d his people, and sometimes he appeals
unto their own consciences and is content, though judge, to stand and be
judged by those who were guilty, as ver. 3 and Jer. ii. ver. 5, and 31.
All this supposes, that when the Lord would endeavour to convince them of
iniquity, they did rather recriminate, and took not with their own faults.
This is a truth generally acknowledged by all, "He who is the judge of the
world doth no iniquity," but O! that ye considered it, till the meditation
of it were engraven on your spirits, the seal of God's holiness, that ye
might fear before him, and never call him to account for his matters. Who
can say, I have purged my heart from iniquity? Among men the holiest are
defiled with it, and so are all their actions. But here is one that ye may
give him an implicit faith so to speak, he is "a God of truth," and can
speak no lie, he does no iniquity, and cannot do wrong to any man. Would
there be so much impatience amongst you, and fretting against his
dispensations, if ye believed this solidly? Would ye repine against his
holy and just ways, were it not to charge God with iniquity? Your
murmuring and grudging at his dispensations is with child of blasphemies,
and he who can search the reins sees it, and constructs so of it. You say
by interpretation, that if ye had the government of your own matters, or
of kingdoms, ye would order them better than he doth. How difficult a
thing is it to persuade men to take with their own iniquity! O how many
excuses and pretences, how many extenuations are used that this conviction
may not pierce deeply! But all this speaks so much blasphemy,--that
iniquity is in God. Ye cannot take with your own iniquities, but ye charge
his Majesty with iniquity.

"Just and right is he." Is this any new thing? Was it not said already,
that he is "without uniquity, and his ways judgment?" But, alas! how
ignorant are we of God, and slow of heart to conceive of him as he is,
therefore is there "line upon line, and precept upon precept," and name
upon name, if it be possible, that at length we may apprehend God as he
is. Alas! our knowledge is but ignorance, our light darkness, while it is
shut up in the corner of our mind, and shines not into the heart, and hath
no influence on our practice. And the truth is, the belief of divine
truths is almost no more but a not contradicting them, we do not seriously
think of them as either to consent to them, or deny them. Is there any
consider