Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets
God’s Word by former prophets
Doctrine--
1.
External performances of external duties of religion are nothing in God’s sight, where there is not study of obedience to all His revealed will, nor will howling under misery avail, while wickedness is kept under their tongue.
2. The Lord in all ages is uniform and like Himself in approving and enjoining of duty, and in disliking of sin, yesterday and today, the same forever: for the Lord here requires the same He required of their fathers.
3. The longer the Lord by His Word hath been pressing duty upon His people, they ought to heed it the more, lest judgment prove the sadder; for, He presseth a doctrine that had been long since cried, to be so much the rather heard.
4. The Lord’s chastising a people for sin and disobedience, doth not warrant them to look on their deliverance from chastisement, as a full assurance of their being reconciled, as if their strokes had made up all; but being delivered they are to make conscience of obedience, otherwise the controversy still stands, whatever deliverance they get, and they may expect to smart again. Therefore, after all their captivity, they must hear and obey.
5. It may help us to take heed to what God says in a sad time, when we consider that if it had been hearkened unto, it might have prevented much misery; for so is this doctrine commended, it was cried “when Jerusalem was inhabited, and in prosperity,” etc.; that so the thoughts of their former prosperity, which had ended in sad desolation, might let them see the ill of former neglect, and stir them up to be more serious. (George Hutcheson.)
