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XXXI.
GOD’S WARNINGS
It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.—Jeremiah xxxvi. 3.
The first lesson for this evening’s service tells us of the wickedness of Jehoiakim, king of Judah. How, when Jeremiah’s prophecies against the sins of Jehoiakim and his people were read before him, he cut the roll with a penknife, and threw it into the fire. Now, we must not look on this story as one which, because it happened among the Jews many hundred years ago, has nothing to do with us; for, as I continually remind you, the history of the Jews, and the whole Old Testament, is the history of God’s dealings with man—the account of God’s plan of governing this world. Now, God cannot change; but is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and therefore His plan of government cannot change: but if men do as those did of whom we read in the Old Testament, God will surely deal with them as He dealt with the men of the Old Testament. This St. Paul tells us most plainly in the tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, where he says that the whole history of the Jews was written for our example—that is for the example of those Christian Corinthians, who were not Jews at all, but Gentiles as we are; and therefore for our example also.
He tells them, that it was Christ Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, who fed and guided the old Jews in the wilderness, and that the Lord will deal with us exactly as He dealt with the old Jews.
Therefore it is a great and fearful mistake, to suppose that because the Jews were a peculiar people and God’s chosen nation, that therefore the Lord’s way of governing them is in any wise different from His way of governing us English at this very day; for that fancy is contrary to the express words of Holy Scripture, in a hundred different places; it is contrary to the whole spirit of our Prayer Book, which is written all through on the belief that the Lord deals with us just as He did with the Jewish nation, and which will not even make sense if it be understood in any other way; and besides, it is most dangerous to the souls and consciences of men. It is most dangerous for us to fancy that God can change; for if God can change, right and wrong can change; for right is the will of God, and wrong is what is against His will; and if we once let into our hearts the notion that God can change His laws of right, our consciences will become daily dimmer and more confused about right and wrong, till we fall, as too many do, under the prophet’s curse, “Woe to them who call good evil, and evil good; who put sweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet,” and fancy, like Ezekiel’s Jews, that God’s ways are unequal; that is, unlike each other, changeable, arbitrary, and capricious, doing one thing at one time, and another at another. No. It is sinful man who is changeable; it is sinful man who is arbitrary. But The Lord is not a man, that He should lie or repent; for He is the only-begotten Son, and therefore the express likeness, of The Everlasting Father, in whom is no variableness, nor shadow of turning.
But some may say, Is not that a gloomy and terrible notion of God, that He cannot change His purpose? Is not that as much as to say that there is a dark necessity hanging over each of us; that a man must just be what God chooses, and do just what He has ordained to do, and go to everlasting happiness or misery exactly as God has foreordained from all eternity, so that there is no use trying to do right, or not to do wrong? If I am to be saved, say such people, I shall be saved whether I try or not; and if I am to be damned, I shall be damned whether I try or not. I am in God’s hands like clay in the hands of the potter; and what I am like is therefore God’s business, and not mine.
No, my friends, the very texts in the Bible which tell us that God cannot change or repent, tell us what it is that He cannot change in—in showing loving-kindness and tender mercy, long-suffering, and repenting of the evil. Whatsoever else He cannot repent of, He cannot repent of repenting of the evil.
It is true, we are in His hand as clay in the hand of the potter. But it is a sad misreading of scripture to make that mean that we are to sit with our hands folded, careless about our own way and conduct; still less that we are to give ourselves up to despair, because we have sinned against God; for what is the very verse which follows after that? Listen. “O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the hand of the potter, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel. At what instant I shall speak concerning a kingdom, to pull down and destroy it; if that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil which I thought to do to them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them.”
So that the lesson which we are to draw from the parable of the potter’s clay is just the exact opposite which some men draw. Not that God’s decrees are absolute: but that they are conditional, and depend on our good or evil conduct. Not that His election or His reprobation are unalterable, but that they alter “at that instant” at which man alters. Not that His grace and will are irresistible, as the foolish man against whom St. Paul argues fancies: but that we can resist God’s will, and that our destruction comes only by resisting His will; in short, that God’s will is no brute material necessity and fate, but the will of a living, loving Father.
And the very same lesson is taught us in Ezek. xviii., of which I spoke just now; for if we read that chapter we shall find that the Jews had a false notion of God that He had changed His character, and had become in their time unmerciful and unjust. They fancied that God was, if I may so speak, obstinate—that if His anger had once arisen, there was no turning it away, but that He would go on without pity, punishing the innocent children for their father’s sin; and therefore they fancied God’s ways were unfair, self-willed, and arbitrary, without any care of what sort of person He afflicted; punishing the righteous as well as the wicked, after He had promised in His law to reward the righteous and punish the wicked. They fancied that His way of governing the world had changed, and that He did not in their days make a difference between the bad and the good. Therefore Ezekiel says to them: “When the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, he shall die.” “When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, he shall live.” “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God, and not that he should return from his ways, and live?”
This, then, is the good news, that God is love; love when He punishes, and love when He forgives; very pitiful, and full of long-suffering and tender mercy and repenting Him, never of the good, but only of the evil which He threatens.
Both Jeremiah, therefore, and Ezekiel, give us the same lesson. God does not change, and therefore He never changes His mercy and His justice: for He is merciful because He is just. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. That is His everlasting law, and has been from the beginning: Punishment, sure and certain, for those who do not repent; and free forgiveness, sure and certain also, for those who do repent.
So He spoke to Jeremiah in the time of Jehoiakim: “It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil that I purpose to do to them; that I may forgive them their iniquity and their sin.” The Lord, you see, wishes to forgive—longs to forgive. His heart yearns over sinful men as a father’s over his rebellious child. But if they will still rebel, if they will still turn their wicked wills away from Him, He must punish. Why we know not; but He knows. Punish He must, unless we repent—unless we turn our wills toward His will. And woe to the stiff-necked and stout-hearted man who, like the wicked king Jehoiakim, sets his face like a flint against God’s warnings. How many, how many behave for years, Sunday after Sunday, just as king Jehoiakim did! When he heard that God had threatened him with ruin for his sins, he heard also that God offered him free pardon if he would repent. Jeremiah gave him free choice to be saved or to be ruined; but his heart and will were hardened. Hearing that he was wrong only made him angry. His pride and self-will were hurt by being told that he must change and alter his ways. He had chosen his way, and he would keep to it; and he cared nothing for God’s offers of forgiveness, because he could not be forgiven unless he did what he was too proud to do, confess himself to be in the wrong, and openly alter his conduct. And how many, as I first said, are like him! They come to church; they hear God’s warnings and threats against their evil ways; they hear God’s offers of free pardon and forgiveness; but being told that they are in the wrong makes them too angry to care for God’s offers of pardon. Pride stops their cars. They have chosen their own way, and they will keep it. They would not object to be forgiven, if they might be forgiven without repenting. But they do not like to confess themselves in the wrong. They do not like to face their foolish companions’ remarks and sneers about their changed ways. They do not like even good people to say of them: “You see now that you were in the wrong after all; for you have altered your mind and your doings yourself, as we told you you would have to do.” No; anything sooner than confess themselves in the wrong; and so they turn their backs on God’s mercy, for the sake of their own carnal pride and self-will.
But, of course, they want an excuse for doing that; and when a man wants an excuse, the devil will soon fit him with a good one. Then, perhaps, the foolish sinner behaves as Jehoiakim did. He tries to forget God’s message in the man who brings it. He grows angry with the preacher, or goes out and laughs at the preacher when service is over, as if it was the preacher’s fault that God had declared what he has; as if it was the preacher’s doing that God has revealed His anger against all sin and unrighteousness. So he acts like Jehoiakim, who tried to take Jeremiah the prophet and punish him, for what not he but the Lord God had declared. Nay, they will often peevishly hate the very sight of a good book, because it reminds them of the sins of which they do not choose to be reminded, just as the young king Jehoiakim was childish enough to vent his spite on Jeremiah’s book of prophecies, by cutting the roll on which it was written with a penknife, and throwing it into the fire. So do sinners who are angry with the preacher who warns them, or hate the sight of good books. But let such foolish and wilful sinners, such full-grown children—for, after all, they are no better—hear the word of the Lord which came to Jehoiakim: “As it is written, he that despiseth Me shall be despised, saith the Lord.” And let them not fancy that their shutting their ears will shut the preacher’s mouth, still less shut up God’s everlasting laws of punishment for sin. No. God’s word stands true, and it will happen to them as it did to Jehoiakim. His burning Jeremiah’s book did not rid him of the book, or save him from the woe and ruin which was prophesied in it; for we have Jeremiah’s book here in our Bibles to this day, as a sign and a warning of what happens to men, be they young or old, be they kings or labouring men, who fight against God. Jeremiah’s words were not lost after all; they were all re-written, and there were added to them also many more like words; for Jehoiakim, by refusing the Lord’s offer of pardon, had added to his sins, and therefore the Lord added to his punishment.
Perhaps, again, the devil finds the wilful sinner another excuse, and the man says to himself, as the Jews did in Ezekiel’s time: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. It is not my own fault that I am living a bad life, but other people’s. My parents ought to have brought me up better. I have had no chance. My companions taught me too much harm. I have too much trouble to get my living; or, I was born with a bad temper; or, I can’t help running after pleasure. Why did God make me the sort of man I am, and put me where I am? God is hard upon me; He is unfair to me. His ways are unequal; He expects as much of me as He does of people who have more opportunities. He threatens to punish me for other people’s sins.”
And then comes another and a darker temptation over the man, and the devil whispers to him such thoughts as these: “God does not care for me; God hates me. Luck, and everything else is against me. There seems to be some curse upon me. Why should I change? Let God change first to me, and then I will change toward Him. But God will not change; He is determined to have no mercy on me. I can see that; for everything goes wrong with me. Then what use in my repenting? I will just go my own way, and what must be must. There is no resisting God’s will. If I am to be saved, I shall be; if I am to be damned, I shall be. I will put all melancholy thoughts out of my head, and go and enjoy myself and forget all. At all events, it won’t last long: ‘Let me eat and drink, for to-morrow I die.’”
Oh, my dear friends, have not some of you sometimes had such thoughts? Then hear the word of the Lord to you: “When—whensoever—whensoever the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness which he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.” “Have I any pleasure in the death of him that dieth? saith the Lord, and not rather that he should be converted, and live?” True, most true, that the Lord is unchangeable: but it is in love and mercy. True, that God’s will and law cannot alter: but what is God’s will and law? The soul that sinneth, it shall die? Yes. But also, the soul that turneth away from its sin, it shall live. Never believe the devil when he tells you that God hates you. Never believe him when he tells you that God has been too hard on you, and put you into such temptation, or ignorance, or poverty, or anything else, that you cannot mend. No. That font there will give the devil the lie. That font says: “Be you poor, tempted, ignorant, stupid, be you what you will, you are God’s child—your Father’s love is over you, His mercy is ready for you.” You feel too weak to change; ask God’s Spirit, and He will give you a strength of mind you never felt before. You feel too proud to change; ask God’s Spirit, and He will humble your proud heart, and soften your hard heart; and you will find to your surprise, that when your pride is gone, when you are utterly ashamed of yourself, and see your sins in their true blackness, and feel not worthy to look up to God, that then, instead of pride, will come a nobler, holier, manlier feeling—self-respect, and a clear conscience, and the thought that, weak and sinful as you are, you are in the right way; that God, and the angels of God, are smiling on you; that you are in tune again with all heaven and earth, because you are what God wills you to be—not His proud, peevish, self-willed child, fancying yourself strong enough to go alone, when in reality you are the slave of your own passions and appetites, and the plaything of the devil: but His loving, loyal son, strong in the strength which God gives you, and able to do what you will, because what you will God wills also.
XXXII.
PHARAOH’S HEART
And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.—Exodus ix. 17.
What lesson, now, can we draw from this story? One, at least, and a very important one. What effect did all these signs and wonders of God’s sending, have upon Pharaoh and his servants? Did they make them better men or worse men? We read that they made them worse men; that they helped to harden their hearts. We read that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go. Now, how did the Lord do that? He did not wish and mean to make Pharaoh more hard-hearted, more wicked. That is impossible. God, who is all goodness and love, never can wish to make any human being one atom worse than he is. He who so loved the world that He came down on earth to die for sinners, and take away the sins of the world, would never make any human being a greater sinner than he was before. That is impossible, and horrible to think of. Therefore, when we read that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, we must be certain that that was Pharaoh’s own fault; and so, we read, it was Pharaoh’s own fault. The Lord did not bring all these plagues on Egypt without giving Pharaoh fair warning. Before each plague, He sent Moses to tell Pharaoh that the plague was coming. The Lord told Pharaoh that He was his Master, and the Master and Lord of the whole earth; that the children of Israel belonged to Him, and the Egyptians too; that the river, light and darkness, the weather, the crops, and the insects, and the locusts belonged to Him; that all diseases which afflict man and beast were in His power. And the Lord proved that His words were true, in a way Pharaoh could not mistake, by changing the river into blood, and sending darkness, and hailstones, and plagues of lice and flies, and at last by killing the firstborn of all the Egyptians. The Lord gave Pharaoh every chance; He condescended to argue with him as one man would with another, and proved His word to be true, and proved that He had a right to command Pharaoh. And therefore, I say, if Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, it was his own fault, for the Lord was plainly trying to soften it, and to bring him to reason. And the Bible says distinctly that it was Pharaoh’s own fault. For it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, he and his servants, and therefore they would not let the children of Israel go. Now how could Pharaoh harden his own heart, and yet the Lord harden it at the same time?
Just in the same way, my friends, as too many of us are apt to make the Lord harden our hearts by hardening them ourselves, and to make, as Pharaoh did, the very things which the Lord sends to soften us, the causes of our becoming more stubborn; the very things which the Lord sends to bring us to reason, the means of our becoming more mad and foolish. Believe me, my friends, this is no old story with which we have nothing to do. What happened to Pharaoh’s heart may happen to yours, or mine, or any man’s. Alas! alas! it does happen to many a man’s and woman’s heart every day—and may the Lord have mercy on them before it be too late,—and yet how can the Lord have mercy on those who will not let Him have mercy on them?
What do I mean? This is what I mean, my friends; Oh, listen to it, and take it solemnly to heart, you who are living still in sin; take it to heart, lest you, like Pharaoh, die in your sins, and your latter end will be worse than your beginning.
Suppose a man to be going on in some sinful habit; cheating his neighbours, grinding his labourers, or getting tipsy, or living with a woman without being married to her. He comes to church, and there he hears the word of the Lord, by the Bible, or in sermons, telling him that God commands him to give up his sin, that God will certainly punish him if he does not repent and amend. God sends that message to him in love and mercy, to soften his heart by the terrors of the law, and turn him from his sin. But what does the man feel? He feels angry and provoked; angry with the preacher; ay, angry with the Bible itself, with God’s words. For he hates to hear the words which tell him of his sin; he wishes they were not in the Bible; he longs to stop the preacher’s mouth; and, as he cannot do that, he dislikes going to church. He says: “I cannot, and what is more, I will not, give up my sinful ways, and therefore I shall not go to church to be told of them.” So he stops away from church, and goes on in his sins. So that man’s heart is hardened, just as Pharaoh’s was. Yet the Lord has come and spoken to that sinful man in loving warnings: though all the effect it has had is that the Lord’s message has made him worse than he was before, more stubborn, more godless, more unwilling to hear what is good. But men may fall into a still worse state of mind. They may determine to set the Lord at naught; to hear Him speaking to their conscience, and know that He is right and they wrong, and yet quietly put the good thoughts and feelings out of their way, and go in the course which they know to be the worst. How many a man in business or the world says to himself, ay, and in his better moments will say to his friend: “Ah, yes, if one could but be what one would wish to be. . . . What one’s mother used to say one might be. . . . But for such a world as this, the gospel ideal is somewhat too fine and unpractical. One has one’s business to carry on, or one’s family to provide for, or one’s party in politics to serve; one must obey the laws of trade, the usages of society, the interests of one’s class;” and so forth. And so an excuse is found for every sin, by those who know in their hearts that they are sinning; for every sin; and among others, too often, for that sin of Pharaoh’s, of “not letting the people go.”
And how many, my friends, when they come to church, harden their hearts in the same quiet, almost good-humoured way, not caring enough for God’s message to be even angry with it, and take the preacher’s warnings as they would a shower of rain, as something unpleasant which cannot be helped; and which, therefore, they must sit out patiently, and think about it as little as possible? And when the sermon is over, they take their hats and go out into the churchyard, and begin talking about something else as quickly as possible, to drive the unpleasant thoughts, if there are a few left, out of their heads. And thus they let the Lord’s message to them harden their hearts. For it does harden them, my friends, if it be taken in this temper. Every time anyone sits through the service or the sermon in this stupid and careless mood, he dulls and deadens his soul, till at last he is able coolly to sit through the most awful warnings of God’s judgment, the most tender entreaties of God’s love, as if he were a brute animal without understanding. Ay, he is able to make the responses to the commandments, and join in the psalms, and so with his own mouth, before the whole congregation, confess that God’s curse is on his doings, with no more sense or care of what the words mean, and of what a sentence he is pronouncing against himself, than if he were a parrot taught to speak by rote words which he does not understand. And so that man, by hardening his own heart, makes the Lord harden it for him.
But there is a third way, and a worse way still, in which people’s hearts are hardened by the Lord’s speaking to them. A man is warned of his sins by the preacher; and he says to himself: “If the minister thinks that he is going to frighten me away from church, he is very much mistaken. He may go his way, and I shall go mine. Let him preach at me as much as he will; I shall go to church all the more for that, to show him that I am not afraid.” And so the Lord’s warnings harden his heart, and provoke him to set his face like a flint, and become all the more proud and stubborn.
Now, young people, I speak openly to you as man to man. Will you tell me that this was not the very way in which some of you took my sermon last Sunday afternoon, in which I warned you of the misery which your sinful lives would bring upon you? Was there not more than one of you, who, as soon as he got outside the church, began laughing and swaggering, and said to the lad next him: “Well, he gave it us well in his sermon this afternoon, did he not? But I don’t care; do you?”
To which the other foolish fellow answered: “Not I. It is his business to talk like that; he is paid for it, and I suppose he likes it. So if he does what he likes, we shall do what we like. Come along.” And at that all the other foolish fellows round burst out laughing, as if the poor lad had said a very clever thing; and they all went off together, having their hearts hardened by the Lord’s warning to them, as Pharaoh’s was.
And they showed, I am afraid, that very evening that their hearts were hardened. For out of a sort of spite and stubbornness they took a delight in doing what was wrong, just because they had been told that it was wrong, and because they were determined to show that they would not be frightened or turned from what they chose.
And all the while they knew that it was wrong, did those poor foolish lads. If you had asked one of them openly, “Do you not know that God has forbidden you to do this?” they would have either been forced to say, “Yes,” or else they would have tried to laugh the matter off, or perhaps held their tongues and looked silly, or perhaps again answered insolently; showing by each and all of these ways of taking it, that the Lord’s message had come home to their consciences, and convinced them of their sin, though they were determined not to own it or obey it. And the way they would have put the matter by and excused themselves to themselves would have been just the way in which Pharaoh did it. They would have tried to forget that the Lord had warned them, and tried to make out to themselves that it was all the preacher’s doing, and to make it a personal quarrel between him and them. Just so Pharaoh did when he hardened his heart. He made the Lord’s message a ground for hating and threatening Moses and Aaron, as if it was any fault of theirs. He knew in his heart that the Lord had sent them; but he tried to forget that, and drove them out from his presence, and told them that if they dared to appear before him again they should surely die. And just so, my friends, people will be angry with the preacher for telling them unpleasant truths, as if it was any more pleasure to him to speak than for them to hear. Oh, why will you forget that the words which I speak from this pulpit are not my words, but God’s? It is not I who warn you of what you are bringing on yourselves by your sins, it is God Himself. There it is written in His Bible—judge for yourselves. Read your Bibles for yourselves, and you will see that I am not speaking my own thoughts and words. And as for being angry with me for telling you truth, read the ordination service which is read whenever a clergyman is ordained, and judge for yourselves. What is a clergyman sent into the world for at all, but to say to you what I am saying now? What should I be but a hypocrite and a traitor to the blessed Lord who died for me, and saved me from my sins, and ordained me to preach to sinners, that they too may be saved from their sins,—what should I be but a traitor to Him, if I did not say to you, whenever I see you going wrong:
“O come, let us worship, and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
“For He is the Lord our God; and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.
“To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts,
“Lest He sware in His wrath that you shall not enter into His rest!”
And now, my friends, I will tell you what will happen to you. You see that I know something, without having been told of what has been going on in your hearts. I beseech you, believe me when I tell you what will go on in them. God will chastise you for your sins. He will; just because He loves you, and does not hate you; just because you are His children, and not dumb animals born to perish. Troubles will come upon you as you grow older. Of what sort they will be I cannot tell; but that they will come, I can tell full well. And when the Lord sends trouble to you, shall it harden your hearts or soften them? It depends on you, altogether on you, whether the Lord hardens your hearts by sending those sorrows, or whether He softens and turns them and brings them back to the only right place for them—home to Him. But your trouble may only harden your heart all the more. The sorrows and sore judgments which the Lord sent Pharaoh only hardened his heart. It all depends upon the way in which you take these troubles, my friends. And that not so much when they come as after they come. Almost all, let their hearts be right with God or not, seem to take sorrow as they ought, while the sorrow is on them. Pharaoh did so too. He said to Moses and Aaron: “I have sinned this time. The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. Entreat the Lord that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail; and I will let you go.” What could be more right or better spoken? Was not Pharaoh in a proper state of mind then? Was not his heart humbled, and his will resigned to God? Moses thought not. For while he promised Pharaoh to pray that the storm might pass over, yet he warned him: “But as for thee and thy servants, I know that ye will not yet fear the Lord your God.” And so it happened; for, “when Pharaoh saw that the rain, and hail, and thunder had ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants. Neither would he let the children of Israel go.” . . . And so, alas! it happens to many a man and woman nowadays. They find themselves on a sick-bed. They are in fear of death, in fear of poverty, in fear of shame and punishment for their misdeeds. And then they say: “It is God’s judgment. I have been very wicked. I know God is punishing me. Oh, if God will but raise me up off this sick-bed; if He will but help me out of this trouble, I will give up all my wicked ways. I will repent and amend.” So said Pharaoh; and yet, as soon as he was safe out of his distress, he hardened his heart. And so does many a man and woman, who, when they get safe through their troubles, never give up one of their sins, any more than Pharaoh did. They really believe that God has punished them. They really intend to amend, while they are in the trouble: but as soon as they are out of it, they try to persuade themselves that it was not God who sent the sorrow, that it came “by accident,” or that “people must have trouble in this life,” or that “if they had taken better care, they might have prevented it.”—All of them excuses to themselves for forgetting God in the matter, and, therefore, for forgetting what they promised to God in trouble; and so, after all, they go on just as they went on before. And yet not as they went on before. For every such sin hardens their hearts; every such sin makes them less able to see God’s hand in what happens to them; every such sin makes them more bold and confident in disobeying God, and saying to themselves: “After all, why should I be so frightened when I am in trouble, and make such promises to amend my life? For the trouble goes away, whether I mend my life or not; and nothing happens to me; God does not punish me for not keeping my promises to Him. I may as well go on in my own way, for I seem not the worse off in body or in purse for so doing.” Thus do people harden their hearts after each trouble, as Pharaoh did; so that you will see people, by one affliction after another, one loss after another, all their lives through, warned by God that sin will not prosper them; and confessing that their sins have brought God’s punishment on them: and yet going on steadily in the very sins which have brought on their troubles, and gaining besides, as time runs on, a heart more and more hardened. And why?
