raise altar against altar, to set God at variance with himself, and to "provoke to jealousy" the Holy One of Israel? We can scarcely conceive any thing worse than such conduct as this. For, shall God be denied the honour which is paid to man? Shall he alone be treated with contemptuous neglect? Shall he be exIcluded from the minds of those whom he created and upholds ? Shall all the wonders of redeeming love be requited in no better way than this? Shall we refuse to him the homage which we exact from our fellow-creatures, and which we even pay to those who are authorized to receive it? Would not God be justly indignant, if he were only placed on a footing of equality with men? How much more then, when he is degraded so far below them! Surely every mercy he has ever vouchsafed to us, but especially the gift of his dear Son, will dreadfully enhance our guilt and condemnation, if our obligations to him do not operate to produce in us a reverential honour of him as our Father, and an unrivalled obedience to him as our Lord and Master.

This mode of arguing is very common in the Scriptures. God is pleased frequently to suggest the relation subsisting between himself and his people with the same view as in the passage before us. Sometimes he does it to raise our expectations from him; and at other times to shew the reasonableness of his

expectations from us. In the former view he says, "Which of you, if his child should ask for bread, would give him a stone? How much more then will your heavenly Father give good things to them that ask him!" In the latter view he says, "We have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" Precisely thus does he speak in the text; with this only difference; that the conclusion drawn from his statement is not merely an appeal to our reason, but a reproof for our misconduct. The interrogations are extremely pointed: they intimate a mind justly incensed they express the highest indignation against

us for refusing to our Maker what we concede to our fellow-worms: "A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if I then be a father, where is MINE honour? if I be a master, where is MY fear? saith the Lord of Hosts."

We shall more easily enter into this idea, if we suppose a child or servant of our own fulfilling his duties with some considerable care to others, but violating all which he owed to us. If his attention to others were adduced in vindication of his neglect of us, should we not argue in the very same way that Jehovah does in the text? Should we be satisfied with his serving others, when he withheld his services from us? Should we not insist upon our superior title to his regards? Should we not represent the violations of his duty to us as more heinous, in proportion to the right which was vested in us by virtue of our relation to him? When he told us of what he did for others, should we not say, " But where is my honour? where is my fear?" Should we not consider his conduct as in the highest degree insolent and contemptuous, when we ourselves, who had an exclusive, or at least a superior, claim to his affection, were particularly selected as objects of his neglect ? There can be no doubt: and therefore we may be well assured, that the very pleas which we are apt to urge in extenuation of our guilt, will one day be adduced as the greatest aggravations of it.

Permit me now to ask a question or two, in reference to the foregoing subject. Supposing that God should now call us to account, as certainly he will ere long, and ask, What proofs we have given of our allegiance to him? What proofs have we to adduce? Can we appeal to the heart-searching God, that we have indeed respected his authority, that we have habitually conducted ourselves towards him as faithful servants and obedient children? Let us examine well our own hearts: let us not be hasty to conclude that all is well: it is easy to deceive ourselves; but we cannot possibly deceive God. Every act of our lives has been registered in the book of

his remembrance; and we shall be judged, not by the partial verdict of our own self-love, but by the unerring testimony of truth itself. And if it be proved that our allegiance to God amounted to no more than "saying, Lord! Lord! without doing the things which he commanded," our Judge will pronounce upon us that awful sentence," Depart from me; I never knew you, ye workers of iniquity!"

We cannot however CONCLUDE this subject, without
suggesting some consolatory considerations-
To those who are conscious of having neglected
God.

Our God and Father does not instantly disinherit the rebellious child, or exclude for ever the disobedient servant: Onesimus may yet return, through the mediation of his heavenly Sponsor; and the Prodigal may yet be feasted on the fatted calf. Only let us confess our sins, and turn to God with humiliation. and contrition; and we shall soon find, that "he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness." Let us, like the penitents under the law, lay our hands upon the head of our Great Sacrifice, and transfer our guilt to Him, who taketh away the sins of the world. Then shall we have no cause to fear the displeasure of an angry God: our iniquities shall be forgiven, and our sins be covered: and though unworthy in ourselves to obtain the smallest mercy, we shall be dealt with, not as servants merely, but as sons, and be made partakers of an everlasting inheritance.

MCCLXVIII.

GOD'S APPEAL TO SELF-JUSTIFYING SINNERS.

Mal. i. 8. If ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts.

SELF-VINDICATION is natural to fallen man: it began in paradise, as soon as ever sin entered into

the world. "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat," was Adam's excuse, when exculpating himself at the expense both of his wife and of God himself. Eve, too, excused herself by casting the blame of her transgression upon the serpent who had beguiled her. In all their descendants, the same propensity has shewn itself, and often with a degree of vehemence amounting to indignation and disdain. In the time of the Prophet Malachi it prevailed to an extraordinary degree ; or he at least records it with more than ordinary minuteness and force. He was inspired of God, to shew the Jewish people their transgressions: but to every charge which he brought against them, they replied with a degree of petulance savouring of extreme impiety and obduracy. When God addressed by him the priests, as despising his name, they utterly denied the charge; and insolently asked of God himself, “Wherein have we despised thy name?" And when he told them that they had offered polluted bread upon his altar, they challenged him to tell them when: "Wherein have we polluted thee?" When the prophet complained of them as having "wearied the Lord with their words," they immediately asked, in the same contemptuous spirit, "Wherein have we wearied him?" Even when God graciously invited them to return to him, saying, "Return unto me, and I will return unto you;" they deny that there was any necessity for such an invitation, saying, "Wherein shall we return?" And when God tells them that they had robbed him, they reply, with undiminished effrontery, "Wherein have we robbed thee?" And when God complains of all this, saying, " Your words have been stout against me; they still persist in the same impious strain, "What have we spoken so much against thee?" In every instance God substantiates his charge, by declaring wherein they had committed the offence imputed to them: but, in the words of

a Gen. iii. 12. d Mal. ii. 17.

8 Mal. iii. 13.

b Gen. iii. 13.
e Mal. iii. 7.

c ver. 6, 7.
f Mal. iii. 8.

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my text he does it in a way which nothing but the most inveterate impiety could resist. He appeals to them, Whether they could deny either the conduct of which they were habitually guilty, or the construction which he put upon it? If ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor : will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person saith the Lord of Hosts."

In opening to you these words, we shall consider, I. The appeal of God to man

?

Nothing can exceed the condescension of Almighty God, in his reasonings with sinful man. He here grounds his appeal to us,

1. On the standard which exists in our own consciences

"If

[The Jews knew that God was to be served with the best of their flocks. His express command to them was, there be any blemish in the firstling of thy herd or of thy flock, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it to the Lord thy Godh." To go in direct opposition to this command, they knew to be "evil:" they knew that it would, in fact, be a pouring of contempt on God himself; and justly did God denounce a curse on all who should so presumptuously sin against him'.

Now we know the same, in relation to our spiritual sacrifices: we know that God requires the heart: and that whatever we present to him without the heart, is only to mock and insult him. It is an acknowledged truth, that to "draw nigh to God with our lips, whilst our hearts are far from him," is to offer him a sacrifice, which he can never acceptk.

Let us, then, examine our offerings by this test: and, if the services which we present to him be ignorant, formal, hypocritical, what do we, in fact, but commit, as far as we are able, the very same evil which obtained amongst the Jews, when they offered in sacrifice to God "the blind, the lame, and the sick?" That our services are ignorant, is but too clear: for we know not the true character of that God whom we profess to worship; nor how he is to be approached; nor what are the services we should render him. If we were duly enlightened on these subjects, it would be impossible for us to approach him as we do, or to conceive that he could ever be pleased with such services as we render him.

h Deut. xv. 21

i ver. 14.

* Matt. xv. 7, 8.