here to serve their enemies--"but they
seemed to that degenerate people as those who mocked, and they
believed them not."

There is a certain grade of depravity which scoffs at warnings and
laughs at the shakings of God's spear! When this hath become the
general character of a people, desolating judgments are near. Those
who conceive mercy to be the only attribute of Deity; or the only
attribute which he can exercise _towards them_, are commonly deaf to
warnings. Sure evidence that they are given up of God--that his spirit
hath ceased to strive with them. Rarely are those brought to
repentance who entertain such views of God. Perhaps never, unless
their views of him are changed. They have no fear of God before their
eyes. If mercy absorbed every other attribute, there could be no place
for fear. And of what enormity are those incapable who have lost
the fear of God? Such corruption of principle is the bane of practice,
and prelude of ruin and wretchedness. The history of the Hebrews, and
the history of mankind, confirm the truth of this remark.

This prophet having long warned his charge to no purpose, is here
directed to apply to them in another manner--to try to shame them into
contrition, by setting before them the part acted by a particular
family which dwelt among them--the Rechabites, who had for ages
religiously obeyed the injunctions of one of their ancestors, left
probably as his dying charge.

Some of that progenitor's requirements seemed rigorous, but being the
order of a respected ancestor the family considered them as
obligatory; nor could they be persuaded to violate them in
any particular, though publicly invited to it by a prophet.

It _may be proper here to make some inquiries relative to these
Rechabites--to the person whose charge they conceived so binding; and
the nature and design of the charge_.

The Rechabites are said to have been a branch of the Kenites, and to
have descended from Hobab, the son of Jethro, Moses' father in law. *

* Vide Henry and Brown's Dictionary.

While Israel were encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai, that
Midianitish priest, or prince, visited Moses, bringing with him,
Zipporah, the wife of Moses and her children, who had been sent to her
father's as a place of safety, during the troubles in Egypt. Not long
after, Hobab, the son of Jethro, appears to have been with Israel in
the wilderness; and he was invited to go with them to the land of
promise, and take his lot