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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.
He
gave
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.
I
was
wroth
and
smote him.
You
have this
very sin
of
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,