Jeremiah 44

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XLIV.—Dreadful is the malignity of sin; infinitely God hates it, and earnestly should his ministers warn against it. It is a dreadful token of a reprobate mind when, with judgments upon us or around us, we have ourselves in sin, and a certain sign that almighty vengeance is at hand to destroy us. They, who will not be ruled by God’s word, must be broken by his soul. And, if men will prefer their own projects to God’s promises and providence, it is just that they should meet with disappointments. No antiquity, authority, custom, or prosperity, can ever warrant what God forbids. And it is dreadful when the means which God uses to draw or drive us from our sins are perverted to burden us in them or when those, who should assist one another in the way to heaven, are mutual tempers to, and hardeners in, sin. But God will effectively ruin his obstinate opponents by the ruinous strokes of his wrath. Nor can a greater cause fight upon sinners, that to be given up to the devices of their own heart. Quickly will God ruin the created comforts and confidences which we put in his room. And indeed nothing is to us what we fancy it, but what he makes it