, when
he speaks to the Jews in such terms, Isa. lviii. 5,--"Is it such a fast
that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his soul?" And do ye so
much as afflict it for a day, or at all? Is this then the fast that he
will choose, to abstain from your breakfast in the morning, and at night
to compensate the want of it, and no more?(258) Is this an acceptable day
to the Lord? The Lord upbraids the Jews, "Wilt thou call this a fast?" And
what reason have we to ask you, is it possible ye think ye do indeed fast
to the Lord? I cannot think that the most part of you dare say, that ever
ye fasted or afflicted your souls.

Always here is the way, if we consider it. To spend a day acceptably to
the Lord, enter into a serious consideration of his Majesty, and
yourselves. Study on these two till ye find your hearts bear the stamp of
them, enlarge your hearts in the thoughts of them. Both are infinite,--his
goodness and power and mercy, and your sin and misery,--no end of them.
Whatever ye find good in God, write up answerably to it, so much evil and
sin in yourselves and the land; and what evil ye find in yourselves and
the land, write up so much goodness and mercy in his account. All the
names of his praise would be so many grounds of your confusion in
yourselves, and would imprint so many notes of reproach and disgrace upon
the creature found so contrary to him. This is even the exercise God calls
us to this day,--to consider his ways to us, and our ways to him; how he
hath walked, and how we have walked. Because ye lose the sight of these
two, he sends affliction,--because in our prosperity and peace we forget
God, and so ourselves; as ye find this people did, "when they waxed fat
they kicked against him, and forgat that he was their Rock." We are so
much taken up with our own ease and peace, that we do not observe him in
his dealings; therefore doth the Lord trouble our peace, remove those
things we are taken up with, make a public proclamation of affliction, and
blessed be his name whose end is gracious. He means this,--it is the
proclamation of all his judgments,--turn your eyes off your present ease
here, consider what I am, and what yourselves are. No nation so soon
buries the memory of his mercies, O how soon are they drowned in oblivion!
And we forget our own provocations as suddenly. Therefore must he write
our iniquities upon a rod, that we may read them in great letters; and he
writes his former goodness in the cha