Jeremiah 7

Jeremiah 7:4

Do not imagine that, because the temple has been the place of God’s special residence, he will never forsake it but uphold it for ever

Jeremiah 7:9-11

Will ye practise the vilest abominations, and presumptuously appear in my courts, as if ceremonial services could atone for your guilt, and procure you a new indulgence in sin? Is my temple become a refuge for such notorious criminals?

Jeremiah 7:21

You may eat, or do what you please with, all your offerings, for I detest them

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. VII.—God’s ministers have need of great boldness in facing multitudes of obstinate sinners. And it is common for the most profligate hypocrites to hope that their external privileges will recommend them to the favour of God, and even to use them as encouragements to the most horrid impieties. One public judgment of God is ordinarily a presage of another, as well as a warning to avoid the causes of it. But, alas, hopeless is their case for whom God’s favourites must not pray! And yet how readily children confirm the denunciations of God against their parents, by following their evil courses! Ceremonies and forms of devotion do but provoke God more and more against 88 97* men, who prefer them to the standing duties of morality. Slow and gradual, but at last most certain, are his judgments upon obstinate transgressors. And hardened and barbarous sinners have their crimes fearfully marked in their punishment, and are made to change their sinful mirth into everlasting anguish