it is at the very shore, carried with a storm x3
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