4. And _as they did not like to retain_ God _in their knowledge_, so they had small regard to the ordinances of God. _Even from the days of your fathers_, (saith God by his prophets) _ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them_, (Malachi iii. 7.) _Ye have said, it is vain to serve God; and, what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances?_ (verse 14.) _Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob, but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel: Thou hast not brought me my burnt-offerings, neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices_, (Isaiah xliv. 22, 23.) And so the prophet himself confesses, _Thou meetest those that remember thee in thy ways――But there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee_, (Isaiah lxiv. 5, 7.) 5. But they called upon his name by vain oaths, by perjury and blasphemy. So _Jeremiah_, _Because of swearing the land mourneth_, (chapter xxiii. 10.) _And though they say, the Lord liveth, surely they swear falsely_, (chapter v. ♦2.) So _Hosea_, _They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant_: So _Ezekiel_, _They say the Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth_. So _Isaiah_, _Their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory_. (chapter iii. 8.) _They say, Let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it, and let the counsel of the Holy One draw nigh and come that we may know it_, (chapter v. 19.) And so _Malachi_, _Ye have wearied the Lord with your words; ye say, every one that doeth evil, is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them_; and _where is the_ God _of judgment_? (chapter ii. 17.) ♦ “ii.” replaced with “2.” for consistency 6. And as they _despised his holy things_, so they _prophaned his sabbaths_, (Ezekiel xxii. 8.) Yea, when God sent unto them, saying, _Take heed unto yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers:――Yet they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear nor receive instruction_. (Jeremiah xvii. 21, 22, 23.) Neither did they honour their parents, or those whom God from time to time appointed to be rulers over them. _In thee_ (in _Jerusalem_, saith the prophet) _they have set light by father and mother_, (Ezekiel xii. 7.) And from the very day when God brought them up out of the land of _Egypt_, their murmurings, chiding, rebellion and disobedience; against those whom he had chosen to go before them, make the most considerable part of their history. So that had not _Moses stood in the gap_, he had even then destroyed them from the face of the earth.