That their worship of God, their church-going, their sabbaths, and
their appointed feasts were a weariness and an abomination to him.
That God loathed them, and would not listen to the prayers which were
made in them. That the whole matter was a mockery and a lie in his
sight.

These are awful words enough--that God should hate and loathe what he
himself had appointed; that what would be, one would think, one of
the most natural and most pleasant sights to a loving Father in
heaven--namely, his own children worshipping, blessing, and praising
him--should be horrible in his sight. There is something very
shocking in that; at least to Church people like us. If we were
Dissenters, who go to chapel chiefly to hear sermons, it would be
easy for us to say--'Of course, forms and ceremonies and appointed
feasts are nothing to begin with; they are man's invention at best,
and may therefore be easily enough an abomination to God.' But we
know that they are not so; that forms and ceremonies and appointed
feasts are good things as long as they have spirit and truth in them;
that whether or not they be of man's invention, they spring out of
the most simple, wholesome wants of our human nature, which is a good
thing and not a bad one, for God made it in his own likeness, and
bestowed it on us. We know, or ought to know, that appointed feast
days, like Christmas, are good and comfortable ordinances, which
cheer our hearts on our way through this world, and give us something
noble and lovely to look forward to month after month; that they are
like landmarks along the road of life, reminding us of what God has
done, and is doing, for us and all mankind. And if you do not know,
I know, that people who throw away ordinances and festivals end, at
least in a generation or two, in throwing away the Gospel truth which
that ordinance or festival reminds us of; just as too many who have