and confirmed habits, so hardened in sin, that they cannot get clear of it: those that sin through infirmity, are drawn away by sin; those that sin presumptuously, draw it to them, in spite of the oppositions of Providence and the checks of conscience. Some by sin understand the punishment of sin; they pull God's judgments upon their own heads, as it were with cart-ropes.
2. Who set the justice of God at defiance, and challenge the Almighty to do his worst; (v. 19.) They say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work; this is the same language with that of the scoffers of the last days, who say, Where is the promise of his coming? And therefore it is, that, like them, they draw iniquity with cords of vanity, are violent and daring in sin, and walk after their own lusts, 2 Pet. iii. 1, 3, 4. (1.) They ridicule the prophets, and banter them; it is in scorn that they call God the Holy One of Israel, because the prophets used with great veneration to call him so. (2.) They will not believe the revelation of God's wrath from heaven against their ungodliness and unrighteousness; unless they see it executed, they will not know it, as if the curse were brutum fulmen—a mere flash, and all the threatenings of the word bugbears to frighten fools and children. (3.) If God should appear against them, as he has threatened, yet they think themselves able to make their part good with him, and provoke him to jealousy, as if they were stronger than he, 1 Cor. x. 22. "We have heard his word, but it is all talk; let him hasten his work, we shall shift for ourselves well enough." Note, Those that wilfully persist in sin, consider not the power of God's anger.
3. Who confound and overthrow the distinctions between moral good and evil, who call evil good, and good evil, (v. 20.) who not only live in the omission of that which is good, but condemn it, argue against it, and, because they will not practise it themselves, run it down in others, and fasten invidious epithets upon it; they not only do that which is evil, but justify it, and applaud it, and recommend it to others as safe and good. Note, (1.) Virtue and piety are good, for they are light and sweet, they are pleasant and right; but sin and wickedness are evil, they are darkness, all the fruit of ignorance and mistake, and will be bitterness in the latter end. (2.) Those do a great deal of wrong to God, and religion, and conscience, to their own souls and to the souls of others, who misrepresent these, and put false colours upon them, who call drunkenness good fellowship, and covetousness good husbandry, and, when they persecute the people of God, think they do him good service; and, on the other hand, who call seriousness ill-nature, and sober singularity ill-breeding, who say all manner of evil falsely concerning the ways of godliness, and do what they can to form in men's minds prejudices against them; and this in defiance of evidence as plain and convincing as that of sense, by which we distinguish, beyond contradiction, between light and darkness, and that which to the taste is sweet and bitter.
4. Who, though they are guilty of such gross mistakes as these, have a great opinion of their own judgments, and value themselves mightily upon their understanding; (v. 21.) they are wise in their own eyes; they think themselves able to disprove and baffle the reproofs and convictions of God's word, and to evade and elude both the searches and the reaches of his judgments; that they can outwit Infinite Wisdom, and countermine Providence itself. Or, it may be taken more generally; God resists the proud, those particularly who are conceited of their own wisdom, and lean to their own understanding; such must become fools, that they may be truly wise, or else, at their end, they shall appear to be fools before all the world.
5. Who gloried in it as a great accomplishment, that they were able to bear a great deal of strong liquor without being overcome by it; (v. 22.) Who are mighty to drink wine, and use their strength and vigour, not in the service of their country, but in the service of their lusts. Let drunkards know from this scripture, that, (1.) They ungratefully abuse their bodily strength, which God has given them for good purposes, and by degrees cannot but weaken it. (2.) It will not excuse them from the guilt of drunkenness, that they can drink hard, and yet keep their feet. (3.) Those who boast of their drinking down others, glory in their shame. (4.) How light soever men make of their drunkenness, it is a sin which will certainly lay them open to the wrath and curse of God.
6. Who, as judges, perverted justice, and went counter to all the rules of equity, v. 23. This followed upon the former; they drink, and forget the law, (Prov. xxxi. 5.) and err through wine, (ch. xxviii. 7.) and take bribes, that they may have wherewithal to maintain their luxury. They justify the wicked for reward, and find some pretence or other to clear him from his guilt, and shelter him from punishment; and they condemn the innocent, and take away their righteousness from them, overrule their pleas, deprive them of the means of clearing up their innocency, and give judgment against them. In causes between man and man, might and money would at any time prevail against right and justice; and he who was ever so plainly in the wrong, with a small bribe would carry the cause, and recover costs. In criminal causes, though the prisoner ever so plainly appeared to be guilty, yet, for a reward, they would acquit him; if he were innocent, yet, if he did not fee them well, nay, if they were fee'd by the malicious prosecutor, or they themselves had spleen against him, they would condemn him.
II. The judgments described, which these sins would bring upon them. Let not these expect to live easily, who live thus wickedly; for the righteous God will take vengeance, v. 24—30. Where we may observe,
1. How complete this ruin will be, and how necessarily and unavoidably it will follow upon their sins. He had compared this people to a vine, (v. 7.) well-fixed, and which, it was hoped, would be flourishing and fruitful; but the grace of God towards it was received in vain, and then the root became rottenness, being dried up from beneath, and the blossom would of course blow off as dust, as a light and worthless thing, Job xviii. 16. Sin weakens the strength, the root, of a people, so that they are easily rooted up; it defaces the beauty, the blossoms, of a people, and takes away the hopes of fruit. The sin of unfruitfulness is punished with the plague of unfruitfulness. Sinners make themselves as stubble and chaff, combustible matter, proper fuel to the fire of God's wrath, which then, of course, devours and consumes them, as the fire devours the stubble, and nobody can hinder it, or cares to hinder it. Chaff is consumed, unhelped and unpitied.
2. How just the ruin will be; Because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and would not have him to reign over them; and as the law of Moses was rejected and thrown off, so the word of the Holy One of Israel by his servants the prophets, putting them in mind of his law, and calling them to obedience, was despised and disregarded. God does not reject men for every transgression of his law and word; but, when his word is despised, and his law cast away, what can they expect, but that God should utterly abandon them?
3. Whence this ruin should come; (v. 25.) it is destruction from the Almighty. (1.) The justice of God appoints it; for that is the anger of the Lord
