proportion to their willingness to learn of God, and to practise what they already knowe. God, who alone can instruct us in this knowledge, will " reveal even to babes and sucklings the things that are hid from the wise and prudent." " The meek he will guide in judgment, the meek he will teach his way." " If only we cry after knowledge, and lift up our voice for understanding, if we seek it as silver, and search for it as for hid treasures," we need not fear on account of any imagined incapacity ; for God has said, " Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God ; for the Lord giveth wisdom ; out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding f."]
This encouraging truth is yet further,
II. Beautifully illustrated —
There is a beauty peculiar to the Hebrew poetry, and very frequently occurring in the prophetic writings, that important truths are amplified with figurative illustrations, and that sublime metaphors are explained by simple declarations. In the passage before us, that which is first proposed in plain lan- guage, is afterwards confirmed in two most instructive similes, each of them affording a more precise view of the manner in which the promise itself shall be fulfilled.
The simile taken from the return of day, intimates, that our success shall be certain and gradual —
[Nothing but the utter dissolution of the universe shall ever stop the succession of day and night ; so that the stated returns of light may be considered as a fit emblem of certainty. Indeed, God himself sets forth the immutability of his cove- nant by this very figure ; " If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season, then may also my cove- nant be broken with David my servant g." Thus certainly shall light arise upon our benighted souls, provided we really desire to behold ith. In a time of darkness we may cry, " The Lord hath forsaken me, and my God hath forgotten me ;" but, as the sun, even at midnight, is hastening towards us, though unseen, so are " the goings forth of our God prepared" decreed, and ready to appear. Let us but " wait, as those who watch for the morning ;" and our gloom shall soon be
e Phil. iii. 13, 14. f Prov. ii. 6.
s Jer. xxxiii. 20, 21. h Isai. lviii. 8, 10.