Him as nothing and vanity." (Is. xl. 17.) He would therefore highly insult God, who is the supreme and everlasting good, who should abandon Him only once, and that, too, to gain the whole world; but much more he who should contemn Him for trifles. He complains, of this insolent folly of mankind by the mouth of the prophet: "Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this; and ye gates thereof, be very desolate, saith the Lord; for my people have done two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." (Jer. ii. 12, 13.) Ponder how fitly God is termed the fountain of living water, from which flow all good things, and how suitably ail the things of this world are called cisterns, which can hold no water, that is, which can afford no means of satisfying the cravings of an immortal soul. They seem at first to have something in them, but in reality they contain nothing substantial.
II. For what trifles have you forsaken God? Perhaps in order that you might please His creatures, indulge some short-lived pleasure, gratify some propensity, gain some vain object of ambition, or the like. If Esau did a foolish action by selling his birthright for a meal of food, so did Judas do a worse one by selling his Lord for thirty pieces of silver, and so did the Jews do the worst action of all by preferring the miscreant and murderer Barabbas to the innocent Jesus. These you imitate when you prefer some base passion, some transient gratification or evil action, to God, and to your birthright — heaven.
III. How you ought to grieve for your past sins, and redouble your caution for the future! "In proportion to our sins," says St. Cyprian, "ought to be our grief, for we have a good Lord, and according to His greatness so also is His mercy with Him."
