COS GOD'S IaiSPUeASVR't ALAI ST SfiÑ. III. It must needs Lea - provoking siu'to God, because covetousness is an abuse of the creature, and a perver- sion of it from that end for which God ;gave it. Hegave the good things of this word to he used, and not to he hoarded up merely to be looked upon. Whatever corn- forts of life, whatever advantages, privileges, or talents God has been pleased by his kind providence to confer upon us while we are here, remember' they are not our own, they are but lent us,' and we must one day'give an account what we have doue with them : this is a sin that lies very secret in the heart, and perhaps it cannot be so well charged upon us by others as byourselves. Let us . then be more strict in making an inward search in our consciences. The Second doctrine is this': God's displeasure against his own people for sin, is often manifested by hisstrokes ó£ temporal judgment. Iwas wroth andsmote him. You have this very sinof covetousness represented as the occa- sion of severe judgments from God upon Jerusalem, upon his chosen people. - .Term. viii. 10. In the fore- going verses God had been charging his people of hold- " ing fast deceit, and refusing to return;" and then be saith, " therefore I will give their wives unto others, and "their fields unto them that shall inherit them, for every one, even from the least to the greatest, is given to cove- " tousness." Those whom the, father has once loved and given into the hands of the sdn, the Father will always love, and the Son will bear an eternal affection to them but the Father and the Son may be displeased with them,' and may smite those very children sometimes, that when enemies 'smite them, they touch him, nearly. In the eighty-ninth Psalm, where the covenant of grace is glori- trusly displayed, as made with our Lord Jesus Christ for all believers, there are these afflictions brought into the covenant : If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments, if they break my statutes and " keep not my commandments, then I will visit their " transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with " stripes; nevertheless my loving- kindness will I not ut- " telly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail ; " my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." And the prophet Amos, chap. iii. ver. 2. tells the Jews in the name of the Lord, saying,
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