Jeremiah 18

18: 1, 2 THE word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Arise, and go down 3 to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. Then I went down to 4 the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought his work on the wheels. And when the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. 5, 6 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine 7 hand, O house of Israel. At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning 8 a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it; if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto 9 them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to 10 build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent 11 of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them. Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his 12 evil way, and amend your ways and your doings. But they say, There is no hope: for we will walk after our own devices, and we will do every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart. 13 Therefore thus saith the LORD: Ask ye now among the nations, who hath heard such 14 things; the virgin of Israel hath done a very horrible thing. Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? or shall the cold waters that flow down from afar be dried up? 15 For my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity; and they have caused them to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in by paths, in a way not cast up; 16 to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing; every one that passeth thereby 17 shall be astonished, and shake his head. I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will look upon their back, and not their face, in the day of their calamity. 18 Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words. 19 Give heed to me, O LORD, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me. 20 Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember how 21 I stood before thee to speak good for them, to turn away thy fury from them. Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, and their 22 young men smitten of the sword in battle. Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares 23 for my feet. Yet, LORD, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me; forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight: but let them be overthrown before thee; deal thou with them in the time of thine anger. 19: 1 Thus said the LORD, Go, and buy a potter’s earthen bottle, and take of the elders of 2 the people, and of the elders of the priests; and go forth unto the valley of the son of Hin- nom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell

3 thee : and say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem ; thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, 4 the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle. Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom they knew not, they and their fathers and the kings of Judah ; and have filled this place with the blood 5 of innocents ; and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt offerings unto Baal ; which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind : 6 therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called 7 Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter. And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place ; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of them that seek their life : and their carcasses will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. 8 And I will make this city an astonishment, and an hissing ; every one that passeth thereby 9 shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof. And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek 10 their life, shall straiten them. Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that 11 go with thee, and shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts : Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again : 12 and they shall bury in Topheth, till there be no place to bury. Thus will I do unto this 13 place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, even making this city as Topheth : and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, shall be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods. 14 Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, whither the LORD had sent him to prophesy ; and he 15 stood in the court of the LORD’s house, and said to all the people : Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it ; because they have made their neck stiff, that they might not hear my words. 20 : 1 Now Pashhur the son of Immer the priest, who was chief officer in the house of 2 the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. Then Pashhur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, which was in 3 the house of the LORD. And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashhur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The LORD hath not called thy 4 name Pashhur, but Magor-missabib. For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends : and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it : and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive to Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword. 5 Moreover I will give all the riches of this city, and all the gains thereof, and all the precious things thereof, yea, all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their 6 enemies, which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon. And thou, Pashhur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity : and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and there shalt thou be buried, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied falsely. 7 O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived : thou art stronger than I, and hast 8 prevailed : I am become a laughingstock all the day, every one mocketh me. For as often as I speak, I cry out ; I cry, Violence and spoil : because the word of the LORD is made a 9 reproach unto me, and a derision, all the day. And if I say, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name, then there is in mine heart as it were a burning fire shut up 10 in my bones, and I am weary with forbearing, and I cannot contain. For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. Denounce, and we will denounce him, say all my familiar friends, they that watch for my halting : peradventure he will be enticed, and we 11 shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him. But the LORD is with me as a mighty one and a terrible : therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail : they shall be greatly ashamed, because they have not dealt wisely, even with an 12 everlasting dishonour which shall never be forgotten. But, O LORD of hosts, that triest the righteous, that seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them ; for unto

13 thee have I revealed my cause. Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the needy from the hand of evil-doers.

14. Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be

15 blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is

16 born unto thee; making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear a cry in the morning, and shouting at noon-

17 tide; because he slew me not from the womb; and so my mother should have been my

18 grave, and her womb always great. Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

Chap. 18. The prophecies and transactions contained in this and the two following chapters successively hang together, and must be referred to some part of the three first years of the reign of Jehoiakim. The prophet is shown, first, under the type of the potter, God’s absolute authority over nations and kingdoms to regulate and alter their condition at His own discretion (verses 1-10). He is then directed to exhort the people to avert the evil designed them by repentance and amendment; and upon their refusal to charge them with the guilt of unprecedented revolt, and to foretell their destruction (verses 11-17). They conspire against him: he protesteth against their unmerited and ungrateful persecution of him, and calleth for justice against them. Blayney.

In chaps. 18 and 19 we must recognize symbolic transactions in real life. Here, too, the proof of this lies in the form of the statement: “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there will I cause thee to hear my words.” Here is something to be done before the revelation proper from the Lord even begins. More still to our argument is the implication (verse 6) that the house of Israel are witnesses of what was done by the potter. “O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?” This, of course, locates the scene in the external world. So in chap. 19, something is to be actually done in the outer world: “Go and get thee a potter’s earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, etc., and go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee.” A part of this message stands (verses 3-9), and then in verse 10 the Lord said, “Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, and say, Thus saith the Lord, Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again.”

Here we have the usual criteria of actuality. Things are to be said and done by the prophet—not merely seen in vision; and they are to be said and done before the eyes of the people.

There can be no doubt that this is a symbolic transaction. It stands, therefore, as further proof of a constant Divine care and purpose to distinguish between visions and things of actual life, done for the greater effect through the power of symbol.

A potter making earthen vessels from clay is the text for this discourse, the great doctrine being that God can mould and shape the destinies of nations with equal ease and with absolute control.

1-4. For the sake of more deeply impressing the truth which the Lord would teach both the prophet and the people, He directs Jeremiah to go down to the workshop of the potter and see him construct his earthen vessel. The reader need scarcely be told that this operation was probably performed then substantially as it is now—i.e., upon a horizontal revolving wheel, the centrifugal force being depended on largely to give shape to the plastic clay. In this case his first efforts did not succeed, and he forthwith massed the same material and made a second effort, assuming of course his right, and showing his power to do anything with his clay that he chose. Using this case as an illustration, the Lord proceeds to assert His analogous right and power to determine and shape the destiny of nations at His pleasure. Let it be noted that this illustration is not used here to show that God makes and moulds the free moral activities of men, even the free action of their will, according to His absolute pleasure, allowing to them no more responsibility or activity than the clay has in the potter’s hand. This is neither asserted nor implied here. This is not by any means the point of the comparison; but the point is, as we shall soon see, that God can speak concerning a nation to pull it down and destroy it, or to build it up, and instantly the agencies of His providence prove themselves perfectly adequate for this result. With infinite ease He can say this and do it. The reader will specially note the bearing of this case upon the theory of interpretation held by some which assumes that where inspired prophets were commanded to go and to do, it was going and doing in vision only, and not in actual fact. Was not this most obviously a fact? Was not this man at the wheel a living, working potter, and the whole thing a scene in the outward living world? How can this be rationally doubted? H. C.

We have, like Jeremiah, in the words of Scripture, gone down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. Before him is a revolving horizontal disk; beside him a heap of clay. Seizing a handful of the clay, he throws it down, a rude, unformed, shapeless mass, on the flying wheel; and how curious it is to see that lump, as it spins round and round, begin at the touch of his skilful fingers to lose its shapelessness, assume a definite form, and by and by swell out and rise up into a vessel of perfect proportions. It is more than curious; it is instructive. One cannot watch the plastic clay growing to the workman’s will and touch into a vessel for common or sacred uses, for roughest hands or jewelled fingers, without seeing God in the potter, and man in the clay—feeling the beauty of Scripture figures, and how much ourselves and fortunes are in the hands of Him who said, “O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of Israel.” Shall the thing made say of him that made it, Why hast thou made me thus? T. Guthrie.

1-6. Than in this passage nowhere do we get a more striking view of the general method of the Divine dealings with the human race. It suggests:

God’s absolute sovereignty over the being and life of every man. The figure of the potter and the clay is one of frequent occurrence in Holy Scripture. (See Job 10:9; Isa. 64:8; Rom. 9:10.) It vividly represents the subjection of our nature and our personal history to the Divine control. The fact of our moral freedom, the mysterious prerogative that belongs to us of choosing and following our own way, must needs make the comparison defective. There is some point at which all such physical analogies fail duly to set forth the realities of moral and spiritual life. But it is deeply true as suggestive of the power God has over us to mould us as He pleases. Free as our will may be, is not our whole nature as plastic material in the hands of Him who made us? Free as we may be to pursue our own chosen course of life, can we ever escape the “Divinity that shapes our ends”? There is a hidden power, whether we acknowledge it or not, the mastery of which over thought, feeling, purpose and action is the deepest reality of our existence.

His formative purpose. Distinguish between a sovereign power and one that is arbitrary and capricious. Complete as the Divine mastery over us may be, it is not lawless or purposeless. It has always a definite end in view, and that end is wise and holy and good. As the potter seeks to fashion the clay into some beautiful or useful form that his own brain has first conceived, so God, by His providential and spiritual control, seeks to work out a Divine idea in our being and life, to body forth in us some archetype of moral beauty that exists in His own eternal mind. He would fain fashion us into a noble form and fit us for some noble use. In God’s “great house” there are many utilities. And even the vessel “unto dishonor” has its place and its purpose. Our faith in the infinitely wise and holy love that governs all leads us to rest in the thought:

“That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete.”

But He who formed us for Himself would not have any of us to be content with an inferior position and a lower aim. He would so mould and fashion us that we shall be “vessels unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use” (2 Tim. 2:21).

His long-suffering patience. When the potter’s work is marred, he presses the clay into a shapeless mass and casts it upon the wheel again. We are reminded of the various methods God employs in moulding us to His will, and how if one fails He will often subject us to another. There are events that sometimes break up the whole form of a man’s life; old ties are severed, old associations pass away; he begins an altogether new career, with new responsibilities, new moral tests, new possibilities of good. There are afflictions that change the whole tenor of a man’s inward life; his spirit is crushed, wounded, softened, that it may the better receive Divine impressions. “God maketh my heart soft,” etc. (Job 23:16). “My heart is like wax” (Ps. 22:14). Thus does God “humble us to prove us, to know what is in our heart, whether we will keep His commandments or not” (De. 8:2). There may come a time when all these Divine methods fail and the soul is found to be reprobate. In chap. 19:1-11 we have a figurative prophecy of the ultimate abandonment of the Jewish people to their fate. In this case the vessel has been baked in the fire; it is incapable of taking a new shape, and is broken so “that it cannot be made whole again.” Such is the doom of the finally impenitent and intractable. But God’s patience is very wonderful. In this world at least the door of mercy is always open. There is always the possibility of a new and nobler life. He “is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). W.

God has absolute authority over us. He has the ultimate right of supreme sovereignty to do as He will with His subjects. Yet there is nothing alarming in this fact, but rather an infinite consolation. For God is not a heartless despot, displaying arbitrary power by mere caprice; He is holy, and exercises His sovereignty according to principles of strict justice, truth and right. He is gracious, and rules with purposes of love for the good of His creatures. Our dependence on God is, like that of the infant on its mother, the security of our own welfare. Those applications of the doctrine of Divine sovereignty which attribute to it designs that would be accounted cruel in any responsible being are blasphemous insults to the impartial justice and love of God’s character. If God’s actions are not limited by any physical compulsion or constitutional law, they are governed by His regard to eternal righteousness and by the beneficence of His nature. Adeney.

As the clay is in the potter’s hand to destroy the incipient form of one vessel and to mould it into a new and better one, so are the nations of men in God’s hand, to mar and destroy, or to build up and bless at His pleasure. This is the point of the comparison. There is no occasion to deny that this involves various agencies of Divine providence upon the free moral activities of men. Such agencies God is every day exerting, yet with no infringement upon the freedom of the human will. God here shows that He exercises His agency so as to meet their moral state precisely, sparing the penitent and destroying the incorrigibly wicked. H. C.

The purpose of God with regard to man is essentially and persistently a creative one. The first effort of the potter is formative; and when, through the marring of the vessel, he has to reduce the clay into the lump again, there still remains an intention to form anew. The effects of sin are shown to be profound from the fact that the potter is obliged to remake what has been marred. The effort of restoring love succeeds upon another, and “where sin abounded grace did much more abound” (Rom. 5:20). There is no nation which has not had many opportunities of recovering its position and influence forfeited by unfaithfulness and unbelief, and there is no sinner hardened in his sins who has not repeatedly rejected a heavenly voice. Each proclamation of God’s Word is a fresh opportunity which may avail for salvation to every one who will embrace it. M.

Our wisdom is to turn from our hardness and impenitent hearts, and allow God to lead us into the full μετὰνοσα (Rom. 2:4). Then with understanding shall we address God, “We are the clay, and Thou our potter” (Isa. 64:8). If we by repentance come back to God and make ourselves clay, such as will have in it a peculiar responsiveness to the touch of God, then we may leave ourselves to His loving-kindness. He will fashion us into just that shape whereby we shall be meet for the Master’s service. And if men say in their ignorance that we are turning out but vessels of dishonor, let us recollect that of honor and dishonor God alone is judge. If we only stoop from our pride to do the will of God, God will take care of our position. For is not God He who exalts the humble and abases the proud? Y.

Every life has not the same purpose. The potter makes vessels of innumerable shapes. Yet each life is successful as its own particular purpose is fulfilled. A life is no failure because it is lowly and put only to lowly uses so long as it attains the end for which God designed it. It is important to note that God’s first work with us is in forming our own souls aright. The first question is not as to what we do, but as to what we are. The potter is making vessels; God is making characters, souls, lives. After this we may be put to some further end—used for good after we have been made right, as the vessel is of service after the potter has done his work with it. Adeney.

7-10. God’s action determined by man’s conduct. These verses may be read as balancing those that precede. The illustration of the potter at his work shows us simply the Divine side of life. The following verses take us round to the human side, and the human conditions in accordance with which God exercises the rights and power of His absolute sovereignty. God does not act blindly, inconsiderately, on general principles alone, without regard to individual cases, nor with one changeless course irrespective of the changes in the behavior of His creatures. He takes note of these changes and modifies His treatment of men by their varying requirements. This fact is not derogatory to the absolute sovereignty of God. A just sovereign considers his people. God acts according to His own will; but His will, though inflexible in moral principles, varies in the choice of particular actions according as the application of those principles varies with the circumstances of the world. This fact is not inconsistent with the definiteness of the purposes of God. The potter has his definite design, yet he proceeds with his work to the conclusion or breaks up the clay and begins again, according as he finds it plastic or brittle. Adency.

God does not threaten evil because He is resolved to inflict it, rather, He threatens it that we may by our repentance prevent it, and so He may not inflict it. “He foretelleth,” saith Chrysostom, “what He will bring upon us for this very purpose, that He may not bring it upon us; and warneth before He striketh to make us careful to avoid the stroke.” God sends His servants, the prophets, to threaten vengeance against sinners, not thereby to drive them from hope of mercy, but to draw them to repentance and humiliation. Nor is it to be accounted among the least of God’s mercies that, when He might in His just displeasure overwhelm us in the very act of sin, yet He forbeareth and forewarneth, foretelleth and threateneth us before He punish; that if we will take any warning, He may do better to us than He hath said, and not bring upon us what He hath threatened. Bp. Sanderson.

From these verses we may infer that God’s promises in Scripture, however uttered in general terms, are yet for the most part to be understood conditionally, according as men behave themselves. And as God did justly reject those Jews who refused to embrace the Gospel, notwithstanding the general promises He had made to that people, so neither can particular Christians nor churches lay any claim to God’s general promise of preserving His Church any further than as they adhere to that rule of faith and manners which He hath prescribed to them in His holy word. W. Lowth.

It is righteousness alone that exalteth a nation. Repentance toward God, flowing from faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, is the only effectual means for preventing the ruin of a sinful people. Without this we may obtain a temporary respite from punishment; but the clouds will return again after the rain; and all the while we are filling up the measure of our iniquity, the consumption is advancing, and every day we draw nearer and nearer to dissodissolution. Whereas, if we accept of the punishment of our iniquity, and put away from us those evil doings which provoke the Lord to jealousy, then may we hope that He will return to us in mercy, and rejoice over us to bless us and to do us good according to this encouraging promise. R. W.

The Bible is pervaded by the idea of nations as moral personalities, as true political or organic entities, as moral powers to whom are addressed the most solemn admonitions, the most emphatic warnings of a retribution that will surely come, though, it may be, generations, and even ages, after the then composing individual masses have passed away from the earthly existence. Along with this appears everywhere that other idea of the Messianic lordship. It is so distinctly set forth that any nation denying it, or refusing its acknowledgment in some way, by word or deed, must be regarded as having forfeited the Christian name. The passages are too numerous to be cited. . . . God, law and retribution are the articles that enter into the theology of every nation. To the Christian State there belongs a fourth, without which it utterly forfeits the Christian title. This is the article of Messiah’s dominion, or the rule of One as God’s vicegerent, whom He hath appointed Judge of the nations, and to whom “there is given,” for this end, “all power in heaven and upon the earth.” T. Lewis.

Without religion no nation can feel itself secure. Ungodliness provokes the anger of the Lord, and, like Israel of old, the nation that neglects religion and gives itself up to iniquity, will not be able to stand before its enemies. It may truly be said of such, their defence is departed from them, for, by so doing, they incur the displeasure of Him who is the only sure defence and refuge in the day of trouble. Warriors and statesmen may affect to despise all this, while they put their trust in human wisdom and prowess, but God can soon teach them that it is religion alone that can render a country truly invincible; and that the prayers of the godly are more to be trusted than swords of steel—the sighs of true penitence a surer safeguard than all the thunders of artillery. Religion is, in truth, “the cheap defence of nations.” Symington.

The constructive and positive power, which by a slow and persistent process builds society up into a temple of order, truth and justice—this it is which the world has, in all past ages, been groping after. Christianity is this power, and no other has yet been discovered, or ever will be. It is light streaming out from God; it is the inbreathing love of God; it is holy Sabbaths, and voices of prayer, and hymns of praise, and the prophet-teacher speaking as God’s voice to men—these with all the charities, and good works, and gentle ministries, and deeds of righteous magistracy, and regenerative public cares—these, which altogether are the meaning of the word religion—these, and these only, can make a State prosperous and happy. Bushnell.

The State needs a morality. She cannot with any consistency refuse to recognize the morality which the majority of her citizens consider as the true and the Divine. That morality, in the Christian system, is a portion—a vital portion indeed, but not the entirety of the Christian religion. The State as a State takes for its secular uses the morality, but is compelled also in the oath, the rest-day and the marriage contract to give a distant nod of recognition to religion, as furnishing the requisite sanctions of this morality. But while the State in mass stops short with the morality, the several citizens of the State, in their individual immortality and in their accountability beyond the bounds of this world, have larger and more lasting wants than the collective State; they need personally and of free conviction to adopt the religion. And without a large, active, prayerful and resolute body of such citizens, so holding individually the religion, the morality of the State will not be kept in working order. The State may indeed have no conscience of her own; but unless her citizens many of them keep a conscience, she is lost. Christ does not need the State, but the State needs Christ as the base and bond of her morality, without which she cannot shape or keep her political life. And every man, woman and child in the State needs Christ, as the Ruler, Owner and Redeemer of the soul for both worlds and for all days, here and beyond. And He, the Thrice Blessed, invites them to His salvation. William R. Williams.

11,12. God changes the way of His providential proceeding according to the carriage of the creature, without changing His will, which is the rule of His providence. When God speaks of His repenting that He had made man (Gen. 6 : 6), it is only His changing His conduct from a way of kindness to a way of severity, and is a word suited to our capacities to signify His detestation of sin and His resolution to punish it, after man had made himself quite another thing than God had made him. “It repents Me”—that is, I am purposed to destroy the world, as he that repents of his work throws it away; as if a potter cast away the vessel he had framed, it were a testimony that he repented that ever he took pains about it; so the destruction of them seems to be a repentance in God that ever He made them; it is a change of events, not of counsels. Repentance in us is a grief for a former fact, and a changing of our course in it. Grief is not in God, but His repentance is a willing a thing should not be as it was, which will was fixed from eternity; for God, foreseeing man would fall, and decreeing to permit it, He could not be said to repent in time of what He did not repent from eternity; and, therefore, if there were no repentance in God from eternity, there could be none in time. Charnock.

These verses plainly teach that all God’s threatenings, even the most terrible, and all God’s promises, even the most blessed, are conditional on the continuance of the moral character to which they were addressed. When one would give the alarm of fire he does not whisper the word. So when God would warn sinners He does not soften His words, but in most vivid manner sets before men the awful doom of the ungodly. Thus would God, by His terrors, affright men—if naught else will do—to “flee from the wrath to come,” so that “He may repent of the evil He thought to do unto them.” Such words are not the utterance of absolute decrees against any soul to whom they are addressed, but loving warnings to such soul to turn to God and live. C.

11. Amend (or make good) your ways and your doings. It has been well said that “there is nothing at all in life except what we put there.” God has given us far more liberty than we usually suppose; He has put at our command immense resources, and told us to go on and use them to the best advantage. We can throw them away if we choose, or we can make of them wealth inestimable. He has given us the potter’s wheel and ample beds of clay, to do with as we please. But there is no value in this wealth of means unless it is used for right ends. It is, in truth, not wealth until it is utilized. Life can be a bubble, a vacancy, a failure, if we so will it. It can be a solid world of worth, and a success if we so will it. God has made man in His own image; and in so doing He has made him, in a sense, his own creator. S. S. T.

There are but two principles of moral life in the universe: one which makes ourselves, or the most limited private good, the centre; the other which makes God, who may be called the universal good, the centre. And by that necessary law which says, Where there is life there must be a principle of life; when one of these principles dies, the other emerges from its state of abeyance and inactivity, and takes the place of that which has passed away. So that when self dies in the soul, God lives; when self is annihilated, God is enthroned. So it must be that either self or God shall occupy the throne of the heart. If self, then the life is regulated from a selfish standpoint. If God is at the helm, then everything will move Godward. We should never be satisfied unless God is on the throne. F. W. Upham.

Much may be made of slender gifts, small resources and limited opportunities, if carefully cultivated as they should be, and as their slenderness should stimulate their being. The most largely endowed has no more obligation and no fairer field than the most slenderly gifted lies under and possesses. God, who has builded up the towering Alps out of mica flakes, builds up His Church out of infinitesimally small particles—slenderly endowed men, touched by the consecration of His love. If we truly employ whatever gifts God has given to us, then we shall be accepted according to that we have and not according to that we have not. The wholesome old proverb, “Many mickles make a muckle” is as true about the influence brought to bear in this world to arrest evil and to sweeten corruption as it is about anything else. Christ has a great deal more need of the cultivation of the small patches that He gives to most of us than He has of the cultivation of the large estates that He bestows upon a few. Responsibility is not to be measured by amount of gift, but is equally stringent, entire and absolute whatsoever be the measure of the endowments from which it arises. A. M.

The most successful man is not the man who acquires the most money, power, place, honor or fame, but the man who gains the most manhood, and performs the greatest amount of useful work in the discharge of human duty, whose life is most replete with useful purpose and well-directed effort. Anon.

More sublime than sculptured stone, or snow-crowned Alps, or sweetest music, or richest rhetoric is a noble life. Manhood dwarfs the most magnificent of things inanimate. Royalty of spirit may be uninvested with the circumstances of external grandeur. The noble heart may look out upon the world through a face that is homely. It may move upon a plane that is lowly. It may spend its energies upon endeavors that are ordinary. Its possessor may be “in bodily presence weak, and in speech contemptible,” but let head and hand and heart be welded together in the furnace glow of a lofty and uplifting purpose, and men recognize the king. Howard Duffield.

Let this and every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and let every setting sun be to you as its close; let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others—some goodly strength or knowledge gained for yourselves. Ruskin.

12. This subtle resort to the plea of no hope indicates a deep-seated love of sin and a willingness to cheat one’s own soul out of the blessings that God proffers rather than be disturbed in the ways and pleasures of sin. H. C.—This assertion in the meaning designed by those who thus responded to the prophet’s solemn annunciation, and as uttered or cherished in similar meaning by any and all others unto this day, is accurately true. That meaning was simply a deliberate resolve of continuance in their long-accustomed evil way. There is no hope, they truly said. If we may not be delivered unless we return from and change our way of life, we must utterly despair of deliverance, for we are resolved that we will submit to no restraint, “we will walk after our own devices, we will every one do every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart.” And the inward thought of all who are thus resolved is, though they dare not speak it out, We will venture the issue with the Almighty. And of those who take this bold, defiant position, it is true that there is no hope. The whole Word of God affirms it—the character, the law, the very grace of God, require and declare that they who wilfully assume this position must abide its consequences, and die in their sins. B.

14. The idea is, that Lebanon, lifting its crest into the regions of perpetual snow, supplies to the fields within its range the purest, cool, luscious water all the year, even as God supplies good for His trusting people; and it is therefore sheer folly for men to forsake God, or fear that He will fail to supply their need. H. C.—One of the most striking scenes visible from a great distance is Hermon, with its snow and vapors. It is covered with white snow all the year round, and from its summits flow down cold, pent-up streams to the valley beneath. God asks why Israel has forsaken Him; whether there was any failure of His grace and power. Has He not been constant and ever ready to help? How is it, then, that He is forsaken? The snow of Lebanon is, like the dew of Hermon, a symbol of the grace of God abiding

upon Zion, from which the streams of grace flow forth in inexhaustible supply. M.