found them, have devoured them : and their adver- saries said, We offend not ; because they have sinned against the Lorda." But was his anger any reason for theirs ? Was man justified in despising them, because they were under the chastisement of their offended God? Assuredly not : for God himself complains of this very conduct ; " I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion, with a great jealousy : and I am sore dis- pleased with the heathen that are at ease : for I was but a little displeased ; and they helped forward the affliction :" (and then, as in the words before my text, he adds,) " Therefore I am returned to Jerusalem with ?nerciesh." In all that he inflicts, he himself is just : but in executing his secret purposes, we are not just, any more than the Jews were in crucifying their Mes- siah : for though they did only what " God's hand and God's counsel had determined before to be done," it was " with wicked hands that they crucified and slew him c." This distinction is very strongly marked in the passage before us. In the foregoing verses God vindicates his own honour, by shewing, that the Jews were themselves the authors of their own misery, in that they had brought it upon themselves by their great wickedness ; yet he declares, at the same time, that the contempt poured upon them by their ene- mies was most offensive to him ; and that when he should have fulfilled his will upon his own people, he would avenge their cause on those who, not from any zeal for his honour, but for the gratification of their own malignant passions, had been the willing, though unconscious, instruments of his vengeance d.
That we may enter fully into this view of our text, it will be proper for me to read to you the two verses immediately preceding it: "Why criest thou for thine affliction ? Thy sorrow is incurable for the multitude of thine iniquity : because thy sins were increased, I have done these things unto thee. There- fore [the word ' therefore'' should here, as in many other parts of the prophetic writings, have been trans-
* Jer. 1. 7. b Zech. i. 14, 15.
c Acts ii. 23. and iv. 28. d See Isai. x. 12.