Wesley Corpus

And “as they did not like to retain God in their know ledge,” so they had small regard to the ordinances of God: “Even from the days of your fathers,” saith God by his Pro phets, “ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them.” (Mal. iii. 7.) “Ye have said, It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances?” (Verse 14.) “Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel: Thou hast not brought me thy burnt-offerings, neither hast thou honoured mewith thy sacrifices.” (Isaiah xliii. 22, 23.) And so the Prophet himself confesses: “Thou meetest those that remember thee in thy ways;--but there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee.” (Isaiah lxiv. 5, 7.) 5. But they called upon his name by vain oaths, by perjury and blasphemy. So Jeremiah: “Because of swearing the land mourneth.” (xxiii. 10.) “And though they say, The Lord liveth, surely they swear falsely.” (v. 2.) So Hosea: “They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant.” So Ezekiel: “They say, The Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath for saken the earth.” So Isaiah: “Their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory.” (iii. 8.) “They say, Let him make speed and hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One draw nigh and come, that we may know it.” (v. 19.) And so Malachi: “Ye have wearied the Lord with your words; ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?” (ii. 17.) 6. And as they “despised his holy things,” so they “pro faned his Sabbaths.” (Ezekiel xxii. 8.) Yea, when God sent unto them, saying, “Take heed unto yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath-day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the Sabbath-day, as I commanded your fathers:-- Yet they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.” (Jer xvii.