An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters…

And they shall be ashamed of their sacrifices.

So long as they prospered in the way of false worship they were not ashamed, but they gloried in their way, and the ten Tribes, Israel, rather despised Judah, and sought to cast shame upon Judah who worshipped God in a right way, as appeareth plainly Amos, 7.12. Go to Judah (saith Amaziah there to Amos in a scorning way,) go your ways thither, and prophesy there. They scorned and contemned Judah and gloried in their own way of false worship.¹ Such as are superstitious and Idolatrous they use to look upon Gods Ordinances as vile and contemptible, and their own inventions as the most glorious things; But God hath a time to honour his Ordinances and to cast shame upon their sacrifices. That is the Note. The true worship of God is many times in such a low esteem amongst men as that they that go th•• way are exceedingly vilified, and many are kept off from the ways of God because they cannot bear the shame of it, there is so much shame cast upon it, none but a company of mean, poor, unwise people that take such a course: But God hath a time to honour his Ordinances, to set up the beauty of them before all the world, and to cast shame and dirt upon all ways of superstition and idolatry, They shall be ashamed of their sacrifices; a time to make even those that did glory most in them to be ashamed of them. Isa. 2.20, 21. They shall cast their Idols of silver and of gold, which they have made each for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks. And Isa. 30.22. They shall defile the covering of their graven Images of silver, and the ornaments of their Images of gold, they shall cast them away as a menstruous cloth, and they shall say unto it, Get thee hence. They thought they were curious ornaments, but the time shall come when God shall make