ense of sin maketh the
judgment appear most righteous, and stoppeth their mouth from murmuring.
In the time of their impenitency under the rod, their language was very
indifferent, Ezek. xviii. 2. "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the
children's teeth are set on edge;" they have sinned and we suffer; they
have done the wrong and we pay for it. But it is not so now, ver. 5. The
fathers have done righteousness in respect of us, and thou wast good unto
them; but we are all unclean, and have sinned, and so we are punished.

II. They find some cause and ground in God of their general defection; not
that he is the cause of their sin, but in a righteous way he punished sin
with sin. God hid his face, denied special grace and influence; and so
they lie still in their security, and their sin became a spiritual plague.
Or this may be so read,--_None calleth on thy name, when thou didst hide
thy face from us, and when thou didst consume us because of our
iniquities_; and so it serveth to aggravate their deep security, that,
though the Lord was departing from them, yet none would keep him and hold
him. Though he did strike, yet they prayed not; affliction did not awake
them out of security, and so the last words, "Thou hast consumed us," &c.,
are differently exponed and read. Some make it thus, as it is in the
translation, "Thou hast hid thy face," and left us in a spiritual
deadness, that so there might be no impediment to bring on deserved
judgment. If we had called on thee, and laid hold on thee, it might have
been prevented, we might have prevailed with God, but now our defence is
removed, and thou hast given us up to a spirit of slumber, and so we have
no shield to hold off the stroke,--thou hast now good leave to consume us
for our sins. Another sense may be--_Thou hast suffered us to consume in
our iniquity, thou hast given us up to the hand of our sins._ And this is
also a consequent of his hiding his face. Because thou didst hide thy
face, thou lettest us perish in our sins; there needeth no more for our
consumption, but only help us not out of them, for we can soon destroy
ourselves.

_First_, Sin is in its own nature loathsome, and maketh one unclean before
God. Sin's nature is filthiness, vileness, so doth Isaiah speak of
himself, chap. vi. 5, when he saw God's holiness; so doth Job abhor
himself, which is the affection which turneth a man's face off a
loathsome object, when he saw God, Job xl. 4, and xlii. 6. L