fill it." In vain shall either men or devils seek to injure them ; for " one of them should chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight0." Let them then consider what an almighty Friend they have ; and endeavour to walk worthy of Him who has called them to his kingdom and glory."]
c ver. 30.
ccxxxv.
Deut. xxxii. 34, 35. Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? To me belongeth vengeance and recompence : their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
TENDERNESS and fidelity are by no means in- compatible. Nothing could exceed the tenderness of our blessed Lord, who wept over those who were just about to imbrue their hands in his blood. Yet, when occasion called for it, he spoke with great severity : " Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how shall ye escape the damnation of hella?" In like manner, Jehovah, in the chapter before us, whilst he declares that " a fire was kindled in his anger against his people, and that it should burn to the lowest helP," takes up this lamentation over them: " O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end ! How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up ? For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges0." But as, notwithstanding all his remonstrances, they still con- tinued to bring forth nothing but " grapes of gall and clusters of Gomorrha," he warns them, that their ini- quities were remembered by him in order to a future judgment, and that their merited calamities were near at hand.
But to us, also, are the words no less applicable than to them : for we, also, are a disobedient people,
a Matt, xxiii. 33. b ver. 22. « ver. 29—31.