accompanied with the most earnest efforts to honour God, and will lead to the highest possible attainments in every grace. So make your light to shine before them, and they will see and know that " God is with you of a truth."]
Jer. iii. 19./ said, Hoiv shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? And I said, Thou shalt call me, My Father ; and shall not turn aivay from me.
IN many parts of the inspired volume, God is pleased to speak of himself after the manner of men ; as though he were on some occasions reduced, as it were, to extremities, and at a loss how to act. Thus, by the prophet Hosea, he expresses himself as almost necessitated to cast off his people for their wicked- ness, but yet as not knowing how to bring his mind to execute on them so severe a judgment : " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee up, Israel ? How shall I make thee as Admah ? How shall I set thee as Zeboim," even as those ill- fated cities that were destroyed together with Sodom and Gomorrhaa ? So, on the other hand, by Jeremiah, he speaks as equally at a loss how to exercise towards them the mercy which he was inclined to bestow : " How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations?"
This, however applicable to the people amongst whom the prophet ministered, had, beyond all doubt, a reference to a period yet future, even to events that should take place in the latter day. Then will " the ark of the covenant," that bright symbol of the Divine presence, be altogether forgotten by the Jews, and all the worship connected with it be utterly re- nounced ; the people being desirous only to " worship God in spirit and in truth." At that period they will have ceased to " walk after the imagination of their
a Hos. xi. 8.