The reason follows: Rejoyce not as other people: for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God

The reason follows: Rejoyce not as other people: for you have gone a whoring from your God.

The ground of joy or sorrow is the terms that are between God and us; sin has an evil in it to damp all our joy, if we would have joy in any thing let us take heed of defiling it by sin; of all sins, the sin of forsaking God, forsaking or corrupting God's worship, that's such an evil as is enough to take away the joy of a nation, whatever a nation has; if it has forsaken God in matter of worship it has little cause of joy, though we should have peace and outward prosperity, yet if there be not making up of our peace for our going a whoring from God, let there be all the peace that can be made, yet we have little cause to rejoice in it; but a people retaining the true worship of God, whatever it be in other respects, that people has cause to rejoice. Yes, and as a whole nation, so any particular soul, particular men or women, Christians that live in a nation if their consciences can tell them that they have not complied with the times and gone a whoring from God in ways of false worship as others have done, they have cause to rejoyce whatever befals a nation; whereas the others that have had complying spirits, though the nation should prosper never so much, yet they have little cause to rejoyce in that joy: let us therefore be solicitous about nothing so much as about the true worship of God.

Yea but this people might say, Suppose we have some corruptions in the worship of God, yet we do retain more than other nations do. No, says God, you have gone a whoring; and so, you are more guilty than other nations. From where the notes are:

First, that which we may think a little matter in corrupting God's worship, God may call it a going a whoring from him: it's true (might they say) we may fail in some circumstances, we go not up to Jerusalem to worship, but still we worship the true God, and we observe the Law of Moses. No (says the Lord) you have gone a whoring from me.

I but still, why may not we rejoyce as other people, to be sure we are not worse idolaters than they, therefore though we may not rejoyce more than others, yet why not as others? They make idols to be their gods, there is nothing so vile among us as among the nations about us? From where therefore the observation is this, that God charges them more than others,

First, that a people may be free from the gross evils that there are in other people, and may have many good things that other people have not, and yet may be in a worse condition than other people.