chapter v

. 11, 13, 15.)

In like manner God complains long after this, _Hear O heavens, and give ear, O earth! I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters, have forsaken the_ Lord, _they have provoked the Holy One of Israel_, (Isaiah i. 2, 3, 4.) _Can a maid forget her ornaments, and a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number_, (Jeremiah ii. 32.)

4. And _as they did not like to retain_ God _in their knowledge_, so they had small regard to the ordinances of God. _Even from the days of your fathers_, (saith God by his prophets) _ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them_, (Malachi iii. 7.) _Ye have said, it is vain to serve God; and, what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances?_ (verse 14.) _Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob, but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel: Thou hast not brought me my burnt-offerings, neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices_, (Isaiah xliv. 22, 23.) And so the prophet himself confesses, _Thou meetest those that remember thee in thy ways――But there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee_, (Isaiah lxiv. 5, 7.)

5. But they called upon his name by vain oaths, by perjury and blasphemy. So _Jeremiah_, _Because of swearing the land mourneth_, ( chapter xxiii . 10.) _And though they say, the Lord liveth, surely they swear falsely_, (