JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XII.  THE INDESTRUCTIBLE WORD
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

The destruction of the roll did not, however, cancel the terrible doom to which the ship of state was hurrying, under the orders of its passionate and wicked captain. On another roll all the words of the book which he had burned were written again, and others were added, foretelling the indignity and insult to which the dead body of the king would be exposed. "His dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost."

I. EYES OPENED TO SEE.

There was a vast difference between Baruch, whose heart was in perfect sympathy with Jeremiah, and Jehudi or the princes. But there was almost as much between the faithful scribe and the Heaven-illumined prophet. The one could only write as the words streamed from those burning lips; he saw nothing, he realized nothing; to him the walls of the chamber were the utmost bound of vision: while the other beheld the whole landscape of truth outspread before him, the rocks and shoals on the margin of the ocean, the inrolling storm billows tipped with angry foam, the gathering clouds, the ship straining in every timber and driving sheer on the shore. For Jeremiah the walls of the chamber where they sat together were as though they had become transparent; he looked through and beyond them, and read off his message from what he saw, as a man might read from a book.

This was the work of the Spirit who inspired him, and whose special function it was to open the eye of the seers of the old time to the great facts of the unseen and eternal world, which were shortly to be reduplicated in the world of the temporal and visible. They beheld visions of God: the sapphire throne upborne by the strong cherubim; the terrible wheels of providence; the rise and fall of mighty empires; the sub dual of sin and pain by the mighty sway of the coming One. To speak what he knew, and to testify what he had seen -- such was the mission of the prophet.

In our case there is no likelihood of this. Yet men may be seers still. Two men may sit together side by side. The veil of sense may hang darkly before the one, while for the other it is rent in twain from the top to the bottom. ]'here no thought, no ambition, no desire for aught beyond the temporal and seen; but here the vision of the presence and care of God, of the principalities and powers in the heavenlies, of the ministry of angels and the opposition of fiends, of the chariots and horses of salvation, of the prize and crown, of the awards of Christ's judgment seat, and the home beyond the river. Flesh and blood do not reveal such things, but the Spirit of God. They are hidden from the wise and prudent, but revealed to babes who love God. Happy are they the eyes of whose heart are opened to know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power toward them that believe!

It is very important that all Christians should be alive to and possess this power of vision. It is deeper than intellectual, since it is spiritual; it is not the result of reasoning or learning, but of intuition; it cannot be acquired in the school of earthly science, but is the gift of Him who alone can open the eyes of the blind, and remove the films of earthliness that shut out the eternal and unseen. If you lack it, reader, seek it at the hands of Jesus; be willing to do his will, and you shall know. It is a thousand pities to be blind, and not able to see afar off, when all around stand the mountains of God in solemn majesty, as the Alps around the Swiss hostelry, where the traveler arrives after nightfall, to eat and drink and sleep, unconscious of the proximity of so much loveliness. It is related of Ampere, the electrician, who was short-sighted without being aware of it, that when he became conscious of his defective vision through the casual use of the eye-glasses of a friend, he burst into tears as he realized how much he had missed throughout his life of the wonderful beauty and interest of the world around him. With more reason will many of us have to lament our untold loss through that spiritual near-sightedness of which the Holy Ghost speaks (2 Peter 1:9, R.V.).
__________________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XII.  THE INDESTRUCTIBLE WORD
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

If, on the other hand, you have the opened eye, you will not need books of evidences to establish to your satisfaction the truth of our holy religion, the glory of the risen Lord, the world of the unseen. With the woman of Samaria you will say, "We have seen it for ourselves." No further proof will be needed than your own spiritual senses afford. And though a series of well-ordered arguments should be brought into array to assail your position as a believer, you would be bold to reply, "Whereas I was blind, now I see." The patriarchs of old who reached forth their hands to greet the vision of the city that hath foundations, the New Jerusalem -- which all holy souls behold descending out of heaven from God -- furnish the model for spiritual men of every age; and they who see these things are indifferent to the privations of the tent life, or, as in Jeremiah's case, rise superior to the hatred of man and the privations of a siege.

II. THE USE OF THE PENKNIFE.

Men use the knife to the Bible in varied ways. Among these are Systems of Priestcraft and Error. They have done it. They will do it again. They are wise to do it -- I mean wise in their own interests. For when once the Bible is in the hands of the people, the false teacher who has deluded them for selfish purposes must pack. The long reign of the Roman Catholic Church was broken as soon as Tyndale, Erasmus, and Luther opened the Word of God, and the printing-press scattered it over the world. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that as long as possible fires were lit for Bible burning in every chief city of Europe, and the knife was freely used to cut out whatever condemned the office of the pope, or the system to which he belonged. The Vulgate, with its mutilations and excisions, is a standing evidence that Jehudi's penknife survived his age.

The next that follows Jehoiakim's practice is the Infidel, who uses the keen blade of bitter sarcasm and miscalled reason to destroy the Scriptures. The hostility that manifested itself in the winter palace among the princes of this world has wrought in the halls of earthly learning and science, instigating similar acts to theirs. The laboratory of the chemist, the hammer of the mineralogist, the pry of the geologist, the telescope of the astronomer, the calculations of the arithmetician, and the explorations of the discoverer, have all been used in turn as the penknife of destruction. The Bible is cut up regularly once in each generation by men like these.

The next are the Higher Critics of our time, who surely have gone beyond the necessities of the case in their ruthless use of the knife. Some of them seem to delight in making havoc of the sacred writings, hacking at the Old Testament specially, and whittling away from the reputed work of a Moses, an Isaiah, or a Daniel. There is room for the honest examination of the fabric of Sacred Scripture, its language, the evidence furnished in its texture of the successive hands which have reedited its most ancient documents; but this is altogether different to the ruthless vandalism that wantonly assigns large portions of the Pentateuch to the age of Ezra, and the Book of Daniel to the times of the Maccabees.
__________________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XII.  THE INDESTRUCTIBLE WORD
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

We are all tempted to use Jehudi's Penknife. It is probable that no one is free from the almost unconscious habit of evading or toning down certain passages which conflict with the doctrinal or ecclesiastical position in which we were reared or which we have assumed.

In our private reading of the Scripture we must beware of using the penknife. Whole books and tracts of truth are practically cut out of the Bible of some earnest Christians passages referring to the Second Advent, with their summons to awake and gird on the armor of light; those that deal with the undying worm, the unquenched fire, and the inevitable doom of the ungodly; those that describe the types and shadows of the ancient law; or those that build up massive systems of truth and doctrine, as in the epistles. But we can only eliminate these things at our peril. The Bible is like good wheaten bread, which contains all the properties necessary to support life. And we cannot eliminate its starch or sugar, its nitrates or phosphates, without becoming enfeebled and unhealthy. It is a golden rule to read the Bible as a whole. Of course each will have his favorite passages, dark with tears and use: Psalms 23:1-6., Isaiah 53:1-12., John 14.; but besides these there should be the loving and devout study of all Scripture, which is given by inspiration of God, and is therefore profitable, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to every good work.

III. THE INDESTRUCTIBLE WORD.

Men may destroy the words and the fabric on which they are written, but not the Word itself. It is the incorruptible Word of God, which liveth and abideth, though all flesh wither as grass and the glory of man as the flower of the field. It must be sometimes an uncomfortable reflection to those who refuse the testimony of the Word of God, who to all intents and purposes destroy it and despise its remonstrances and warnings, that their attitude toward the message cannot affect the reality to which it bears witness.

Jeremiah wrote another roll. The money spent in buying up copies of the Bible to burn at St. Paul's enabled Tyndale to reissue the Scriptures in a cheaper form and a better type. And perhaps the most remarkable fact in this connection is that, in spite of all that has been done to stamp out the Bible, it exists in millions of copies, and is circulated among all the nations of the world -- not a chapter effaced, not a parable dropped out, not a miracle injured, not a promise scarred. It has been declared over and over again to be a careless, unauthenticated collection of works of different periods, having no unity save that given by the bookbinder; yet it is with us to-day in unimpaired authority.

And the facts to which Jeremiah bore witness all came to pass. Neither knife nor fire could arrest the inevitable doom of king, city, and people. The drunken captain may cut in pieces the chart that tells of the rocks in the vessel's course, and put in irons the sailor who calls his attention to it; but neither will avert the crash that must ensue unless the helm is turned. Let those beware who deny the testimony of Scripture to the retribution of sin and the wrath of God: these things are as true as the throne of God and the reward of the redeemed. You may tamper with and destroy the record, but the stubborn facts remain.
___________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XIII.  THE RECHABITES
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

(Jeremiah 35:6-10.)

"Happy if full of days -- but happier far
If, ere we yet discern life's evening star,
Sick of the service of a world that feeds
Its patient drudges with dry chaff and weeds,
We can escape from custom's idiot sway,
To serve the Sovereign we were born to obey."
COWPER.

THE march of Nebuchadnezzar on Jerusalem was anticipated by incursions of Syrians, Moabites, and the children of Ammon. These may be compared to the squadrons of light cavalry used in modern warfare to harass the enemy and prepare the way for heavier armaments. They swept up the valleys, massacred the peasantry, devoured the crops, and spread terror on every hand. The inhabitants, therefore, of the neighboring country, eager to save their lives and some relics of their property, left their houses and lands to the mercy of the invader, and fled for protection to the metropolis, accounting that within the massive walls of Zion they would find safeguard. What a stir there must have been as day by day the motley groups pressed in under the old gateways, gray with age, and sought accommodation and food in the already overcrowded tenements of the city!

Among the rest came a tribe that excited much curiosity by reason of its strange and antique manners. It came in full force -- of men at least. The sheik's name was Jaazaniah  -- "he whom Jehovah hears "; and his brethren and sons and the heads of other households were with him. They refused to shelter in the houses or permanent buildings of the city, but pitched their dusky tents in some open space within the walls, and there awaited the turn of events.

Their record was an honorable one, and reached far back into the early days of Hebrew history. When Israel was passing through the wilderness of Sinai, the tribe of the Kenites showed them kindness, and this laid the foundation of perpetual friendliness between the two peoples. They seem to have adopted the religious convictions of Israel, and to have accompanied them into the Land of Promise. Retaining their integrity as a pastoral people, the Kenites maintained these friendly relations with Israel during the intervening centuries; and it was of this tribe that the Rechabites, for such was the name of this strange, tent-loving people, had sprung (Judges 4:17-24; 1 Samuel 15:6; 1 Chronicles 2:55).

About the time of Elijah, and perhaps largely influenced by him, the sheik or leader of one branch of the Kenites was Jonadab, the son of Rechab. He was dismayed at the abounding corruption and iniquity of the time, and especially of the northern kingdom, then under the fatal spell of Jezebel's and Ahab's influence, and resembling some rank jungle in whose steamy air, heavy with fever and poison, noisome creatures swarm and foul pestilences breed. In his endeavor to save his people from such a fate, this noble man, who afterward became Jehu's confederate in extirpating idolatry, bound his people under a solemn pledge to drink no wine forever; neither to build houses, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyards, but to dwell in tents. Two hundred and fifty years had passed since then, but when they arrived in Jerusalem they were still true to the traditions of their race, and with sturdy strength stood out among the effeminate and idol-loving people of Jerusalem, living representatives of the noblest and purest days of Hebrew story.
_________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XIII.  THE RECHABITES
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

I. JEREMIAH'S TEST OF THE RECHABITES.

So soon as their arrival was noised abroad and had come to the ears of Jeremiah, he was seized by a divine impulse to derive from them a striking object-lesson for his own people. With an inventiveness which only passionate love could have suggested, the prophet caught at every incident and used every method to awaken his people to realize their true position in the sight of God. Taking the leaders of the Rechabites with him, he went into the Temple, to a room belonging to the sons of Hanan, known as a man of God, immediately adjacent to the room occupied by the princes, and above that occupied by the gatekeeper.

Probably a little group of Jews, arrested by the prophet's association with these strange-looking men, followed them in to watch the proceedings. They were curious witnesses of the prophet's action, as he caused bowls of wine to be set before the tribesmen, and cups to be offered them, that they might dip them in and drink. They also heard the blunt, unqualified refusal of these quaint, old-fashioned Puritans, "We will drink no wine," followed by an explanation of the solemn obligation laid on them centuries before.

The moral was obvious. Here were men loyal to the wish of their ancestor, though he was little more than a name to them, and refusing the offered sweets in which so many freely indulged. How great a contrast to the people of Jerusalem, who persistently disregarded the words of the living God perpetually remonstrating against their sins! The prohibitions of Jonadab were largely arbitrary and external, while those of Jehovah were corroborated by the convictions of conscience, and consonant with the deepest foundations of religion and morality. The voice of Jonadab was a cry coming faintly from far down the ages, while Jehovah was ever speaking with each new dawn, and in the voice of each fresh messenger whom tie rose early to send.

There could be but one result. Judah, eaten through with the crimes and corruption against which God had protested in vain, must reap the whirlwind, as she had sown the wind. There could be no escape from the judgment which was drawing nearer with every daybreak. If the people could not heed words of expostulation, of entreaty and warning, accounting them exaggerated and vain, they should at least be compelled to admit that not one of God's threats of vengeance fell impotent on the air or missed its aim.

On the other hand, such devotion to principle, such persistent culture of simplicity, frugality, and abstinence, such literal adherence to the will of the father of their house, not only carried within them the assurance of perpetuity to the people who practiced them, but must receive the signature and countersign of the Almighty. "Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me forever."

This phrase had a very profound significance. It suggested, of course, obviously, that the tribe should not cease to exist. And it is to be noted that Dr. Wolff, the missionary traveler, met a tribe in Arabia who claimed to be Rechabites and read to him these words of Jeremiah from an Arabic Bible; and that Signor Pierotti, near the southeast end of the Dead Sea, met a tribe who also called themselves Rechabites and quoted these words. But there was a yet deeper thought. The phrase is often used in Scripture of priestly service. And may we not infer that where we meet that devotion to principle and that detachment from the world which characterized these men, there will always be a strong religious tone, a knowledge of God, a power in prayer and intercession, which are the essential characteristics of the priest? This will lead us to thoughts which are alike suggestive and salutary.
________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XIII.  THE RECHABITES
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

II. THE ELEMENTS OF A STRONGLY RELIGIOUS LIFE.

The phrase "to stand before God" designates a high-toned religious life, and includes the knowledge of God, the faculty of executing his commands, and the power of interceding for others. The phrase was a favorite one with Elijah, as expressing the spirit of his great career, and was chosen by the angel Gabriel as conveying to the maiden of Nazareth the most certain guaranty of his authority and veracity. Surely every reader of these words must desire that the spirit and attitude of all coming days may be designated thus! Oh, to stand always before Him, on whose face the glory of God shines as the sun in his strength! But if this is to be something more than a vague wish, an idle dream, three things should be remembered, suggested by the words of the Rechabites:

(1) There must be Close Adhesion to Great Principles.

Many superficial reasons might have suggested to the Rechabites compliance with the prophet's tempting suggestion. The wine was before them; there was no sin against God in taking it; the people around had no scruples about it; and the prophet himself invited them. But against all they stood on the principles which Jonadab had laid down to guide them, and they did not hesitate to avow them, let those ridicule who would.

In contrast to this, it is the general tendency among men to ask what is the practice of the majority; what is done by those in their rank and station; and what will be expected of them. We drift with the current. We allow our lives to be settled by our companions or our whims, our fancies or our tastes; and if ever we have a momentary qualm in contrasting our lives with the standards of primitive simplicity, of which Scripture and old biographies are full, we excuse ourselves by saying that so long as the main purpose is right the details are unimportant. This reasoning is wrong. We make a grave mistake in supposing that the main purpose of our life is something different from that which reveals itself in details. What we are in the details of our life that we are really and essentially. The truest photographs are taken when we are unprepared for the operation. The true man, therefore, is always settling his life in its details, as well as in its main direction, according to great principles. Before we go another step let me entreat my readers not to allow themselves to do or permit things simply because custom or taste or public opinion advocates them, but to bring their entire life to the touchstone of some elementary law of the kingdom of heaven, which shall do in the moral what gravitation does in the physical sphere, ordaining the course of worlds and of molecules of dust.

And if it be asked, What principle is far-reaching enough in its scope and powerful enough in its force for so great a work? let us ponder what William Law so perpetually insists upon in his "Serious Call": "The first and most fundamental principle of Christianity is an intention to please God in all our actions. It is because the generality of Christians have no such intention that they so fall short of true devotion." And, indeed, when we consider the characters of the early disciples of Jesus, or those of saints, martyrs, and confessors, must we not admit that they were as scrupulous in seeking the will of God about the trifles of their life as the Rechabites were in consulting the will and pleasure of the dead Jonadab? The thought of God was as present with the one as of Jonadab with the other. And was not this the secret of their strong and noble lives?

What a revolution would come to us all if it became the one fixed aim and ambition of our lives to do always those things that are pleasing in His sight! It would not make us less tender in our friendships, or less active in our service. It would not take the sparkle from the eye, the nerve from the grasp, or the warm glow from the heart. But it would check many a vain word, arrest many a silly jest, stop much selfish and vainglorious expenditure, and bring us back to whatsoever things are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report.
________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XIII.  THE RECHABITES
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

(2) Abstinence from the Spirit of the Age.

It was an immense gain in every way for the Rechabites to abstain from wine. Wine was closely associated with the luxury, corruption, and abominable revelries of the time (Isaiah 28:1-8 ). Their abstinence was not only a protest against the evils which were honeycombing their age, but was a sure safeguard against participation in them.

In these days the same principles apply. Whatever may be said about the use of alcohol in certain forms of sickness and debilitated health, it is incontrovertible that it is unnecessary as an article of ordinary diet. It is very closely identified with the vilest practices of impure passion, the obscenities of the music-hall, the license of the stage, and the coarse revelry of the race-course. Its fumes fill the card-room, the billiard-room, and the scene of abandoned vice. The votaries of sin confess that they could not do as they do apart from its excitement. Add to all this the incontestable direct results of the drink traffic in crime, poverty, misery, suicide, and death -- results which Mr. Gladstone once declared to be more deplorable than those that flow from famine, pestilence, and war combined. Surely, then, we shall do well to say with the Rechabites, whoever may ask us to drink, "We will drink no wine."

But wine may stand for the spirit of the age, its restlessness, its constant thirst for novelty, for amusement, for fascination, its feverish demand for the fresh play, the exciting novel, the rush of the season, the magnificent pageant. It is easier to abstain from alcohol than from this insidious spirit of our time, which is poured so freely into the air, as from the vial of some demon sorceress. We might well refer to this the wise words of the Apostle: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." You cannot exorcise Satan by a negation. You must be preoccupied, prepossessed. And it is only they that are filled by the Holy Spirit, in his blessed energy, who are proof against the intoxicating cup of this Circe world.

(3) We must Hold Lightly to the Things around.

The Rechabites dwelt in tents. They drove their vast flocks from place to place, and were content with the simple life of the wandering shepherd. It was thus that the great patriarchs had lived before them (Hebrews 11:9-13). And ever since their days the tent life has been the chosen emblem of the life that is so strongly attracted to the other world as to be lightly attached to this.

It is difficult to say what worldliness consists in. What would be worldly to some people is an ordinary part of life's circumstances to others. But all of us are sensible of ties that hold us to the earth. We may discover what they are by considering what we cling to; what we find it hard to let go, even into the hands of Christ; what we are always striving to augment; what we pride ourselves in. It may be name, fame, notoriety, pride of fashion, rank, money. But whatever it is, if it hinders us from living on the highest level, if it is a weight that impedes our speed heavenward, it should be laid deliberately on God's altar, that he may do with it as he will, and that we may be able, without let or hindrance, to be wholly for God.

______________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XIV.  HIDDEN BUT RADIANT
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

(Jeremiah 36:26.)

"Be still and strong,
O Man, my Brother! hold thy sobbing breath,
And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong!
That so, as life's appointment issueth,
Thy vision may be clear to watch along
The sunset consummation-lights of death!"
E. B. BROWNING.

AFTER Jehoiakim had deliberately cut in pieces the prophet's roll, and so rejected his warnings and expostulations, and when in addition to this he had threatened the lives of God's faithful servants, it became clear that no further good could be gained by reiterating his messages. Thus the prophet's voice was hushed, apparently for the remainder of the reign of this bad and infatuated king. This is one of those principles of the divine government, which is as certain in its operation to-day as ever, that after a certain time the divine voice, being unheeded, ceases to speak, and those who will not retain God in their knowledge are given up to the workings of their corrupt minds, to work all uncleanness with greediness. We recall those ominous words, written as an epitaph on the grave of the first king of Israel: "Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death," and the no less awful words of the apostle of love: "There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request" (1 John 5:16, R.V.).

Into that new and splendid palace of Jehoiakim, whose spacious halls were ceiled with cedar from Lebanon, lighted by wide windows, and painted with bright colors, the one presence never entered which at that time would have saved the ship of state -- as the timely arrival of a pilot may save an ocean steamer from the fatal ignorance of an incompetent captain. The false prophets might beguile the ears of king and people with predictions bred in the falsehood of their own nature. The strong Egyptian partisans might urge on the king alliance with Pharaoh as the certain cure for the difficulties of their position. But Jeremiah's voice, during the dark and troublous days that succeeded that scene in the palace, and until Jehoiakim's body was cast forth, unburied and unwept, was still. How did it fare with the prophet, and what engaged him during those eventful years?

I. THE LORD HID HIM.

What that precisely means it is impossible to say. Was there a John of Gaunt for this Wycliffe, an elector of Saxony for this Luther? Did Ahikam, who had before interposed on his behalf, or his sons  -- Gemariah, who lent Jeremiah his room in the Temple for the reading of his roll, and Gedaliah, who became governor of Judah after Zedekiah's deportation -- take the prophet under their care? Or was this hiding something more divine and blessed still? In any case, whether through the intervention of second causes or directly, Jeremiah was hidden in the covert of the divine presence from the plot-tings of man, and was kept secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. In his first alarm he had said, "I am cut off from before thine eyes." Nevertheless, God had heard the voice of his supplication and had preserved his faithful servant.

These divine hidings are needed by us all. We must obey the voice that cries to us, as it did to Elijah, "Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself." We are too prominent, too self-important, too conscious of ourselves. Our shadows fall too much in front of us, and we see them on the sand, clear-cut and defined. We need to keep our faces sunward, that our shadow may be well out of sight. And God must sometimes hide us in the sick-chamber, the valley of shadow, the cleft of the rock. He calls us to Zarephath or Carmel, to the privacy of obscurity or of solitude. It is only when self is hidden in the darkness of the grave that the true light shines upon our hearts, or the power of the true life emanates from our acts.
_____________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XIV.  HIDDEN BUT RADIANT
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

How often has some timid nature sheltered and hidden itself in a stronger personality to which it was devotedly attached, so that it could bear unmoved the stare of indifference, the affectation of superiority, the sarcastic taunt, the injurious act! So when the one passion of our nature is Godward, when his smile is our sufficient reward, when we have no aim than to be well-pleasing in his sight, we are hidden; and from our retreat in the burning glory of his light we can look out with equanimity on the forms of dreaded evils as they pass us by.

There is a literal sense also, O tried and tempted believer, in which God will hide you. It is stated that on one occasion when the dragoons of Claverhouse were scouring the mountains of Scotland in search of the Covenanters, a little party of these godly folk, gathered on the hillside for prayer, must have fallen into their hands, had not a cloud suddenly settled down, effectually concealing them from their pursuers. Thus the Son of God still interposes for his own. Live to him alone. Be a polished shaft hidden in the hollow of his hand. Abide in him. Hark! he says to thee as David to Abiathar, "Abide thou with me, fear not: for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life: but with me thou shalt be in safeguard."

II. HE REEDITED HIS PROPHECIES.

To this period we may refer the divine injunction: "Thus speaketh the Lord God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book" (Jeremiah 30:2). It may be that throughout this period Baruch continued to act as his faithful amanuensis and scribe. He, at least, was certainly included in the divine hidings (Jeremiah 36:26-32). It was at great cost to his earthly prospects. He came of a good family, his brother being Seraiah, who held high office under King Zedekiah, and he cherished the ambition of distinguishing himself among his compeers. "He sought great things for himself." But he was reconciled to the lot of suffering and sorrow to which his close identification with Jeremiah led him by a special revelation assuring him of the speedy overthrow of the state, and that in the general chaos he would escape with his life.

By the aid of this faithful friend Jeremiah gathered together the prophecies which he had uttered on various occasions, and put them in order, specially elaborating the predictions given in the fourth year of Jehoiakim against the surrounding nations. The word of the Lord came to him concerning the Philistines and Moab, and the children of Ammon and Edom, Damascus and Kedar. And the devout student may well pause to read again the marvelous paragraphs which foretell the fate of these nations, beneath the all-desolating incursions of Nebuchadnezzar and his ruthless soldiers. "Thou art my battle-ax and weapons of war," said the prophet, addressing the great king in Jehovah's name: "for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms" (Jeremiah 47:1-7, to Jeremiah 49:33).

This time of Jeremiah's seclusion was therefore not lost to the world. It was fruitful as Bunyan's in Bedford Jail, Luther's in the Wartburg, Madame Guyon's in the Bastille. Unseen, the prophet busied himself, as the night settled down on his country, in kindling the sure light of prophecy that should cast its radiant beams over the dark waters of time until the day should dawn and the day-star glimmer out in the Eastern sky. Yield your whole nature to God, and be sure that he will bring all of it, and every moment, under his productive cultivation, so that it shall become like one of the old-fashioned wall inclosed country gardens, every square inch of which yields some produce to the skillful hand of its owner.
__________________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XIV.  HIDDEN BUT RADIANT
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

III. HE MADE A DOUBLE JOURNEY TO BABYLON.

To this period we must also refer the incident of the linen girdle, because the discourse founded on it was delivered during the three months' reign of Jehoiachin, which was altogether too brief to admit of so long a journey as was necessary for the purposes on which the prophet was sent (Jeremiah 36:13., notably Jeremiah 36:18 ).

The Israelite was extremely particular as to cleanliness, and especially of linen. It therefore attracted universal notice that Jeremiah at a certain period wore a newly purchased linen girdle without washing it. When it was soiled and filthy he took it, under divine direction, to the river Euphrates, and there buried it in a hole of the rock. Some have thought that this is the description of a vision, or that some place nearer than the Euphrates, which was two hundred and fifty miles distant, is intended. But there seems no good reason for questioning the literal interpretation of the narrative as given by the prophet. There was no special demand for his presence in Jerusalem, but the reverse. Time was no object in comparison with the vividness of the impression that would be produced. Besides, large purposes were served by his becoming familiarized with the condition of the exiles in Babylon, and with the drift of events there. In the prophecies which he delivered afterward on the fall of Babylon, there are touches of description so minute and accurate as could hardly have been given by one who was not familiar with the city from personal observation.

After his return from Babylon "many days" passed. Indeed, his second journey to recover his marred girdle may have been so timed by Almighty Providence as to secure his absence from the city during the last scene of Jehoiakim's sad and tragic history, and to bring him thither again as Jehoiachin began his brief reign. But that rotted piece of linen, held up before the eyes of his people, told its own sad story. Judah and Jerusalem might have been to Jehovah for a name, a praise, and a glory, and he would have caused them to cleave unto him, but they would not hear; they went after other gods to serve and worship them. Therefore they were destined to be cast aside as worthless and unprofitable.

The lesson of this double journey, which must have meant about a thousand miles on foot, teaches us that no exertion on our part should be considered excessive if we can execute the commissions of our King. Long before, when a comparative child, Jeremiah had been summoned to perform God's errands for him (Jeremiah 1:7), and it was not for him to complain if any special errand took him far afield, or involved journeying under scorching suns and sleeping in the night-dews. When Jesus bids us go into all the world, he means it, and we may not plead before him the distance and hardships of the way. It is enough if he has said, "Go to Euphrates." When once we are sure of this we must imitate the prophet, who says, with charming simplicity, "So I went to Euphrates."

IV. HE HAD VISIONS OF THE NEW COVENANT.

There is much reason for supposing that it was in this time of seclusion that Jeremiah's eyes were opened to see a spiritual truth which was far in advance of any contemporary revelation, and was destined to become the mold into which some of the richest ore of gospel truth should be poured. It was not the last time when mortal eyes were closed in order to see -- shielded from the glare of this world that they might behold the light that never shone on sea or shore. The blind Milton sang of Paradise lost and regained.

The exquisite poem to which we must now turn is contained in chapters thirty and thirty-one, and consists of some seven stanzas. The prophet is no longer concerned with Judah alone; his thought embraces the ten tribes also  -- Israel he calls them, or Ephraim, which one hundred and seventy years before had been carried away captive to Nineveh. But his heart exults as he anticipates the return of the entire people from the land of the north, baptized through suffering into a purer, nobler life.
____________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XIV.  HIDDEN BUT RADIANT
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

On many of the exquisite thoughts and phrases of this joyful outburst we might long and profitably dwell. We can only cull a few flowerets, and leave them to tell the wealth of the garden from which they come:

"Fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the Lord; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity."

"I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord."

"Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee. Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry."

"My people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord."

Transported by words like these, as' he lay in prophetic trance, it is not wonderful that Jeremiah experienced, after a spiritual Sort, the ecstatic joy which visits the soul when between sleeping and waking it realizes that its dearest hopes are being fulfilled. "Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me" (Jeremiah 31:26).

But the more stupendous revelation was to follow. The dread commands of Moses, the elaborate forms of Temple ritual, the pleadings of Deuteronomy, enforced as they had been by the words of contemporary prophets, had all failed to withhold the people from backsliding. What hope was there that the distant future would not repeat the bitter story of the past? But God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shined into his servant's heart, and unveiled the glory of the New Covenant, which was to be sealed by the blood of the cross -- " the New Testament in my blood," as Jesus called it: a covenant which would no longer depend on man's obedience to "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not," but would glisten with the seven-times repeated I WILL of God (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Luke 22:20; Hebrews 8:8-12).

That the law of God should not be without as a precept, but within, as though inwrought into the very structure of the heart and will; that religion should consist primarily in what God was to his child, rather than in what the child said or did toward him; that neither priest nor Levite should be needed any more, since each soul would possess the right of direct intercourse with its Lord; that sin should be completely forgiven, as if it had never been -- this was the vision which shone in on the prophet's heart, and is realized in Christ for all who belong to him by faith. This blessed covenant shall yet gather Israel within its provisions.

It is a serious question how far that covenant has been fulfilled in our experience. We are enamored with the life it foreshadows, and sometimes we think that our inward parts and hearts do bear its sacred inscriptions, as did the stone slabs of Sinai the writing of the decalogue. But we become suddenly conscious of some overwhelming irruption of covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath, as though a sewer were to pour forth its filth over the mosaic-work of some splendid pavement.

Such experiences stagger, but they should not discourage us. They probably show, not that God has not commenced his divine work, but that we have momentarily turned aside from him to make some effort of our own, or to pride ourselves on what has been accomplished. Let us turn back to him. Let us open our hearts and inward parts to his finger. Let us ill meek humility wait for him to grave even more deeply and legibly his secret thoughts upon us. Let us believe that he is doing it. Let us reckon on him to perfect the legend, and to keep it clear and clean.

Thus we shall know God. The dead past will bury its dead. The sins and iniquities of former days will be strewn on the shore, like the corpses of the Egyptians from whom Israel had got free. And then our hearts shall go out in the dance; our mourning will be turned into joy; our soul shall be as a watered garden; and God will comfort us, making us rejoice from our sorrow, and enabling us to reap in joy what we sowed in tears (Jeremiah 31:10-14).
_____________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XV.  THE MINISTRY OF DESTRUCTION
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

(Jeremiah 27, 29.)

"Ours the shame to understand
That the world prefers the lie;
That, with medicine in her hand,
She will sink and choose to die!
Ours the agonizing sense
Of the heaven this earth might be,
If, from their blank indifference,
Men woke one hour and felt as we!"
HOUGHTON.

WHEN Jeremiah was first summoned to the work of prophet, it was summarized under six distinct divisions. He was set over nations and kingdoms to pluck up, and to break down, and to destroy, and to overthrow, to build, and to plant (Jeremiah 1:10). Two thirds of his work was therefore in the direction of destruction. It is not pleasant or easy work. No one would choose to stand amid the choking dust of the crumbling brickwork, which is being destroyed to make way for some palatial structure to be erected on the site. Vested interests, long-established abuses, lucrative wrongs, cry out loudly against any attempt to interfere with their existence. But Elijah must precede Elisha, and John the Baptist must prepare the way for Christ. Before the seed-sowing, the plow; before the outburst of the spring, the stern disintegration of winter, rubbing the soil to powder in its mighty hands. Such was the work that fell to the lot of Jeremiah.

I. THE WORK OF DEMOLITION.

(1) Jehoiakim.

When Josiah died the whole land mourned. Each citizen felt personally bereaved, and appropriated the plaintive cries of professional mourners, saying, "Ah, my brother!" and "Ah, sister!" The air was full of the words, "Ah, lord!" "Ah, the glory of Israel!" But Jeremiah foretold that at the death of Jehoiakim there should be no such expression: "He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem." And again, somewhat later, when the king in impious defiance had burned the roll, the prophet said: "He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost" (Jeremiah 22:13-19; Jeremiah 36:29-31).

The words of the prophet carried with them the imprimatur of Jehovah. They pronounced the inevitable sentence which he executed. And therefore, though we have no certain record of the manner of it, it is more than probable that on his return from his second journey to Babylon Jeremiah received the tidings of the 'death of his inveterate foe. There are several traditions as to his death -- one that he was assassinated in the streets of Jerusalem; another that he fell in a skirmish with raiders, who had been incited by Nebuchadnezzar to desolate the neighborhood of Jerusalem; another that he was enticed to the camp of the king of Babylon, and there treacherously murdered -- but he died as he lived, dishonorably and miserably.

(2) Jeconiah

His was a reign like Napoleon's after his return from Elba -- of one hundred days. He was eighteen when he was called to the throne, and he occupied it for three months and ten days (2 Chronicles 36:9); but in that brief time he was able to show the drift of his character. "He did evil in the sight of the Lord." His mother, Nehushta, daughter of Elnathan, whose hands had been imbrued in the murder of Urijah, and the strong heathen party who dominated the policy of the court, between them molded the young monarch to their will.
___________________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XV.  THE MINISTRY OF DESTRUCTION
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

Jeremiah uttered words of awful significance. Passing through the streets he showed the marred linen girdle, and foretold the doom of the king and queen-mother. "Sit down," he cried, "in the dust; for the crown of royalty shall be rolled from your brow to the ground. The cities in the south country, the beautiful flock of towns and villages, are already in the hands of the invader, and the whole land shall shortly be carried into captivity, because of the abominations, the pollution, the idolatries that have been perpetrated on the hills of the field." Then, coming to closer dealings with the royal pair, he said that Coniah should be given into the hands of them that sought his life, and of those of whom he was afraid; that Jehovah would cast his mother and himself, like a despised, broken vessel, into another country, where they were not born; that there they should die; and that there should be no return to the land they loved (Jeremiah 13:18-21; Jeremiah 22:28-30).

Thus, too, it befell. Such was the bitter fierceness of the Chaldeans, who were again besieging the city to punish Jehoiakim's perfidy, that nothing would appease them but the surrender of the persons of the king and his mother. There was no alternative; and so, Josephus tells us, a sad procession was formed, and through a gateway, which afterward bore the king's name, but was bricked up so that none might pass by a path which had been the scene of such a disaster, the king, his mother, the nobles and officials, went forth to the Chaldean camp, and sat down on the ground, their persons robed in black and their faces veiled. By this time Nebuchadnezzar had returned from fighting against Pharaoh Necho, who had marched to the relief of his ally, but had been finally quelled; and he received in person the submission of the royal fugitives (2 Kings 24:7).

The spoliation of the city followed. The Temple was stripped of its gold and treasures. All the princes and the mighty men of valor, the craftsmen and the smiths, the king's harem and court officials, were manacled in long lines, and torn from their beloved country, which the majority of them were never again to behold. Ezekiel was one of that sad procession, and it seemed as though a pitiful wail arose from the whole country -- from Lebanon and Bashan and Abarim, as the exiles wended their way to their distant destination. And the prophet wept sore, his eye ran down with tears, because the Lord's flock was taken captive.

(3) The Prophets.

The prophets were a large and influential class. Dating from the days of Samuel, their schools had poured forth a succession of men who occupied a unique position in the land as the representatives of God. But in the degenerate days of which we are now writing, when the kingdom of Judah was rapidly tottering to its fall, they seem to have been deeply infected by the prevailing vices of their time. They were, as Isaiah says, "dumb dogs which could not bark." Greedy and drunken, lazy and dissolute, dreaming, lying down, and loving to slumber, they denied the Lord, and said, when Jeremiah spoke, "It is not he." They had become wind, and the word of God was not in them (Isaiah 56:9-12; Jeremiah 5:12-13).

It must have been very painful for Jeremiah to oppose them and counteract their influence on the people; but he had no alternative. His heart was broken and his bones shook; he was in a stupor like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine had overcome, for both prophet and priest were profane, and in God's own house wickedness was rife. Listen to these terrible words, spoken in the name of Jehovah: "I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evil-doers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah" (Jeremiah 23:9-14).

Jeremiah entreated his people not to hearken to these men, who spoke the vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord. Their fatal crime was to live on the traditions of the past and to encourage even those who walked in the stubbornness of their hearts, by assuring them that no evil should come on them. They deliberately set themselves to lessen the power of Jeremiah's appeals and protestations by the promulgation of their own lying dreams, as though they, and not he, were in Jehovah's secrets.
_________________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XV.  THE MINISTRY OF DESTRUCTION
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

Matters came to a pass shortly after the deportation of Jeconiah: Hananiah, of Gibeon, which was one of the priestly settlements, rose up and publicly contradicted Jeremiah when he was speaking in the Temple in the presence of the priests and of all the people. Using the holy name of Jehovah, he declared it had been divinely revealed to him that in two years Jeconiah and all the captives, and all the sacred vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had taken away, would come again. Instantly Jeremiah spoke up from amid the crowd. "Amen," he cried: "would that it might be so; would that Jehovah might bring again the captivity; but it shall not be; nay, it cannot be, without canceling words that have been uttered by him through the prophets before me, and of old."

Not content, however, with his words, the false prophet snatched from Jeremiah's shoulders the wooden yoke which he carried for the purpose of perpetually reminding his people and the neighboring nations that they must serve the king of Babylon until the appointed time had gone. He broke it in twain, saying that similarly God within two years would break Nebuchadnezzar's yoke. Jeremiah did not prolong the altercation, but privately told Hananiah that the yoke of wood would be replaced by one of iron, and that he was causing the people to trust a lie. "This year thou shalt die," he said, as he turned away, and two months after the false prophet was a corpse.

(4) The Surrounding Nations.

On two occasions Jeremiah protested against a combination of the surrounding nations to resist the growing power of Babylon, which without doubt was fostered by the neighboring power of Egypt. On the first occasion he said that they would have to drink the cup of the Lord's fury; and on the second, that they must bear the yoke of Babylon. "Now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant .... And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come" (Jeremiah 25, 28.).

All this must have laid the prophet open to the charge of the want of patriotism: his words weakened the people of the land; his influence withheld them from joining a great league of emancipation. But he had no alternative. He had no alternative than to be spokesman of that great word of Jehovah, "I will overturn, overturn, overturn."

(5) The Exiles.

The false prophets had suffered the fate of their nation, and were with the rest in captivity; they at once endeavored to raise the hopes of the exiles by prophesying a speedy return. "It is of no use," they said in effect, "to build houses, or plant gardens, or enter into marriage relations. In a short time we shall be back again in Jerusalem." The ringleaders were Zedekiah and Ahab, men of grossly immoral life, who were made an example of by being roasted alive (Jeremiah 29:21-23). Still the ferment continued, and the people refused to settle down in contentment with the conditions of their captivity.

Jeremiah, therefore, wrote a letter, which was intrusted to two men of high rank, friendly to himself, whom Zedekiah, the uncle and successor of Jeconiah, sent to Babylon with assurances of his fidelity. "Yield to the will of God," was the burden of the letter. "Build, plant, settle." "Seek the peace of the city whither God has caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace." When Shemaiah, one of these false prophets, heard this letter, he wrote off in hot haste to Zephaniah, who was now high priest, and demanded that the prophet should be put into stocks, and his head into a collar, as a madman. The high priest, however, contented himself with reading the letter to Jeremiah, who replied by sending a second letter to the exiles, assuring them that God would punish Shemaiah and his seed, so that he should not have a son to perpetuate his name, and should not see the good which would come at the end of the predestined time (Jeremiah 29:29.).

These denunciations were fraught with terror, and equally terrible was the fate which befell these men. It may be said, "Surely they were patriots, eager for the deliverance of their people. They were fanatical enthusiasts, not intentional criminals. They mistook their hopes for revelations.'' But it should be remembered that they were also convicted of immoral and evil lives. Their sins had blunted their perceptions of the divine voice, while their words pandered to their people's sins and encouraged them in their lewd idolatries. It was as vicious and fallen men, as well as false prophets, that they incurred the awful woes which befell them, both from the lip of the prophet and the hand of the Almighty.
_______________________________________

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
XV.  THE MINISTRY OF DESTRUCTION
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

II. HIS COADJUTOR.

While Jeremiah was exercising this ministry of destruction in utter loneliness and isolation, his heart must have often misgiven him. Remember that he loved his country with all the passionate patriotism of which the Jewish nature was capable, and which expresses itself so plaintively in the Book of Lamentations. Matthew Henry says, "It is not easy to preach Christ crucified in a crucified spirit." But Jeremiah did a harder thing. Though for forty years he was constantly in antagonism with the sins and vices of the people, the fountain of tears within his soul seems never to have dried up or become frozen over. He preached the terrors of Sinai with the pathos of Calvary.

It was just because he loved so much that he suffered so keenly. And this may comfort others in their dark sorrow and despair for their fellows. They say that their natures are too tender and affectionate, and that they feel every‑ thing too keenly, as though to infer that they would wish to have been clothed in tougher skin and cast in a rougher mold. But surely it would be a fatal mistake to barter a tender heart, with its faculty of suffering, for a callous one without that liability. "Our sorrow," says Carlyle, "is the inverted image of our nobleness. The depth of our despair measures what capability and height Of claim we have to hope. Black smoke, as of Tophet, filling all your universe, it can yet by true heart-energy become flame and brilliancy of heaven. Courage!"

You fear to love lest you may have to suffer; but, ah, how infinitely you lose! You may have an immunity from one sort of pain, but you certainly incur the pain of a selfish, mean, and miserly soul. You miss the valleys of shadow, but you also miss the heights of transfiguration. You save your life, but you lose it. Suppose that Jeremiah had put away the heavenly summons, and had lived in the sequestered ease of Anathoth: he might have secured a respectable and peaceable life, but Jehovah would never have spoken to him; the unseen and eternal would never have unfolded to his vision; he would never have felt the supreme satisfaction of knowing that he had done his best; he would never have shone like a star amid the darkening clouds of Jerusalem's fall; he would have missed the hero's crown, the Master's "Well done," and the exceeding great reward.

And God sent him an ally and comrade. In the heart of the exiles Ezekiel arose, uttering the same messages, though clothed in the superb imagery of his gorgeous imagination. He, too, denounced his people's sins, advised them to settle in the land of exile, and spoke of the certain doom of the people and city. In the mouth of these two witnesses every word was established. Like well-at-tuned instruments, they symphonized, as our Lord said kindred souls must, when they ask concerning some heavenly gift. They were like the two olive-trees and the two candlesticks, standing before the Lord of the earth. They had power with God and man; shutting the heaven, turning the waters into blood, and smiting the earth with a curse. So the beast made war with them, as he always will. Theirs was no easy task, for they were hated by those whom their words tormented. But God has long since called them to his throne, where they stand in the foremost rank of those who, having fulfilled the will of God, have received his welcome and reward.

III. THE NEED OF THIS MINISTRY.

It must be fulfilled with the unconverted. For lack of it much gospel effort fails. Of what use are appeals to come to Jesus until the sinner has been led to see the awful peril which he has incurred? Of what avail to extol the balm of Gilead until the soul has heard and accepted the diagnosis of its fatal condition? Of what advantage to offer a seat in the lifeboat, so long as the sailor is full of confidence in his ship, and is unaware of its crazy and unseaworthy condition? One of the most important ministries of the servant of God is to destroy false confidence, to pull down refuges of lies, and to show the utter futility of venturing on the sea of eternity in any other craft than that which Christ launched from the cross of Calvary.

It is a great mistake to heal the wound of the heart too lightly. The consolations of the gospel are very well; but they must be withheld until men have seen their state before God, and have been held over the mouth of the bottomless pit of their own sin. The greatest revivals always begin in a thorough preaching of the law, pressing home its demands upon the consciences of the ungodly. Nor is it enough to dwell in general denunciation; we must particularize till conscience cries, "Thou art the man!"

It must be fulfilled with those who lack assurance. When men say that they cannot believe, it is probably because they are harboring some evil thing in their hearts, or are conscious of some unrepaired wrong in their lives. These must be dealt with. There must be the righting, so far as possible, of ancient injuries; the restitution of ill-gotten gains; the seeking of forgiveness; the adjustment of wrong. The fixed purpose to do this, when an opportunity presents itself, will be sufficient to remove the stumbling-block to faith, which will gush out with the sparkle and song of an imprisoned brook. The inability to realize acceptance with God very often points to something that is grieving the Spirit, and at such times the searching ministry of probing and testing and demolition is invaluable.

It must be fulfilled in the higher attainments of the divine life. As our obedience grows our light will grow. And in the growing dawn we shall become aware of evils that had passed without our notice. The Holy Spirit will lead us to discriminate between the wrong and the right, and reveal what may be hindering us. Then as he destroys one subterfuge after another, plows up the fallow ground, disinters the buried secrets, reveals us to ourselves, we may gratefully accept his ministry, which destroys to build, which overthrows to plant, which leads us through the grave that he may minister eternal life. Nor must we overlook the responsibility of exhorting one another, of urging to repentance, and so much the more as we see the day approaching.
_________________________________