2 Chronicles 16

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XVI.—The strongest faith may soon be shaken; unbelief will make the best to fall into a variety of evils. What reliance on there be on an arm of flesh! What enticement is there, or even hiring of men, to perjury, and to murdering of God’s people, by the plunder of his temple! But opposition to God’s people, or murdering of them, though it should be by the hand of heathens, brings along with it the most fearful ruin. And then, particularly in carnal expedients to extricate themselves, even good men act against their experience, their knowledge, and their interest, all at once: ten in pride they hate, and in passion they persecute, their faithful reprovers: and even in distress overlook God, and depend on means carnal or devilish. O that need we have to consider our ways, to keep our heart with all diligence, and to pray for peculiar grace to keep us to the end! All our departures from God spring from our evil heart of unbelief: and the very means which we use unlawfully to avert trouble will bring it more heavily upon us. Sinful wisdom will at last appear egregious folly. Passion, and impatience of reproof, will be in bitter groans. Rewarding of God’s messengers with imprisonment will be in our own confinement on earth, or in hell: and, if our desperate wickedness of heart be indulged, it will mark us with lasting shame. But, notwithstanding all their sad blemishes, the godly die in Christ, and must be had in honour by their survivors