I. THE PREACHER OF TRUTH DOES WELL TO CHOOSE THE MOST IMPRESSIVE POSITIONS, OCCASIONS, AND CIRCUMSTANCES FOR THE DELIVERY OF HIS MESSAGE. The great aim of the preacher is to get a hearing for what he has to say. Tact (to a certain degree), artistic juxtaposition and arrangement, sympathy with the spirit of the times, etc., are indispensable qualities to him who would give the Word of God bold and effective expression. Public occasions may, therefore, frequently be utilized for special services, etc. Passing movement and contemporary events may give fresh interest to permanent truth. A curious ingenuity is sometimes exhibited in making the preacher inconspicuous and reducing his office to a matter of routine. He ought always to feel that his message is an extraordinary one, requiring all the earnestness and effort of which he is capable to convey it with due effect. And even then it must have suffered at his hands, and in much he will be an unprofitable servant.

II. RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE MAY BE VERY FASHIONABLE, AND ALL BUT UNIVERSAL, WHERE THERE IS LITTLE REAL RELIGION. One has to distinguish between the outward and the inward, the religion of rite and ceremony and that of the heart. Here apparently the representatives of "all Judah" were assembled, and yet it was no sign of national piety, but rather the contrary. Instead of the carnal nature Being checked and corrected, it was directly fostered by such worship. Public worship is a phrase which often includes elements that have nothing to do with the worship of God. That the services of God's house should be chaste and attractive will be generally admitted. But architectural adornments, musical accessories of an ornate or merely artistic nature, displays of rhetoric, and similar additions to the essential character of the worship, may prove popular and entertaining, and yet be spiritually pernicious. In the case of Judah the whole worship was on a low intellectual and spiritual key. The gods of heathenism and Jehovah were worshipped alike, and the licentious rites of idolatry mingled with the sacrifices of the Law. This had resulted in the temple being polluted and becoming a "den of thieves." Our aims in worship, the purity and concentration of our hearts, the moral relation between our every-day life and our temple service, have all very intimately to do with the question of the value of public religious observances.

III. RIGHTEOUSNESS OUGHT TO BE PRELIMINARY TO WORSHIP. "Amend your ways and your doings" is the demand the prophet makes in proof of the genuineness of their worship. Religion is a matter of life, and not of showy observances and empty protestations. The best proof that we intend serving God is that we have already begun to do so in business and morals. This duty, although difficult, is the best preparation for exalted spiritual experiences and sincere adoration. Men are not fit to appear before God when their misdeeds are still being repeated and their moral habits are not under the influence of his Spirit.

IV. UNREAL WORSHIP OF GOD IS CERTAIN TO BE DETECTED AND EXPOSED. We can imagine the shame of the nobility and people whom the prophet from his unlooked-for vantage-point so sharply rebuked. - M.

I. THAT RIGHTEOUSNESS IS THE PRINCIPAL THING.

1. It is God's solemn demand (ver. 2).

(1) Jeremiah is charged to proclaim it in the Name of the Lord and as his word.

(2) He is to go where there will be a vast congregation of the people: "In the gate of the Lord's house."

(3) Probably at a time of national gathering, at one of the feasts, so as to secure a yet larger audience.

(4) At a moment when the word of the Lord might be expected to win most attention from them - as they were "entering in at the gates to worship the Lord."

2. It is God's perpetual demand. See the whole chapter, the whole prophecy. "Amend your ways and your doings" (ver. 3) is its constant appeal.

3. At first it was his only command, and it is ever his first command. (ver. 22). Our first parents were commanded to obey before sacrifice or any rites of religion were appointed. And so with Israel (ver. 22). The moral Law was given before the ceremonial. And it was given in a far more imperative form. The moral Law begins "Thou shalt;" the Levitical (Leviticus 1:2 - 2:1), "If any man will." Hence from all the foregoing it is evident that righteousness stands before all else in the Divine esteem.

II. RELIGION WAS GIVEN FOR THE SAKE OF AND AS AN AID TO RIGHTEOUSNESS. Righteousness is not for the sake of religion, but vice versa. No doubt they render mutual help, but the proper relation of the two is as aforesaid. And religion can be a help to righteousness and ought ever to be, even as it has often been and is.

1. My supplying fresh motives. Apart from religion, righteous conduct becomes simply morality, and bases itself upon laws of expediency, or at best draws its force from motives that rise no higher than earth and man and the present life. But religion gives the love of God in Christ as its all-constraining force. Under the influence of this, what have not men done and borne; and what will they not do and bear?

2. By lending intensity to those already in action. How puny the power of hope, when it has none other recompense than that which this life and this world can furnish, contrasted with its invincible force when the recompenses of eternity, made known to us by religion, are set before it and held out to it! And so with the motive of fear. What an immense addition is made to the deterrent force of fear when the idea of God and his awful displeasure are present before the mind!

"His love will all vain love expel,
His fear all fear beside."

3. By furnishing a perfect example. In our blessed Lord's life, short as it was in duration, and far removed from us as it is in time, place, and circumstance, nevertheless in it there is to be found a standard and model of righteous conduct for all ages and all lands, such as can be found nowhere else. His life has been the compass by which many a saint has steered across the difficult ocean of life, and by its aid arrived safely at the desired haven.

4. By winning for us, in response to our fervent prayers, the ever-present and potent help of the Divine and transforming Spirit. By his aid the very "body of sin" within us is crucified, and we become new creatures in Christ.

5. By its ordinances of worship: its continual teaching, its Church fellowship, and its varied sacred observances, keeping alive within us those beliefs and sentiments which are ever the most powerful prompters to all righteousness of life. Thus the Israelite of old found the Law of God (cf. Psalm 119.) his perpetual aid, and the worship of God's house a constant solace and strength. And it is so still. By the truths and the ordinances of religion, the weak, wavering will is steadied, the feet are kept from falling, and the soul is preserved from death. Such ought ever to be the case, ever is so, where religion is the worship of God in spirit and in truth; and this was the Divine design and intent in giving it to us.

III. BUT THEY ARE AT TIMES FOUND ASUNDER. Religion may flourish, but righteousness be only conspicuous by its absence. It was so in the time of the prophet. We see a whole apparatus of religion - temple, altar, priests, sacrifices, services; nothing omitted in external observances. And there was a national profession of it; large sums of money were lavished on it, and there was a universal outward regard for it. But, on the other hand, all this went on whilst the most gross unrighteousness characterized the very people who outwardly were so religious (cf. vers. 5, 6, 9, 18). This was an appalling fact. Nor, alas! is it one that now has no existence; the same sad separation of religion from righteousness may be too often seen in our days as of old. The murderous banditti of Southern Europe are diligent at Mass, and pay all honor to the Virgin and saints. The midnight assassins of Ireland are all good Catholics. And many a chapel and church in our own land has amongst its seemingly most religious worshippers, men who are cruel, hard, fraudulent, impure - "saints at the prayer-meeting and sacrament, but very devils at home."

IV. THEY MAY BE EVEN OPPOSED TO ONE ANOTHER. Not merely separate, but antagonistic. Yes, religion, which was designed to minister to righteousness, may not only be severed from it, but be actually found undermining it, sapping its very life and strength. Thus:

1. By begetting false confidence. (Cf. ver. 4.) The Jews thought that all this religion must guarantee them immunity from the Divine displeasure, must ensure them his safeguard and protection. He, so they thought, could never suffer harm to come to his own temple - "the temple of the Lord." And still it is hard to persuade our hearts that all our religion goes for nothing, and worse than nothing, when it brings forth no fruit of righteousness. So many prayers, such liberal gifts, such good desires, such correctness of creed and of outward demeanor, such devotional fervor, - surely these things must propitiate Heaven, must ward off the Divine displeasure! (Cf. G. Eliot's character, Bulstrode, the fraudulent but very religious banker, in 'Middlemarch.')

2. By teaching men truths which they can readily wrest to evil. (Cf. ver. 10.) The meaning (see Exposition) is not "We cannot help ourselves; God has given us over to sin;" but "We are delivered by our religious observances - sacrifices and the like; the score is cleared off; we are secured against harm; we may go and live as we list." Thus they "tamed the grace of God into lasciviousness," and "continued in sin that," etc. And is not this done still? It is to be feared that not a few suck a poisonous pleasure from the Messed doctrine of the forgiving love of God. Thus the gospel itself may become a "savor of death unto death" to those who thus "make Christ the Minister of sin." And because religion has been seen so often severed from righteousness, and sometimes even ministering to unrighteousness, many have been and are eager to sweep it away altogether as a hindrance rather than a help to moral well-being. A highly educated German gentleman, whom the writer met abroad, expressed it as his strong and deliberate conviction that the religiousness and the decay of a people stand related as cause and effect. He argued that England must sink because her leading statesman was an eminently religious man. And were religion necessarily or generally severed from righteousness, still more if it were necessarily or generally opposed to righteousness, then it would deserve the denunciation of all right-minded men, and the sooner it were swept utterly out of the way the better. But all we can say is that if righteousness be not found in company with religion, it is to be found nowhere else; and if the Church of God, the great company of those who profess to be actuated by religious motives and aims, do not furnish and nurture God-like and righteous souls, then there is no other company on the face of the earth that does so. Bad as the Church may be, the world is far worse.

V. WHAT, THEN, IS OUR DUTY? Not to inveigh against religion, still less to seek its destruction, but to do all we can to restore the original and God-designed relationship between it and righteousness. "What God hath joined together, let," etc. And it is on this restoration of right relationship between the two that God so strenuously and sternly insists here and throughout his Word. If (ver. 3) they will amend their ways, then his blessing; but if not, he will have no mercy. He cites the instance of Shiloh as a solemn warning to them (ver. 14). He forbids Jeremiah even to pray for them whilst they continue as they are (ver. 16). He pours his contempt upon all their religion, their burnt offerings, and sacrifices (ver. 21), whilst severed from righteousness. He tells them that all along in their history, from the first until now, he had asked for, though he had never received it from them, not religion merely, but righteousness - obedience to his Word (vers. 21-28). Instead of that they had committed all abomination, and therefore they should miserably perish (vers. 29-34). How dreadful, then, must be the separation, and yet more the antagonism, between these whom God united! As he gave Eve to be a help-meet to Adam, so did he give religion to be the help-meet of righteousness. Let us tremble with a holy fear if we find ourselves able to go on contentedly in religious observances, whilst conscience becomes less and less sensitive, and our love and loyalty to righteousness grow feebler day by day. Our subject shows us that such a disastrous condition is possible. But that we may escape it, let us resolve that, inasmuch as God has given us religion for our help - a help which our blessed Lord himself ever made use of-

"Cold mountains and the midnight air
Witnessed the fervor of his prayer;"

- we will know the possibilities of help towards holiness which undoubtedly it contains. Let us set ourselves to seek the "baptism of the Holy Ghost" and "the endowments of power" which come therefrom. If we do thus set ourselves to seek these, they shall

I. THE MESSAGE TO THOSE CONCERNED CANNOT BE ESCAPED. The message is to men who make their boast and confidence in the temple. To be within temple reach seems to place them in a kind of fortress. Such must evidently be met on their own ground. And thus the prophet is sent to the temple gate. There, assuredly, all who took any deep interest in the temple would be found. Jeremiah himself belonged to the priests, and there is no saying but what, prophet as he was, he had to take an allotted share in the temple service. Possibly the message may have been repeated on several occasions, and likeliest of all on those occasions when the temple precincts were crowded with visitors. And when the temple was destroyed, would there not be many to remember that the threatening of destruction was uttered in the very gates of it? Thus we see that there is no want of directness and closeness in dealing with the unfaithful; and no want of courage and candor on the part of the man who was chosen to warn.

II. THE MESSAGE IS TO MISTAKEN WORSHIPPERS. To look round with pride and say these buildings are the temple of God, was as the utterance of some first principle. These worshippers, precise enough in outward forms, had a superstitious feeling that whatever vicissitudes might come elsewhere, Jehovah would keep the place of worship secure. The mistake lay in thinking that God valued the temple for itself. Yet it had not been made by his command, in the same sense as the tabernacle had been; rather, it was accepted as a sign of David's deep religious feeling and Solomon's pious regard for his father's wishes. There is nothing to show that out of his own will God would ever have commanded the erection of a temple. It was unseemly in the eyes of David that he should be dwelling in a house of cedar, when the ark of God was behind curtains. But this feeling had in it a certain barbaric element, a fondness for outward pomp and display. It was the best that was in the king's heart, and so it was accepted. He did what he could. But there was no inherent sacredness in the temple, that it should be kept inviolate amid the wreck and defilement of everything else. The people needed to be taught this truth in very plain language. The feeling towards the building is made manifest in such a passage as Ezra 3:11-13. In fact, the more the people became alienated in heart from the God of the temple, the more enthusiastic, fanatical even, they seem to have become with regard to the mere building.

III. THE WAY IN WHICH THE MISTAKE IS SOUGHT TO BE REMOVED. There is no heaping of scorn on the feeling of the people. Their feeling is rather made the occasion of strengthening the hold of God's truth upon them. If they really value the temple, they are shown the way by which they may keep it and dwell within it. Jehovah shows very distinctly that in his eyes the true glory of Jerusalem is not the temple, but the sort of people who dwell in the city. It is better to have a community of the pious, the upright, the truly brotherly, dwelling in cottages, than to have whole streets of splendid palaces, inhabited by luxurious, self-indulgent oppressors. Men hold in high esteem buildings, pictures, books, statues, great fruits of human intellect. God looks at good actions; little but significant kindnesses - the giving of the cup of cold water, the visiting of the sick, and the feeding of the hungry. A community of men, selfish to the core, will not be preserved for the sake of a splendid building; but that building may be preserved if a community of good men will be really pleased by its preservation. The truth, however, is that a community, living such a life as God here indicates should be chosen, would care very little about the pomps of a building. They would prefer to spend their substance in satisfying pressing needs of men. Many of the ecclesiastical buildings of today are inexcusably sumptuous. They are put up to gratify the lust of the eye, and meanwhile the spiritual glories of the upper room at Jerusalem and the Pentecostal miracle are quite forgotten. The publican, the penitent after God's own heart; went up to the temple; but what were its material splendors to him, as he stood, smiting his breast, and saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner?"

IV. THE MESSAGE IS CLINCHED BY A CLOSELY FITTING EXAMPLE FROM HISTORY. One instance is enough to prove a negative. The feeling in the hearts of the people is that God will fence the temple site around, for the sake of the temple. But Shiloh is at once brought forward as a capital instance to the contrary. Evidently it still remained in a ruined, neglected state, for any one to go and see it. Israel knew what Shiloh had been at the first, and they could see how different it was now. In reading history, we are bound to profit by all of Divine warning that may appear in what we read. - Y.

I. IT IS EVER SO.

1. See the Word of God. The prodigal had to come away from the far country first. John the Baptist, our Lord, and his apostles all preached repentance before pardon. The Law comes before the gospel

2. Conscience confirms the justice of this demand. We feel it to be a monstrous thing that, without any turning from sin even in purpose, there should be an expectation of God's grace.

3. Men make this same demand of those who rebel against their laws.

4. God's providence upholds this demand. The constitution of things is for the obedient and against the transgressor (cf. Butler's ' Analogy').

II. AND THE REASONS ARE BECAUSE SIN:

1. Outrages God. What order or happiness can there be in that household where the authority of the head is openly set at naught?

2. Is dogged by sorrow and death. The avenging deities were said to be shod with wool, so that their footsteps, ever following the transgressor, were not heard. It was the vision of sin and its awful issues that caused Jesus to sigh, to be troubled in spirit, and to weep; it was his agony. Now, God would save us, but cannot until we have done with wickedness.

3. Binds the soul to enmity against God. Deeds of wrong are the devil's sacraments, whereby he seals on the soul his own impress and pledges the soul to serve him. Every solitary act of sin deepens that impress and makes that pledge more irrevocable. Therefore, if the soul is to be saved, that bond must be broken.

4. Amendment in conduct is the first step towards the restoration of the soul. A man may break off ill-doing, and yet his heart be very far from right with God. Still, because every victory over sin strengthens the conscience and weakens the power of sin, its held is thus loosened upon the soul, and the work of restoration is so far advanced.

III. BUT COMPLIANCE WITH THIS MOST RIGHTEOUS DEMAND IS.

1. Often very difficult. Ask the drunkard, the impure, the worldling, the gambler, if they find it easy to break away from their besetting sins. How like a set of fiends they clamor for their wonted indulgence! "Hoc opus hic labor est."

2. But never impossible. No; for along with every Divine command goes forth the strength needed for obedience. How absurd, on mere human principles, for our Lord to bid the man with the withered hand to stretch it forth; the palsied to rise, take up his bed, and walk; and Lazarus to come forth from his tomb! But all these facts are recorded to encourage those who would turn to the Lord, but yet "are sore let and hindered." We often ask -

"Oh, how shall feeble flesh and blood
Burst through the bonds of sin?
The holy kingdom of our God,
What soul shall enter in?" And there could be but one sad answer were it not that he who gives the command gives also the needed help. Yes -

"There is a way for man to rise
To that sublime abode;
An offering and a sacrifice,
A Holy Spirit's energies,
An Advocate with God."

3. And ever blessed. (Cf. vers. 3, 7.) All those precious sentences with which the sermon on the mount opens, and which we call the Beatitudes, were addressed to those who had resolved, by God's grace, to amend their ways. Christ has no other word for them than that they are blessed, and what his Word affirms all they who have followed his leading do with grateful heart confirm. Yes, "blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city."

4. But if refused, is awfully avenged. Too often it is refused. It was so here. All manner of excuse attempted, and though these "lying words" (ver. 4) were and are exposed again, the refusal is persisted in, and then "the wrath of God arises, and there is no remedy." "From all such hardness of heart and contempt of thy Holy Word and commandment, good Lord, deliver us." - C.

I. AN UNWARRANTABLE ASSUMPTION. They arrogate to themselves, not only the exclusive possession of a meeting-place between God and man, but they speak of themselves as in a special and peculiar sense the temple of God.

1. There is an argument latent here. The temple is looked upon as a permanent and immovable building - a place of intercourse between Jehovah and his people. It is the only place of the kind, and it will stand for aye. But the Jews are so related to the temple, so bound up with its existence and maintenance, that they esteem themselves identified with it, and therefore partaking of its attributes. By an easy transition, to which language affords many parallels, they come to say, "The temple of the Lord is this [i.e. are we]."

2. And yet this very pretension, when spiritually interpreted, expresses a gracious and mysterious truth. That is the intention and aim of man's creation. Every man, as man, is made to be a temple of the Holy Ghost. This is his purpose and obligation; but, instead of this, how opposite is the actual condition of most men! Not, therefore, as a matter of course, independently of moral resolve and Divine inspiration, but as something to be striven after and earnestly realized in holiness of life, is man the "temple of the Lord."

3. And as is often the ease, the illegitimate narrowing and monopoly of this Divine indwelling is the very sign of its absence. They who rest upon other than moral grounds for the claim to the presence of God within them are usurpers. It is the universal privilege of those who serve God acceptably in spirit and in life. That which has a moral condition cannot be confined to local or sectarian limits.

II. A COMMANDMENT WITH PROMISE. A rehearsal of common duties enjoined by the Law of Moses. It is terse, prosaic, detailed, and altogether opposed to the absurd pretension it is meant to correct. Just those duties, too, are mentioned which the prophet was well aware had been neglected by Judah. There is nothing brilliant or magnificent about the catalogue of deeds. They are just such actions as are obligatory upon all men. It was not even necessary for a man to be a Jew to do them; for when the Gentiles do these things it shows that there must be a law written upon their hearts by nature or grace. And yet the greatest in Jerusalem could not, any more than the heathen, do the least of them perfectly. How gracious that to them, therefore, is attached this premise of temple consecration] So the grand human duties and merciful dispositions, without which life would be so hard, are recommended and enforced by that comprehensive promise, to be immediately realized in personal blessing and consecration, to be completely fulfilled when "the tabernacle of God shall be with men." - M.

I. CONSIDER THEIR ARGUMENT. God had said, "In this house will I dwell." They knew that, and hence it seemed impossible that it should be devastated by the heathen. It was the place of which he had said," There 'mine honor dwelleth." The cloud of glory had filled it, the Sheehinah brightness rested on the mercy-seat. Was it to be imagined that he who of old had smitten with death those who presumed even to look into or to touch the ark of God, who had smitten monarchs with leprosy for lack of due respect to it, would now suffer the bands of the idolaters to lay waste his sanctuary, in which it was enshrined? Moreover, once and again salvation for Israel had gone forth from the temple of God, deliverance and victory had there been won. The prophetic prayer of Solomon who had built it told of mercy and help that should surely come to Israel through that temple. Thus ancient teachings, glorious events, the manifested presence of God, many promises in connection with the temple of the Lord, all combined to lead men to look upon it with an undue trust, and to believe that, so long as it reared its sacred front in their midst, it would prove as a palladium, a shield and defense for them all. Therefore they met all Jeremiah's warnings, and all misgivings of their own consciences, by the oft-repeated cry, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these!" And that which answers in our day to the Jewish trust in these "lying words," as Jeremiah terms them, is the confidence that is placed in the Church, her sacraments and ministers; or in past religious experiences, or in present moods of feeling; and yet more in the endorsement of our religious profession by our acceptance into the Church's fellowship and our admission to her ordinances. Such answer now to the "lying words" Jeremiah denounced then. But note -

II. WHAT OF WORTH THERE IS IN THIS ARGUMENT. There can be no doubt that the tares owe a great deal, owe everything in fact, to the wheat amongst which they have been sown. But for the wheat, they would have been plucked up long ago. And God's dealings with men had so often confirmed what our Lord's parable teaches, that the tares had come to congratulate themselves that they had no cause for fear. For ten righteous men Sodom would have been spared. For Moses' sake all Israel had been borne with, when but for his intercession God's righteous anger would have swept them away. The descendants of David had cause many times to bless themselves that, though so unlike their great ancestor in obedience to God, they were yet of his house and lineage. "For the elect's sake," said our Lord, "those days" - days of Jerusalem's final doom - "shall be shortened." And so here in the text, the people of Jerusalem could not but know that they were wicked in the extreme; but because they, though tares, were blessed with the presence of what they thought God counted as wheat-the temple and all its hallowed associations - they laughed at the idea of any great calamity coming upon them. And in the present-day parallels to that old trust in "lying words," what of worth there was in those words then, there is in the like of them now. The Church, with all its hallowed associations, is God's wheat, or rather, does assuredly contain all there is of it. For what manner of definition of the Church of God will any one presume to lay down other than this, that it consists of all the good? Broader it is not; but so broad it is. The presence, therefore, of the godly in any community is a guarantee of good to that community. "Ye are the salt of the earth," said our Lord. But for his Church the world would rot. Let any who sneer and persecute Christ's servants, whether in school, work-room, office, shop, or where else-and such persecution is common enough - let them remember that, but for such as those on whom they are pleased to pour their contempt, their own career would be cut very short indeed. If, then, the temple of the Lord, to which the Jews were trusting, was as the wheat, then the wicked people who were looking to it for safety were in the right, and their words were not lying words.

III. ITS WORTHLESSNESS NOTWITHSTANDING. In all those instances in which the tares had been spared for the sake of the wheat, there had been two conditions fulfilled. It had been really wheat which sheltered the tares, and there had been sufficiency of it. There was not enough of it when the Deluge came, nor when Sodom was destroyed; and so, in like manner, should ever the wheat fall short, it will go ill with the tares then. But did the temple and its ritual and its associations fulfill either of these conditions? No doubt the mere structure, her very stones, had worth in God's sight. Just as, for the sake of the dearly beloved soul that once has dwelt within that now lifeless corpse, we hang over it with tenderest fondness, and would not put it away from us were we not compelled; so, because of the true worship that had gone up from that temple, and because of the many saintly men who there had drawn near to God, that material shrine had a certain value and would not lightly be allowed to perish. But if there were preciousness in the temple, there was not sufficiency of it to outweigh or to cover over the iniquities which surged around it, yea, invaded its very courts, and of which it was made the unwilling occasion. Instead of being a palladium, or any sort of guarantee of safety to that godless nation, its towers and courts, its altars and ever-ascending sacrifices, were ever calling down vengeance upon those who so shamefully used them. And, indeed, it could hardly be said to be as God's wheat at all. The temple had often been the vehicle of that" worship in spirit and in truth" which alone God desires, and for the sake of such worship it had a relative preciousness. But let that worship cease - as it had long ceased - then the temple became as a mere corpse, beautiful, tenderly loved indeed, but still corruptible, corrupting and spreading corruption, and therefore demanding to be put out of the way. Now apply all this to the false truths of our own day. Will the Church, her sacraments, her ordinances, your membership with her, your frequent moods of religious feeling, your current creed, your loud profession of attachment to her, your manifold religious privileges, - will any or all of these things, precious though they every one of them be, compensate for that surrender of your true self to God which is his perpetual desire and demand? Will they not rather, as did the presence of the temple and their innumerable privileges for the Jews, heighten your guilt, and make more glaring your sin, because they show that you have been amongst those "to whom much has been given," and of whom, therefore, "much will be required?" No worship, however magnificent, costly, constant; however hallowed by association, or authorized by venerable usage, or sanctioned by the holiest of the Church of God, or even owned by God as the means of uplifting many hearts heavenward and Godward; if such worship be wanting, as, alas! it may be, in the all-essential element, the "worship in spirit and in truth;" if there be no outgoings of the heart in it all, as too often there is not,-then it will prove no shield from but a provocative to that holy wrath of God which sooner or later awaits every godless soul.

IV. THE VERY SERIOUS SUGGESTIONS IT OTHERS.

1. The utter hatefulness of sin.

(1) It turned the very temple of the Lord and its sacrifices, which had been designed to be "a savor of life unto life" to those who by means of them drew nigh to God, into "a savor of death unto death." And so still, even Christ the Rock, the sure Foundation, becomes by this wresting power of sin a crushing stone which, falling on the head of the sinner, grinds him to powder.

(2) It drags down the innocent with the guilty. That temple of the Lord, the holy and beautiful house, what had that done? Had it not deserved all honor and love from those amid whom it stood? And now the sin of the people was to overwhelm her in utter and irretrievable ruin. The man whose wickedness pulls down innocent and loving wife and children, and drags them in the mire which he has chosen to wallow in, as we see their misery, how odious his sin appears! And this is ever one of sin's works. It drags in and down the innocent, the pure, the beloved. Behold those blackened ruins, those polluted altars, those blood-stained courts, and see a parable of sin.

2. The testimony that these refuges of ties, such as that in which the Jews trusted, do surely give of our need of a real refuge, a true defense. Men who deny the Savior most are yet ever confessing that they and all men do need a Savior. They who would not trust in God trusted in the mere material temple.

3. To what are we trusting? In "lying words -which God forbid! - or - which may God grant! - in those words of the Lord Jesus, which are able to make us wise unto salvation? - C.

I. THE SPIRITUAL PRIDE THAT LEADS MEN TO THINK THEMSELVES THE SPECIAL OBJECTS OF THE DIVINE FAVOR. This was the characteristic vice of the Jewish people. The distinctions God conferred on them - that they were separate among the nations as "Abraham's seed' and the chosen covenant people, that they had the temple of the Lord among them - were made occasions for national vain-glory, instead of incentives to holy character and noble deed. The same principle is illustrated whenever superior enlightenment, knowledge of truth, spiritual gifts, personal sanctity, ecclesiastical advantage, etc., lead in any way to self-exaltation. Nothing more unseemly than this. If in any such sense "the temple of the Lord' is with us, it may be expected that the shadow of it will produce in us a solemn sense of responsibility. Special privilege brings with it corresponding obligations. Whatever tokens of his favor God bestows on us, their due effect is to lead us to walk with the greater self-forgetfulness and reverential fear before him.

II. THE HYPOCRISY THAT MAKES THE "FORM OF GODLINESS" A SUBSTITUTE FOR ITS "POWER." What availed it that the temple of the Lord stood among them, if the spirit of devotion had departed? The sacred shrine in which they boasted was but a mockery of their internal falseness. The essence of Pharisaism lies in this resting in the outward and apparent, to the neglect of the inward, the spiritual, the real. None so far from God as they who imagine that a mere round of external observances will please him apart from the sincere homage of the soul. "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips," etc. (Matthew 15:8).

III. THE SELF-DECEPTION THAT PUTS ON THE GARB OF A RELIGIOUS PROFESSION AS A CLOKE FOR SIN AND A SHIELD FROM ITS PENALTY. The people did wickedly, and then went and stood before the Lord in the house called by his Name, and said, "We are delivered" (Ver. 10) - a striking illustration of the folly of those who dream that, so long as they pay public homage to the sovereignty of God's claims, they may violate his laws with impunity. It is a delusive dream that must have, sooner or later, a dread awakening. The mere material temple, glorious as it may be, is no sanctuary for a guilty conscience and a corrupt life. Simply to "lay hold on the horns of the altar" will not save us from the Divine retributions, the Nemesis that tracks the footsteps of the transgressor. Merely to cry, "Lord, Lord!" will never avert from men the sentence, "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity ' (Luke 13:25-27). - W.

I. LOOK AT THEM AS JEREMIAH SAW THEM. Thieves (vers. 6, 9), most cruel oppressors, murderers, adulterers, etc. Yet they were all going into the temple to worship the Lord. Strange church-goers indeed.

II. ASK IF THERE BE ANY SUCH NOW? What if some angel of God, unseen by us, were to mark on the foreheads of all who enter our churches now their true characters in the sight of God: would there be no fraudulent, no oppressors of the poor, none whose hearts, though not their hands, are chargeable with having shed innocent blood? Let us each one ask, "What name would be put upon me?"

III. INQUIRE WHAT POSSIBLE MOTIVES CAN ACTUATE THEM.

1. With some, no doubt, it is a cloak to cover up their real character.

2. Or a tribute paid to the demands of fashion, custom, society. What would be thought of them if they did not go to church?

3. Or a method of quieting conscience. They come away and think they have wiped off the score that was against them. They say (ver. 10), "We are delivered [see Exposition] to do," etc.

4. Or to set an example to those they are pleased to call "the lower orders;" like the philosophers of old, who, whilst they held all religions to be equally false, yet regarded them all as indispensably useful.

5. Or as a means for so many regarded such things - of propitiating the Divine favor and securing a title to heaven by-and-by. But there is no end to the motives which lead such men to do that which, to more honest-hearted people, appears a mockery, an absurdity, and yet worse.

IV. LISTEN TO THE LORD'S WORD TO SUCH. He tells them:

1. They were getting no good whatsoever from such worship (ver. 3).

2. They were completely declaring themselves (ver. 4).

3. They were neglecting that amendment of their ways which would save them (ver. 5).

4. They were grossly insulting nod (vers. 10, 11).

5. They were blind to notorious facts: e.g. Shiloh (ver. 12); Ephraim (ver. 15).

6. Thorough reformation was alone the way of life for them (vers. 3, 7). "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." - C.

I. WHAT DO WE GENERALLY UNDERSTAND BY THIS WORD?

1. Some use it of disregard of ritual.

2. Others of secular employment of sacred places or things.

3. Others of those persons whom they regard as unauthorized presuming to minister in holy things.

4. Others of robbing churches, etc. But without discussing these, let us note -

II. WHAT GOD COUNTS AS SACRILEGE. It is declared here (ver. 11). It is when men turn the Church of God into a den of robbers. Our Lord charged this upon the religionists of his day. Jeremiah charges it, in God's Name, upon those to whom he was sent. Costly, splendid, correct, continual worship was duly carried on. Irreverence - and how much less sacrilege! - would seem to be a charge utterly unfit for those who worshipped in such manner. And yet, though the word be not here used, the thing itself is emphatically told of as the very crime which these people were flagrantly guilty of. Turning God's house, which was called by his Name, into a den of robbers, - if that be not sacrilege, what else is? They robbed one another (vers. 5, 6). They robbed God. And the temple was their haunt, as their den is the robbers' haunt; and there they found rest, and prepared themselves for further crime (ver. 10), as does the robber in his den. It is an awful indictment. But under one or other of the counts of such indictment they are assuredly chargeable who frequent the house of God, not for the high and holy purposes for which the worship of God was designed, but that, as in ver. 10, they may get peace of mind in regard to their past sins and so be free to go and sin again. "With such usage the temple is not a place of salvation, but a refuge for robbers, where they purify themselves from the blood of their evil deeds, so as to be the readier for new ones." Therefore all they who "make Christ a Minister of sin," who, instead of deliverance from sin, get comfort in it by their religious observances, who shelter themselves from all fear of God's anger and silence the warnings of conscience by "coming and standing before God in his house which is called by his Name," though their object be only "to be delivered to do all these abominations," and not at all to be saved from them, - these are the sacrilegious, and their profanation of holy things is the worst of all.

III. THINK OF THE RESULTS OF SUCH SACRILEGE.

1. How God is dishonored!

2. How his service is made hateful in the eyes of men! What a stumbling block it is to those who would turn to God!

3. How it hardens the man's own soul!

4. How it necessitates the judgment of God!

IV. WHAT SHOULD SUCH A SUBJECT TEACH US? Surely, when in the house of God, to pray that if any have come there in sacrilegious manner, God's Spirit, the Lord of the temple, may meet with them and turn them from their evil way. Should we not also search and see if there be any such evil way in ourselves? And let our prayer be unto him who when on earth drove forth with scourges the "robbers" whom he found in the temple, that he would be pleased, by the scourge of his Spirit and his Word, to drive forth from all in his house now all in them that would rob him of his glory and their souls of eternal life. - C.

I. SUCH VOICES ARE PERPETUALLY HEARD. The prophet speaks of three such here.

1. Shiloh (Ver. 12).

2. The Lord himself (Ver. 13).

3. Ephraim (Ver. 15).

II. And THEY TELL EVER THE SAME TRUTHS.

1. The Divine anger against sin (Ver. 12).

2. The utter uselessness of their "trust in lying words" to escape that auger (Ver. 14).

3. The absolute need of repentance.

III. And MEET, ALL TOO OFTEN, WITH THE SAME RECEPTION. They were rejected. "Ye heard not; and I called you," etc. (Ver. 13).

IV. But are VINDICATED IN LIKE AWFUL MANNER.

1. By their sin becoming ineradicable, so that they are given over to a reprobate mind, and are "guilty of an eternal sin" (cf. Mark 3:29). Hence (Ver. 16) the prophet is forbidden to pray for them (cf. 1 John 5:16).

2. By the judgment of God falling upon them (Ver. 15). CONCLUSION.

1. Watch and pray against unbelief in these warnings.

2. Take heed to them yourselves.

3. Hold them up to others.

4. Bless God for them. - C.

I. THERE ARE FEW MORE MOURNFUL HISTORIES THAN THAT OF SHILOH. Shiloh was one of the earliest and most sacred of the Hebrew sanctuaries. There for full three hundred years the ark of God remained and the priests of the Lord ministered. As soon as the promised land was mainly subdued, Joshua brought the ark of God from Gilgal, near the Jordan, to Shiloh. The place was probably chosen for its seclusion and hence its safety, it being off the great highways of the land. Bethel, which otherwise might have been chosen as especially sacred, was yet in the hands of the Canaanites. Hence Shiloh, in the territory of the powerful tribe of Ephraim, and of their great ancestor Joseph, a tribe which more and more had been coming to the front amongst their brethren, was chosen for the sanctuary of the ark of God. There, as afterwards at Jerusalem, "the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord." What glad festivals; what gracious deliverances; what Divine responses to their inquiring of the Lord; what holy memories of thronging worshippers, of accepted sacrifices, of saintly priests and prophets who had dwelt there, were all associated with that shrine at Shiloh! There Eli ministered, and Hannah came to present her offerings, to pour out her prayers and to pay her vows. There she brought Samuel, and there the Lord called him to his high service as he ministered before him. All their truest and noblest life drew its inspiration from the God who had placed his Name there, and whom there they went to worship. But at length, under the rule of Eli, that well-meaning but weak-willed high priest, priesthood and people alike sank down into a state of moral and religious degradation from which Eli was powerless to deliver them. His own sons led the way in abominable wickedness, and became sons of Belial even beyond others. So low had they fallen, that they had come to regard the ark of God as a kind of fetish, and hence they carried it down to battle against the Philistines, thinking thereby to certainly win the day. But the ark of God was taken, its besotted priests slain, and Eli, hearing the dreadful tidings suddenly, died, a worn-out and broken-hearted old man. From that hour, as the seventy-eighth psalm tells, "God forsook Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men;... he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim." And it was all because, as the same psalm tells, Israel "tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies: but turned back, and dealt deceitfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow. For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images." Wherefore "he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel." And now, ages after, Jeremiah bids the people of his day go to Shiloh, and see what God did to it for the wickedness of the people. They might trace out, perhaps, the foundations of her ancient walls, and discover the vestiges of the former sanctuary; but now no altar bore the sacred fire, the smoke of no sacrifice ascended, no priest ministered, no God gave answer, no song of the Lord went up; the whole place was probably ravaged and overthrown by the enemies of Israel, who had carried off their great treasure, the ark of God. Well might the wife of Phinehas, in the hour of her agony, call her new-born, but now fatherless, and soon to be altogether her orphan, child, Ichabod, for indeed the glory had departed, the ark of God was taken, and the Lord had forsaken Shiloh. Oh, the sorrow, the shame, the unavailing remorse which would overwhelm the faithless priesthood and the godless people, when they beheld that God-abandoned shrine, and remembered wherefore this calamity had come upon them! Yes, this story is a sad one; but it is most salutary also, and therefore we may well heed the word of the Lord which says to us, ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my Name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel." But we observe -

II. THAT SHILOH HAS MANY PARALLELS. Shiloh is not the only God-forsaken shrine of which the Bible tells or of which we have had knowledge. No; there are all too many like it. There was the temple of the Lord in Jeremiah's time. All its splendor, its solemn ritual, its lavish sacrifices, its ever-burning altar fire, could not save it. The stern sentence went forth against it, and it was burnt with fire and laid in ashes on the ground. There was the temple which was afterwards built on the return from Captivity, and which was so beautiful and adorned in the time of our Lord; concerning that, too, Jesus said, "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate!" And it was the same with many Churches, those "spiritual houses" which, after our Lord's time and in his Name, were reared for a habitation of God through the Spirit. The Christian Church at Jerusalem. The honor of being the mother Church of Christendom was taken from her and transferred to Antioch, and ultimately it was overwhelmed altogether in the destruction that came on the city in which it was gathered. And there were the Churches of Asia; their "candlestick was removed out of its place," as the Lord warned them would be the case, and now secular historians bear their testimony to the truth of that warning word. Gibbon tells how "in the loss of Ephesus the Christians deplored the fall of the first angel, the extinction of the first candlestick of the Revelation; the desolation is complete; and the Temple of Diana or the Church of Mary will equally elude the search of the curious traveler. The circus and the three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes. Sardis is reduced to a miserable village; the god of Mahomet, without a rival or a son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and Pergamos; and the populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade of Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved by prophecy or courage. At a distance from the sea, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens defended their religion and freedom above four score years; and at length capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and Churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect; a column in a scene of ruins." They have thus all disappeared, as Christian Churches almost utterly; they are as Shiloh and Jerusalem - their houses in which they worshipped God left unto them desolate. And there have been many other Churches since, and some nearer our own time and in our own land. And many still, perhaps, need sorely the admonitory counsel to go to Shiloh, and see what the Lord has done there. But not in material edifices alone, nor even in those gathered communities to which more properly the name of Churches belongs, need we go to find instances of God-forsaken shrines. For inasmuch as we all are "temples of the Holy Ghost," so St. Paul tells us, and our own experience confirms his word, it is possible to find only too many illustrations of this same mournful fact. Take the ever-memorable example and warning of the fallen apostle Judas. What a shrine of the Holy Ghost he once was! How richly gifted! how gloriously endowed! He came with the rest, saying, "Lord, even the devils are subject to us through thy Name." He with the rest" ate and drank in Christ's presence, and in his Name did many wonderful works." He enjoyed the fellowship of Christ, and by him was sent forth in his Name. But behold him giving place to the devil, yielding his soul up to the demon of covetousness and worldly ambition, and then acting as the guide to them who arrested the Lord, betraying the Son of man with a kiss, and then, when too late he awoke to see the madness and horror of what he had done, rushing forth to seek and find a suicide's grave in the Aceldama, "the field of blood," purchased by the price of his traitorous gain. And Ananias and Sapphira and Demas and yet others, what are they all but deplorable instances and names of these God-forsaken shrines? And have we not known such? Men who prayed, and worshipped, and taught, and preached, and. then, having denied the Lord who bought them, fell away, and found henceforth nothing but "a fearful looking for of judgment" and of the "fiery indignation" of God destined to be poured out on all such as they. Ah! it is a sight which might well make angels weep, and which drew forth the bitter tears of the Son of God himself.

III. AND IN EVERY CASE THE CAUSE OF THIS FORSAKING OF THEM BY GOD WAS ONE AND THE SAME. It was always "wickedness." Not any outward circumstance, not any of those secondary causes which we are so apt to regard as the real cause. But this which these verses so plainly declare. It was so even in those ruined edifices to which we referred at the beginning of this homily. History will tell you how gross immorality and horrible corruption found a too-ready home in those fair fabrics which had been reared for far other purposes and with far other design. But "wickedness" having made them its haunt and home, the people, roused to fierce wrath, rose up and tore them down, and their gray, ivy-clad stones utter forth to this day such message as that in our text. And in all those other instances to which we have pointed, whether temples made with hands, whether Churches or individual men, it has ever been sin, sin, which has wrought all this evil. And in that every-day fact of bodily death We have the standing type of this terrible truth, "The wages of sin is death." That body once so bright, so full of energy, so lit up with intelligence and love, so possessed too, it may have been, with the Spirit of God, so fall so lovely to look upon when life dwelt in it, now in death, - what is it but a God-forsaken shrine, and hence doomed to return, "earth to earth, dust to dust, and ashes to ashes?" We are so accustomed to death that this its solemn lesson we are ever forgetting or putting out of sight.

IV. BUT ALL THESE SHILOHS HAVE A MESSAGE FROM GOD UNTO US, ACCORDING TO WHAT WE ARE. We every one of us are either examples of these forsaken ones, or becoming so, or, blessed be God, still habitations for him through the Spirit. Now, if we be already forsaken of God, then if this fact be - as surely it should be, and as we trust it is - a matter of sore distress to us, then there is a gracious word to us if we be willing to hear it. All of us were once "temples of God." We can look back to the time when none of the unclean spirits that now haunt and harm us so terribly had any home in our souls; when thoughts were pure, hands undefiled, and our lips unpolluted with evil. Our fathers and mothers brought us to be baptized, or in other ways recognized the blessed truth that we belonged to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And in our childhood days we, as all children are, were members of the kingdom of heaven. But what are we now? O God, it is dreadful to think of what some are now] The desolate ruins of once glorious Churches; the lifeless bodies that we carry to the grave are but faint types of what some of these God-forsaken ones have become. And can it be that any are willing to continue so, and thus make it inevitable that God should sweep you away into the hell of all corruption? Oh no; you cannot be willing that that should be. Well, then, if you tremble at such doom, as well you may, listen: God will re-enter his shrine, and make you once again his temples. Yes, he will do that. He will "restore your souls and lead you in," etc. But first, as when Hezekiah cleansed the temple, you must cast out the manifold uncleanness that is there. There must be a thorough purging, a real repentance. God will not come back to a sin-inhabited and evil-loving soul. You must "thoroughly amend your ways." This is indispensable. See how in this chapter and throughout his Word God insists upon this. And then, as the high priest was wont to do, come bearing the blood of atonement into the presence of God; come, that is, pleading the Name of Jesus for acceptance and pardon and restoration, - and you shall behold, in the shrine of your soul, the cloud of glory once again shining there and the presence of God again manifested there. Thus come day by day, and you shall find how Christ saves "to the uttermost all that," etc. But are you of those whom God is now forsaking? Is the dread process of crowding out God by the bringing into the shrine of your heart those many things God hates and with which he will not abide, going on in you? Ah! that may be so. As others, so you were once the temple of the Holy Ghost, and perhaps there came a day when more than ever you welcomed him as your Ruler, because he had taken of the things of Christ and had shown them unto you. You made your open confession and avowal of your desire to be ruled and governed by him; you pledged yourself by his help to be Christ's faithful servant always. And for a time you were so: you were careful, conscientious; you remembered your Lord's word, "Watch and pray;" you readily abandoned all that stood between you and the doing of his will; you walked with God. But a change has come over you. One by one you received into your heart likings, and desires, and beliefs, and dispositions which were contrary to the Spirit of Christ. These suggestions you listened to, their counsels you obeyed. And so the love of the world fastened on you, propensities and habits which war against the soul took hold of you, and now you, whose heart was once a shrine of God, will, if the sad process I have spoken of goes on much longer, be forsaken of him altogether. Oh that the consideration of the doom of Shiloh may fill us with a holy fear, and lead us to such prayer as that which the well-known verse expresses! -

"Search me, O Lord, and try my heart,
For thou that heart canst see,
And turn each cursed idol out
That dares to rival thee." But some of you are to be congratulated that you are still temples of God, still shrines of the Holy Ghost. Well, then, cherish his presence as the greatest joy of your life. For "he is your life." You would not invite to meet and abide with a dear and honored earthly friend those with whom you well knew he had no sympathy nor they with him, who were distasteful and hostile to him. You would not treat an earthly friend so. Be careful, then, not so to treat the Spirit of God, who now dwells within you. Be full of solicitude not to grieve him, yet more to do naught that would drive him from you. "Walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." So shall God dwell in you and you in God, and that more and more to your ever-increasing strength and purity and joy. Thus though, as we have now done, you may go in devout thought to Shiloh, and behold what God has done there, yet you shall be able with thankful joy to know that never, never shall you be as that God-forsaken shrine. - C.

I. OF THE ANXIETY OF JEHOVAH FOR HIS PEOPLE. He who has important business on hand, or dear ones in trying circumstances, or great results dependent upon immediate and strenuous exertion, will show diligence in some such way. He will be unable to rest. So it is with God and his Church. Not that he can be said to fear or be uncertain as to the issues. But the interest he has in the fortunes and spiritual state of his people is of this description. It is no impassive God who is presented to us in Scripture. A profound concern for the interests of our race ever fills the mind of God. His deepest affections are engaged. He mourns the sin and rejoices in the salvation of men.

II. OF HIS DILIGENCE IN PROVIDING FOR THE WANTS OF HIS PEOPLE. It is no aimless, helpless anxiety that fills his breast. The most practical measures of help and direction are devised and carried into execution. Prophets, the plenipotentiaries of Divine grace, are sent in immediate response to the needs and demands of men. No age of the world or the Church but has its thick succession. Heaven is in continual activity on behalf of sinners. The choicest spiritual gifts are ceaselessly rained upon the earth. The most devoted servants of God are raised up and sent. Truth in quick evolution anticipates the spiritual necessities of those who would seek God. There is no flagging, no cessation, from Adam's fall to the uplifting of the second Adam. And onward from that Divine spectacle, in which was displayed the "fullness of the Godhead bodily," events hurry to the culminating glories of Pentecost and the marriage supper of the Lamb.

III. IF THIS BE THE CASE, HOW OUGHT WE TO STUDY AND LAY HOLD OF THE MESSAGE OF SALVATION? Is there not a contrast between the affectionate concern and sacrifice of God and the languid indifference or stubborn refusals of men? How shall we escape if we neglect this infinite mercy? How shall we excuse the manner in which we listen to the Word of God? - M.

I. THE DIVINE LONG-SUFFERING IS A VERY PRECIOUS FACT. Nations, Churches, individuals have not we ourselves? - have been examples of it. What have not all of us owed to the fact that the Lord is long-suffering, and" willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn," etc.? But -

II. THIS TRUTH HAS VERY OFTEN BEEN MUCH ABUSED.

1. In men's thoughts; for they hope, and to think that in have allowed themselves to pervert the truth of the "eternal " no way can the finite will of man exhaust the infinitude of mercy which there is in God.

2. And in their words also they have so set forth the long-suffering of God as to leave on men's minds the impression that it was practically infinite, We love to sing such verses as those which tell how

"None can measure out thy patience
By the span of human thought,
None can bound the tender mercies
Which thy holy Son hath wrought." And there is a sense in which these words are most blessedly true, but it is undeniable that such words are often pressed to a meaning which practically encourages the sinner to go on in sin.

3. And yet more is this truth abused in deed. Those to whom the prophet was writing had abused the long-suffering of God (cf. the closing verses of the Second Book of Chronicles). And how fearfully frequent is this abuse in the present day I How many reckon securely on making their peace with God, and having all the great affairs of their souls fully settled for eternity, although they go on, day by day and year by year, living in total disregard both of God and of his will. Therefore it is necessary to insist with all urgency -

III. THAT THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD CAN BE WORN OUT. The above section of this prophecy plainly declares this fact. And the fate of Jerusalem stands not alone in evidence of this (cf. the story of the Deluge, and how long then the long-suffering of God waited). Those who perished in the wilderness - how often were they warned! And, indeed, it may be said that God never brings ruin upon nation, Church, or individual soul without warning, repeated, plain, and urgent. But the fact that he does send such ruin proves that men may tempt God too far.

IV. AND THAT WHICH WILL EXHAUST THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD IS CLEARLY SHOWN US. It is not the fact of sin, great sin, repeated sin, but it is when, as in the case before us, sin has been persisted in, in spite of every kind and degree of plainest warning. "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck," etc. (Proverbs 29:1). Now, such was the conduct of those told of here. God had not merely let them know of the peril of their conduct, but his loving solicitude for them had shown itself in the most marked ways. Note expressions in Ver. 13: God not only spoke to them, but like as "those who watch for the morning" rise up early, so God himself awoke early, i.e. he chose the most favorable hours, the most probable means for gaining attention to the truths which he, by his prophets, spoke to them. But it was all of no avail. "Ye heard not;... ye answered not" (cf. Jeremiah 6:16, 17). Now, it is sin persisted in, in spite of all such Divine solicitude so repeatedly manifested" that God will not pardon (Vers. 14, 15). It is an unpardonable sin, and like such sin its forgiveness is not even to be prayed for (Ver. 16, and cf. 1 John 4:16).

V. CONSIDER THE REASON OF THIS REFUSAL TO FORGIVE, It is not because there is not love sufficient in God to pardon, but because his love is so great, because he is love. For God's love is not as that of too many earthly parents - a partial and unjust thing, loving one child at the expense of the others - but his love is for the children. His whole family are the subjects of his incessant and tenderest solicitude. Now, if a rebellious child come away from its rebellion, and have done with it, coming and confessing, "Father, I have sinned," with what joy the Father welcomes such returning one back! And so do the angels of God. No harm, but only good, results. But if there be no repentance, and the spirit of rebellion burns on in the heart of the child, how, consistently with true regard for the welfare of the other and obedient children, can the Father deal with that one as he does with these? It would turn heaven into hell, and make the Father's house, now the home of blessedness and the blessed, a scene of eternal discord. It could not be. Now, it is because such despising of the long-suffering of God destroys the hope of repentance, renders impossible the sighing of the contrite heart, and renders certain the going on in rebellion, that therefore this sin wears out the long-suffering of God and hath never forgiveness. The very love of God necessitates that he who is separate and alien in heart from the children of his love should be separate and alien from them in every other respect as well. And therefore, because it would be praying against the well-being of God's children, the prophet is forbidden to pray for the forgiveness of this sin. It is the unpardonable sin, the sin unto death, the sin against the Holy Ghost. CONCLUSION. We learn what alone bars the mercy of God. Not this or that sin, however great. Still less the circumstance of death. But this "despising the forbearance of God." What need, then, for us all to pray, "Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me... I shall be innocent from the great transgression!" - C.

I. SUCH PROHIBITION OF PRAYER SEEMS VERY STRANGE. Are we not bidden "pray without ceasing," "in all things by prayer and supplication... make our requests known unto God?" Are we not promised, "Ask, and ye shall receive?" Did not the Lord say, "Men ought always to pray, and not to faint?" And, in a case more nearly resembling the one before us in the text, did not Samuel say to the rebellious people of his day, "But God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you?"

II. IT IS NEVERTHELESS A FACT. And this prohibition is repeated (Jeremiah 11:14; Jeremiah 14:11; cf. also Exodus 32:10).

III. AND WE HAVE WHAT IS SIMILAR NOW. There is no express command not to pray for the reversal of the laws of nature. But yet we never do pray for such things. David's servants wondered that when his child was dead he should altogether cease from fasting and prayer; but he answered, "Wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again?" (2 Samuel 41:23). And even before death has actually taken place, when there is no hope of life, we find it all but impossible to pray for such life. And so in regard to what we know would be derogatory to the honor of God and his righteousness; we should never think of praying for aught like that. Or for what cannot be in the nature of things. Now, in all these things it is as if we had been prohibited to pray for them, seeing that we never do so pray. As children give over praying their parents to do this or that when they see by the expression of their countenance that it cannot be, and, on the contrary, when they see the faintest look of "yes," they urge their request with a renewed importunity of clamor; so is it in our prayers before God. We must see the look of "yes" on the face of God in more or less degree, or our prayers die down. But if it be seen, then they rise up, press on and forward with a vigor unknown before. This is a law of all prayer. And in regard to prayer for such as are told of in the text, it may be that Jeremiah was not expressly told in so many words that he was not to pray for them, but it was borne in upon his mind that he could not. And it is sadly possible that such conviction may be borne in upon the minds of God's people now concerning' some reprobate ones. There comes, over the soul the deep feeling that such and such a one "is joined to his idols, and that you can only "let him alone" The disciples of the Lord were bidden, when their message was spurned, to cast off the dust of their feet as a testimony against them. Paul did so with the hardened Jews. And such solemn conviction as to the utter godlessness of any on the part of a company of God's people is that "binding on earth" which will be ratified by, because it is but the result of, the "binding in heaven." They of whom the Church feels deeply that "their sins are retained," those sins are retained. And so through this solemn conviction, this despair of the soul's turning to God, prayer for such soul may become impossible. God has practically said concerning such to his people, "Pray not thou for this people, neither," etc.

IV. THIS IS A FACT OF MOST MOMENTOUS IMPORT TO THOSE WHOM IT CONCERNS. To be given up by God's servants may be the token that you are given up by God. Their feeling about you may be - we do not say necessarily is, but may be - but the reflection of God's. Happy are they who put joy and gladness into the hearts of God's servants, and for whom they with earnestness and strong faith can pray. But sad is the outlook of those for whom those same servants of God feel they cannot pray. Oh, pray that prayers for you may never be counted by God or by his people as amongst prohibited prayers! - C.

I. AGGRAVATING CIRCUMSTANCES.

1. It was done publicly in the streets of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. God was displaced from the land he had given. The place that was consecrated by the faith and worship of the saints and the ceaseless mercies of Jehovah is desecrated by the orgies and profanities of heathenism. The worship of the "queen of heaven" (the female representative - Astarte - of the nature principle, of which Baal is the male principle) could not but be public. As the Baal worshippers poured forth their libations to the sun-god in broad day, so the worshippers of the moon made no secret of their devotions. It was done literally and perforce "in the face of heaven." And celebrations of the most obscene description mingled with their sacrifices. Yet was there no shame.

2. It absorbed the attention and energies of the people. Here is a picture of a whole family, from the eldest to the least, occupied in tasks connected with the worship of Astarte. How different from the perfunctory or imperfect service rendered to Jehovah! No time was left for the true worship. And is it not just so today under new forms and conditions? The idolatry of pleasure, gain, ambition, personal and social ideals, - does it not absorb the minds and bodies of its devotees? How little time is left for Christian duty and sacrifice! How weary and useless are those faculties which are professedly placed at the service of God! Our life-work is too often in the market-place, in the forum of personal display and self-seeking, etc., instead of the service of Jesus and the house of God.

3. It involved the waste of the natural products of the land.

II. THE DELIBERATE INTENTION. There was not wanting this expressed defiance. The idea is that they would annoy and exasperate Jehovah with impunity to themselves, as mean natures delight in awakening the jealousy, etc., of others. In this way they showed how completely they misunderstood the relations of Jehovah with his world and his people, his command over the forces of nature, and his power of retaliation through the ordinary laws of nature.

III. ITS RECOMPENSE.

1. According to natural laws. Affecting, therefore, the objects they required for their sacrifices to Astarte, and cutting off the supplies requisite for man and beast.

2. To their own confusion. God will be unaffected; they themselves wilt be put to shame. The idolater and atheist are their own worst enemies.

3. Not to be escaped or ended. They are playing with fire. It will soon find its proper objects in themselves and their profaned offerings. Nor will they be able to quench that which they have kindled. So helpless will transgressors ever be. In the least of the calamities that they provoke upon themselves there is a beginning of penal fires and eternal miseries. - M.

I. IT IS A WARNING. For it shows the deadly contagion of sin. Now, when the head of the household goes after evil, he speedily draws in and down wife and children, until the whole family is corrupted, and they become a household of wickedness. The text reveals whole families engaged in the worship of idolatry, each member taking an active and eager part. They become so many societies for the propagation of ungodliness. In the sanctity or the sin of the parent the children are sure to share. In the first, by the grace of God; in the second, by the fatal force of a father's example. A father can lift his children up to heaven or he can drag them down to hell, and some do. See the text.

II. BUT IT IS A MODEL ALSO. In what we are here told, the heathen shame the Church. Idolatrous worship may well put to the blush much of the worship of God. For in the worship told of in the text, false and horrible as it was, nevertheless we see much that we might well copy.

1. It was a worship that made all work. What a busy hive of workers each household is seen to be! But where is the counterpart of this in the Church of Christ? A whole family eager and active for Christ - the father, the mother, and all the children - would be a unique fact. How lazy, how indolent, is the greater part of our religion!

2. The children were interested in it. We are heartbroken that the great masses of our countrymen stand aloof from the worship of God. Did we interest them in it when they were children? We had them all in our hands, as we have their children now. Are our modes of worship, our representations of God's truth, our methods of instruction, such as shall make them love God's worship when they grow up? What would we not give to see our children so eager in God's worship as were the children told of in the text in idol-worship?

3. Both sides of the house were agreed on this great question. Husband and wife were of one mind, and each did what they could to further it. It was the general rule. Is it so now in regard to God and his service? Does the husband never hinder the wife? Does the wife always help the husband on the heavenward road?

4. There was fit work for each, and each did it. The children could gather sticks, the men kindle the fires, and the women, etc. When will there arise in the Church some who will point out some fresh and wise methods of enlisting all in her work? We have now two or three regular plans in operation; but if any be unfit or unwilling for them, as many are, there is nothing else for them. What we need is what these idolaters in their sad worship seem to have found - a work for every one, and every one at his work. But meanwhile let each one who is standing in the vineyard idle, not because unwilling to work, but because no one has hired him, no one has pointed him to the work for which he is really fit - and there are many such - let him take his case to the Lord, and ask, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and he may rest assured, no matter whether he be little child or grown-up man, an answer will come to him soon. - C.

I. REMEMBER GOD'S IDEAL OF AN ISRAELITE FAMILY. This is not set before us in any particular passage, but we can gather it from different institutions and commandments. Religion not only concerned the individual in his relation to the priest, the altar, and the holy of holies, and in his general relations to his fellow-men; but there was a very special mention of institutions and regulations which made the individual remember his position in the family. These institutions and regulations were as vital bonds, making the family into a true organic unity. There were the dedication of the firstborn, and the institution concerning the meaning of the Passover feast (Exodus 13.). There was the command to honor father and mother. So connected with the passage now under consideration, there was the setting apart of the dough (Numbers 15.). A continual instruction and training in Divine things was to be provided for. A mother could have no greater honor than that her children should rise up and call her blessed. Thus gathering together many passages that might be cited, we see that God meant the family to be a great agent for the advancement of his people in all that was good; and the same family ideal comes out with equal prominence and beauty in the New Testament. The natural family may, so far as Christ is concerned, count for much, if only each individual in the family will live up to his opportunities. Still, Christ insists upon the natural family being subordinate to the spiritual family. It is one of the illustrations of the great disintegrating and reconstituting power of the gospel of Christ, that it breaks up the family which is held by nothing stronger than natural bonds. The ideal family of the children of God, those who are the spiritual and abiding Israel, must be gained at any cost. The notion of a family gives one of the aspects in which Christians may be perfectly associated together.

II. LOOK AT THE DEGRADED POSITION IN WHICH THE ISRAELITE FAMILY ACTUALLY WAS. The parents are confirmed idolaters, and are dragging down their children to their own level. The children are sent out to gather fuel towards an idolatrous offering, when they should be learning of the nature, the will, and the promises of Jehovah. A desecrated temple has been spoken of, turned into a den of robbers; but what is that compared with a desecrated family? How insidiously, how gradually, how irresistibly, these children are drawn into idolatry! Gathering wood might be an interesting, amusing occupation, more like play than work. What idea could the children have of the awful insult to which this gathering would contribute? They would grow up, as by a second nature, to kindle fires and knead dough themselves. And it was so easy to treat the child in its way, to tell it to go out and gather wood; far easier than to bear patiently with its waywardness and inattention, and thus lead it on to some understanding of Israel's glorious past. For such treatment meant that the parent should be a learner also, he and his children moving onward together into an enjoyment of the fullness of the Divine promises. And yet God had dons much for these parents to make the teaching of his truth as easy as it could be made. He had given things to be set before the children's eyes at periodic intervals. But here, in this deep and pleasing infection of idolatry, is an influence which seems to work successfully against all that God can do. What could be hoped from rising up early and sending the prophets, when there was all this counter-working in the Israelite home?

III. CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY OF STILL ACHIEVING THE IDEAL. Much may be done towards making even the natural family a holier and more edifying institution than in most cases it is. The humiliating description here shows how much depends upon the parents. How much there is still, even among families nominally Christian, which is just as horrible in this way as this family idolatry among the Israelites of old? Children are sedulously schooled into the worship of Mammon. Selfish and heedless parents are eager to send them to work, when as yet they should know only the home, the school, and the playground. Too often is the maxim reversed that the parents should provide for the children. Christian parents, at all events, should hold themselves bound by the most solemn obligations to do all they can for the training of their children in godliness. There is an ideal of parental duty, and that ideal is seen in action when we look towards the great Father in heaven. Assuredly there would be more God-fearing children if there were more really God-fearing parents. But what cannot be gained by looking up to human guidance and example, can be gained by looking to God. He gathers his children out of many human households, and gives them his own Word to be an impulse and a guide. He puts into their hearts a love of the spiritual brotherhood, which is a deeper feeling than any that nature knows. And the end of it all will be that his children will be perfectly joined together in one mind, in the praise and service of him who alone is worthy to be Braised and served by all. - Y.

I. THE RESULTS OF SIN ON OTHERS ARE TERRIBLE.

1. What may not be their deadly influence upon those with whom the sinner comes in contact? How hereditary, how contagious, how virulent, the poison of sin! As no man liveth unto himself, so also "no man dieth unto himself." If he die by reason of his sin, he ever drags down others into the same doom.

2. And their results Godward. It is said they "provoke him to anger;" "God is angry with the wicked every day;" "God is slow to anger, and of great mercy." But still sin is "the abominable thing that he hates." He will not tolerate it in his children, and hence, however severe the measures necessary to separate it and them, those measures will be taken. "Our God is a consuming fire." But -

II. THE RECOIL OF SIN ON THE SINNER HIMSELF IS TERRIBLE ALSO. It is described in the text.

1. It provokes him to anger. It is not alone the Lord whose anger is aroused, but the sinner's anger also is provoked. As he looks back on the folly, the utter madness, of what he has done, how completely he has been deceived, what rage of remorse fills his soul! How he flogs himself with the lashings of his own self-upbraiding! What epithets of anger and contempt does he heap upon his own head! He is filled with the fruit of his own ways. And another of these bitter fruits is:

2. Confusion of face. He is ashamed, abashed, confounded, because of his sin. He is so

(1) before his own conscience, He cannot bear to think of himself. From the companionship of his own thoughts he flees as from a haunting ghost. Like a sheeted specter conscience seems to be pointing at him with its dread finger, its stony eyes ever glaring upon him, so that, turn which way he will, he cannot escape their gaze. He is ashamed of himself, covered with confusion of face before his own conscience. Oh, miserable, miserable wretch that he is!

(2) Before God. He cannot pray. He shuns the throne of grace. His iniquities have so "taken hold of him" that he cannot "look up." All joy, all confidence, all hope in God, have fled. He feels himself an outcast from the Divine presence; he would feel the eye of God upon him if he knelt down to pray, and that he cannot bear.

(3) Before man. He cannot forever conceal his sin and folly, and even when it is as yet undiscovered, he is conscious of this "confusion of face "in the presence of others. And when at length the sin is discovered, oh, what agony of shame and remorse then! Death is chosen rather than life, and men rush to the suicide's grave as to a positive relief. "Anywhere, anywhere out of the world," which has become aware of their sin! Oh, this awful recoil of sin! "I believe that if the mental sufferings of such backsliders could be written and faithfully published, they would astound you, and be a more horrible story to read than all the torments of the Inquisition. What racks a man is stretched upon who has been unfaithful to his covenant with God! What fires have burned within the souls of those men who have been untrue to Christ and his cause! What dungeons, what grim and dark prisons underground, have saints of God lain in who have gone aside into by-path meadows instead of keeping to the King's highway! He who sins must smart, especially if he be a child of God, for the Lord hath said of his people, 'You only have I known of all the people of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your iniquities.' Whoever may go unchastised, a child of God never shall" (Spurgeon).

III. THE ALONE CURE FOR THIS CONFUSION OF FACE IS THE CONTRITE CONFESSION OF THAT WHICH HAS CAUSED IT. God's word is passed that such confession shall avail; but let not him who has gone back from God think that the return will be as easy as the departure. It will not. David was never the same after his sin as he was before. Oh, it is dreadful to think of this recoil of sin, and how it staggers and wounds and weakens the soul for the whole life long. We slide back, gliding easily as over smooth ice. Not so do we return. Still, let the return be ever so difficult, the Lord bids us return, and he will heal all our backslidings. Oh, let us all go straight away to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, for fear we should be backsliders; for there is the surest standing-ground, there our footsteps never slip! And if we have thus sinned, and sin's recoil is now terribly felt by us, then still go to the same cross; for our only hope of healing is there, and there alone.

"Come, let us to the Lord our God
With contrite hearts return;
Our God is gracious, nor will leave
The penitent to mourn." C.

I. THERE ARE MANY SUCH. All forms of life are mentioned here - human, animal, plant from the stateliest trees down to the lowliest herb - and all shall suffer because of the sin of but a portion of them. How many, even of men, were innocent! And the young children - what had they done? Yet none were to escape, though it was but a portion of the men of the day who had done such wrong.

II. HENCE SOME SAY, "THE WAY OF THE LORD Is NOT EQUAL." But:

1. The summing up of all life in one head, constituting it a corporate unity, giving a solidarity to all life, especially to all human life, is the Divine order.

2. And though sin and sorrow come by means of it, yet a far larger balance of good is produced by it. What do we not owe to our all being members one of another? True, evil comes, but good yet more. Were we all isolated, separated, independent, there would be no guarantee for our good even then, but there would be certainty of infinite loss. If the sins of the fathers are visited on the children unto the third and fourth generation, the mercy of the Lord is unto thousands of generations "of them that love him and keep his commandments"(Exodus 20:6)

3. And though because of it "n Adam all died," yet because of it also in Christ shall all be made alive. This interlinking, of one with all and all with one is, therefore, a matter for great thankfulness, and, though attended with present evils, not at all of complaint.

III. AND THE THOUGHT OF THESE INNOCENT VICTIMS OF SIN IS MOST SALUTARY.

1. It often holds back from sin. This is one way in which God "out of the mouth of babes and sucklings has ordained strength." How often fathers and mothers will, for the sake of their children, that they might not be harmed, keep back from sin, to which but for such motive they might have yielded!

2. It deepens repentance for sin. (Cf. 2 Samuel 24:17.)

3. It makes sin more hateful to us. What must that be which destroys not us only, but our children, innocent of all sin? And it may be that the thus furnishing of additional safeguards against sin, and of additional motives to obedience, was one reason in the Divine mind for constituting us all "members one of another."

IV. AND THE THOUGHT OF THE INNOCENT 'VICTIM OF SIN, OUR LORD JESUS, IS THE MOST SALUTARY OF ALL. For he transforms us from victims into victors - victors over the condemning, the attractive, the defiling, the enslaving power of sin. And it is as we "look unto" him, as our souls habitually trust him to do all this for us, that we cease to be victims of sin, and become victors over it. Let us give glory to him by accepting his off, red grace. - C.

I. WE READ IN OTHER SCRIPTURES OF "THE JOY OF HARVEST." Such shall be the joy of God's redeemed people when his purposes of grace are fulfilled in and for them. It will be a joy unspeakably glorious.

II. BUT HERE WE HAVE PORTRAYED ANOTHER HARVEST - that of sin. Here there is no joy, but bitter lamentation and weeping and woe (Ver. 29). We are shown:

1. The seed from which this harvest springs (Ver. 30) - the doing evil in the sight of the Lord; setting their abominations in his house (Ver. 30).

2. We see its growth - in open and unblushing idolatry; in the debasement of their nature. They had come to sacrifice their own children to their idol-god, to such horrible cruelty had they sunk down.

3. We see its hurry,

(1) in death, widespread and terrible (Vers. 32, 33);

(2) in the flight of all joy and gladness (Ver. 34);

(3) in public and deep degradation (Jeremiah 8:1, 2);

(4) in utter despair (Jeremiah 8:3).

III. AND THOUGH DIFFERING IN OUTWARD CIRCUMSTANCE, YET IN SUBSTANCE AND REALITY THE SAME HARVEST WILL EVER SPRING FROM THE SAME SEED.

1. All evil-doing is such seed. And sheltering this under the cloak of religion, - this is the same seed.

2. And its growth will be in like manner. Progressive daring in sin; the debasement of our nature.

3. And its harvest will be seen,

(1) in widespread spiritual death, and often in terrible death-beds;

(2) in the loss of all joy and gladness;

(3) in degradation before men;

(4) in awful despair.

CONCLUSION. Remember, "God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth," etc. - C.

I. THAT THAT WHICH IS MORALLY CORRUPT SHALL ENTAIL DESTRUCTION. Where there is filth in God's universe there will be fire. Corruption is the beginning of death, in this world and that which is to come.

II. THE INWARD, MORAL CHARACTER OF THINGS AND PERSONS SHALL HAVE EXTERNAL PHYSICAL EXPRESSION. It will not always be concealed. That which is whispered in the ear shall be spoken from the house-top. The trap will be labeled and the pitfall plainly shown. The externalizing processes of history and development in nations, individuals, etc., tend to declare by outward and unmistakable signs the real character. Of this Tophet is an illustration. The judgment its revolting practices bring upon its votaries is the occasion of its permanent defilement. It gradually is transformed into a scene of physical abomination, and, to the spiritual imagination, the type and symbol of eternal perdition. Gehenna fires - how different their first and last senses, and yet how related! The same law will operate in holy and spiritual men. The inward nature will cast the slough of corruption, and shall be clothed upon with a "body," which shall express, further, and fulfill it. When that which is really and spiritually filthy is sentenced to be ' filthy still," the saints shall find embodiment and circumstances corresponding to their inward condition, and constituting the elements of their reward. - M.