unded of the taking of the
covenant in Josiah's time), but they swear by Malcham also, ver. 4, 5.
There are others who do not seek the Lord, nor inquire after him, and many
that turn back from the Lord in a course of backsliding (ver. 6); others
clothed with strange apparel (ver. 8); others, exercising violence and
deceit (ver. 9); a number of atheists also, living among God's people
(ver. 12). For these and the like causes doth the land mourn. It is not
the covenant, but the broken covenant; it is not the reformation, but the
want of a real and personal reformation, that hath drawn on the judgment.
Blessed are they who shall keep their garments clean, and shall be able to
say, "All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither
have we dealt falsely in thy covenant," Psal. xliv. 17.

Thirdly, Give God the glory of his wisdom. Many are now crying, "How long,
Lord? wilt thou hide thyself for ever? shall thy wrath burn like fire?"
Psal. lxxxix. 46. Your answer from God is, that the rod shall be indeed
removed, and even cast into the fire in your stead, but when? It shall be
"when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion, and on
Jerusalem," Isa. x. 12. If the judgment have not yet done all the work it
was sent for, then "they shall go out from one fire, and another fire
shall devour them" (Ezek. xv. 7), saith the Lord. God is a wise refiner,
and will not take the silver out of the fire till the dross be purged away
from it. He is a wise father who will not cast the rod of correction till
it have driven away all that folly which is bound up in the hearts of his
children: "Behold, therefore (saith the Lord) I will gather you into the
midst of Jerusalem. As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead,
and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt
it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave
you there, and melt you," Ezek. xxii. 19, 20. He speaks it to those who
had escaped the captivity of Jehoiakim, and also the captivity of
Jehoiachin, and thought they should be safe and secure in Jerusalem when
their brethren were in Babylon: I will gather you, saith the Lord, even in
the midst of Jerusalem, and when you think you are out of one furnace, you
shall fall into another; and, if you will not be refined from your dross,
you shall never come out of that furnace, but I will melt you there, and
leave you there: which did so come to pass; for the