heir sins, but in their duties; "they cried not to Me; they fasted not
to Me; not at all unto Me." But now they remember the Lord their God;
they seek His face; they labour to atone Him; yea, they seek Him to be
their Lord, as well as their Saviour; to govern them, as well as to
deliver them; "they ask the way to Zion;" they require as well, and
more, how they should serve Him, as that He should save them. "The Lord
is our judge, the Lord is our law-giver, the Lord is our king, He will
save us." Beloved Christians, let us write after this copy, and in this
great business we have in hand, let us seek God, and seek Him as a
fountain of holiness, as well as a fountain of happiness. Take we heed
of those base, low, dung-hill ends, which prevailed upon the Shechemites
to enter into covenant with the God of the Hebrews, "shall not their
cattle and substance be ours?" Let the two nations, and every soul in
both the nations, that lift up the hand to the most high God, in this
holy league and covenant, take heed of, and abhor such unworthy
thoughts, if they should be crowding in upon this service, and say unto
them, as once Christ to Peter, "get thee behind me, Satan; thou
savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men."
You may remember how it fared with Hamor, and his son Shechem, and their
people, to whom they propounded these base ends. God did not only
disappoint them of their ends, but destroy them for them; their aims
were to get the Hebrews' substance and cattle; but they lost their own,
with lives to boot; "For it came to pass on the third day, when they
were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, came upon the city
boldly, and slew all the males. And the sons of Jacob came upon the
slain, and spoiled the city; they took their sheep, and their oxen, and
all their wealth." A most horrid and bloody treachery and cruelty in
them, which stands as a brand of infamy upon their foreheads to this
day; but a most just and righteous censure from God, and a caution to
all succeeding generations, of prostituting heavenly and holy ordinances
to earthly and sensual ends. Oh! let it be our "admonition, upon whom
the ends of the world are come, to the end, that we may not tempt God,
as they also tempted." For, if God so much abhorred, and so severely
punished these worldly respects in the men of the world; if God was so
angry with poor purblind heathen, who had no other light for their
guide, but the gli