peculiar covenant with them, and ordinances among them ; viz., contempt of the ordinances, and breach of the covenant; and, by the same reason too, peculiar aggravations of the common sins, and ingredients of such things as make the same sins that other people commit, to be of a deeper dye among God's people; their special relation to Him, and the special means and mercies they receive from Him, by which they are both more instructed and more obliged to obedience; these things make the disobedience more heinous in itself, and more offensive to God. He cannot but take it very ill to be disregarded by his own Και συ τεκνον.-Thus the Lord makes a great and loud complaint that all may hear, Isa. i. 2.; calls heaven and earth to hear it, that He had nourished and brought up children, and they had rebelled against Him. What do we deserve for our sins? Do not our oaths and cursing, our pride and deceit, our wonderful ignorance and profaneness, our formality, hypocrisy, and, above all, our deep security, threaten us with some heavy judgment? Which cannot be avoided but by godly sorrow and earnest prayer, by the most humble way of acknowledgment and real amendment. This is our work this day; and unless we set about it for ourselves, and pray for it to the whole kingdom, we know not what we are doing. We cannot do any thing to purpose in behalf of the Church of God, nor be fit supplicants for its deliverance, whilst we remain ungodly ourselves.

II. God's way of afflicting His people: I will go and return to my place. The way that He will afflict them, is indeed the heaviest, as conveyed in this expression; as if He should say, I will withdraw myself from them, and will not appear to them at all for a time, yea, a long time. Well may it be rendered by affliction in the other clause, for be truly so when the Lord is gone from them. withdrawing of His gracious presence, as necessarily follows affliction, as mist upon the setting of the sun. This was heavier than all His corrections. So long as they could but hear and see Him amongst them, although it were chiding, yea,

they shall Upon the

scourging them, yet, still there was this comfort, that they might speak to Him as being near them, and so, considering His merciful nature, might have hope, by their complaints and cries in His presence, to move Him to compassionate and spare them, and be reconciled. But when He was out of sight and quite gone from them, and so could neither hear nor see them in their misery, this was indeed the chief misery, worse than all that they could suffer in other punishments. In the preceding verses, He threatens to be as a moth to them, consuming them, though more slowly and insensibly; which was by lesser judgments that befel these kingdoms, as the history of them shews: then, as a lion, devouring more suddenly: but the gradation rises to the highest in this last, though to an ignorant creature it sounds least: I will return to my place. I will retire my favourable presence from them, and shut up all the influences and evidences of my grace. Which, in a public national sense, (as here it is to be taken,) imports, not only longer and more grievous troubles than any which before had befallen them, (as indeed they were,) but God's leaving of them in those troubles, and not giving, as before, any sign of His merciful presence. As if God should say, I will give them up to those miseries that are to come upon them, and leave them to themselves and to their cruel enemies, and will take no notice of them, until they know what a grievous thing the want of my presence is, and how hateful their sins are, that have deprived them of it, and so be stirred up to seek my face; --they would not regard me, either in my word or in my works, whether of mercy or of judgment, so long as I stayed with them, was present amongst them :-that so I may teach them to know what is the good of my presence, by the evil of my absence, which is a heavier judgment than all I have yet inflicted on them.

And as it is thus in relation to the public condition of the Church, so is it, in a personal and more spiritual sense, to a child of God. No evil he fears so much, or feels so heavy, as God's absenting and withdrawing Himself in displeasure; nor

is there any good that he will admit to be compared with the light of God's countenance. Let others seek any good, let them have any good they can, but, says David, for himself and all the godly, the good we seek, is this and no other, Lord, lift upon us the light of Thy countenance. Psal. iv. 6. He can hear of any distress with courage and resolution, but this he cannot endure to hear of, but deprecates it, Hide not Thy face from Thy servant. A godly man may, in the most prosperous condition, have much concern if the face of God be hid from him. That is his great affliction, as it is here called. There needs nothing else to damp all his prosperity. Thou didst hide Thy face, and I was troubled. Psal. xxx. 7. Even in prosperity, riches and power, and other such poor things, do not answer the desires of a soul acquainted with God: all these are nothing without His favour shining on them: no, nor the graces which are within them, which are far more precious than all outward things. The displeased withdrawing of God's countenance, makes a sad night amid all these; as, when the sun is absent, it is night still, notwithstanding all the stars. Although God lay outward affliction on them, yet, if He enlighten them, though in a dungeon, they can rejoice. Yea, when they are inwardly troubled for sin, and God is rebuking them that way, yet, that is not so bad as when He leaves them and returns to His place. This is more grievous than when He chides and rebukes them, which he may do, and yet, not in hot displeasure, as David teaches us to distinguish, it, Psal. vi. 1. It is a more comfortable condition, that He stay with them, and that He reprove them when they sin, (yea, that is a mercy,) than that He leave them, and speak not to them, nor suffer them to speak to Him. They would then desire rather to find Him present though correcting; for then, by speaking to Him, they may express their repentance and requests to Him for pardon. They would say to God, Strike me, but hear me, rather than be struck out from all intercourse with Him, and He hold them as His enemies. And thus God may sometimes deal with His own, and particularly

for some notable offence, until they be duly humbled and brought to a lowly acknowledgment, and so, to seek His face again; to see if they will be loath to grieve Him again.

Though we all profess to know God, yet, the greatest part of us are so far from duly esteeming Him, that we do not at all know what the spiritual, gracious presence of God is; how sweet the enjoyment, and how bitter and sad the deprivement. Oh, be desirous to understand and know this highest good, and, above all things, seek to enjoy it. And without doubt, the experience of it will persuade you to prize it and entertain it carefully; never willingly to grieve and drive away so great and so good a guest, who brings true happiness along with Him to those with whom He dwells. There is solid peace, and there only, where He is. And for the Church of God, what other thing can we, yea, what need we desire but this as the assured help of all her distresses and sorrows, that God would return His gracious presence to her again? Then shall her enemies be turned backward, and she shall sing and rejoice in the God of her salvation. You see, this is the Church's own prayer, Psal. lxxx. 3; she desires no more than this, Cause Thy face to shine; and we shall be safe. That is the only sun which chases away the mist of her griefs and troubles. So then, the ending of these confusions we are lying and labouring under, is wrapped up in this; that the presence of our God be both entreated and obtained. This would make a sweet union of hearts, and make all attempts prosperous, and strike a terror into the Church's enemies. But if their Rock forsake them, were they never so surely supported with other advantages, yet shall they sink and fall. If He go to His place, and shut up His power and wisdom from their help, and leave them with themselves, this shall suffice to undo them, without any enemy. It was sad news, not only to Moses, but to the whole people, Exod. xxxiii. 3; notwithstanding they were bent to provoke Him to do so, it was very grievous for them to hear, that He had refused them His own guidanc and would withdraw himself from them, although it was with

the promise of an angel to lead them; for little can any possible supply be made by any creature to make up that loss. It was indeed high time for them to put off their ornaments, and be humbled, when their great Ornament and their great Strength, was gone from them in displeasure. Then they put off their garbs of war, and appeared in the penitential dress of sackcloth and ashes.

III. The end of God's thus afflicting His people. And we have these two things to consider in it, both here clearly expressed; 1st. God's intention in the means; 2dly, The power of these means for effecting it. I will go till they acknowledge their offences and seek my face, and, in the time of my absence, which will certainly be the time of their heaviest affliction, they will seek me early.

1. This is God's end in scourging His people; it is only to bring them to a sorrow for their offences, and an ingenuous confession of it. And if He withdraw Himself, it is not to leave them for ever and look at them no more. On the contrary, it is, that they may learn whether it is better to enjoy Him, or their sins; and that, finding themselves miserable without Him, they may leave those sins with which He will not dwell, and may come and entreat His return to them; which He is willing, being entreated, to grant them. And this He removes from them, that, on their return to Him, and their earnest and humble seeking of His return to them, they may find Him, and enjoy more of His presence than before, and learn to keep it better. He throws His people into the furnace, and goes away, and leaves them there; yet, it is not to let them lie still there, but He is skilful in this work, and knows the time needful for their refining, and then returns and takes them out. His purpose is, to purge away the dross, but He will not lose the gold. Isa. xxvii. 9. By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this will serve to take away his sin. As that sin was the meriting cause of the affliction, it clears God's justice; the end He aims at, when He declares His graciousness and mercy to His people, being no other than