reign, and cYil passions be under no adeqUBte control. Inferior power may cmb the m1mifestation of p11.11sion, but only Divine power can tear up its roots. 3. Such defection from the fe.ith will "defile" many. The evil will not stop with one. It will k infectious. 4. Such dishonour done to the Son of God will bring upon those who are guilty thereof the Divine displeasure. 5. The sure effect will ho the breaking up and disbanding of the Churches which are poisoned thereby. There will be no reason why Churches s'hou.ld hold together, if their Divine Christ is gone, and there will be no power that can keep them together, if his Spirit is grieved and departs. IV. HENCE AGAINST SUCH A GRIEVOUS RESULT CmraCH MEMDEDS SHOULD OARE• FULLY GUARD. "Looking diligently lest," etc. l. They should watch the signs of the times, in order that., as far as in tbem lies, they may guard the Church to which they belong from the dan/!CTS with which the changeful currents of human thought may threaten them. 2. They should seek so to quicken the zeal and inflame the fervour of piety around them, that temptations to apostatize may have no power. 3. They should cherish a loving solicitude, and fervently pray, for each other, that mutual care and prayer may be an effectual guard against the approach of disloyalty in faith or even in thought. 4. Each one should be very jealous over his own heart. In others ,ve can discern only fruit ; in ourselves we can detect the root, of evil. Hence this watchfulness over our own spirits is doubly important, since it may be doubly effective. Even in others we may perhaps lop off the evil fruit, but in ow·selves we can see that even the root is plucked up. For this, the only radical, certain, and absolute preventive of apostacy, the Spirit of God can effect, and be will, if we resign ourselves to bis almighty hands. He can so renew and sanctify the heart that no "root of bitterness" can find any bold. He can make the soil so receptive of truth that any living seed of righteousness will at once germinate, and yet withal so destructive of error that any seed of evil casually dropping in will perish in its fall. Happy man, whose heart is in the effectual keeping of the Holy Ghost, and who is so sanctified that no germ of ill can find even a momentary home !
vers. 22-28. -Historical witnesses to the wrath of God. The chapter preceding this is shaded, yea, dark indeed. Nevertheless, it is an exact forecast of the state of Israel at this very day. In fact, the comparison between the state of the land of Pa\estine and the words of the Book, suggests two lines of instructive thought. I. How M.A.l\"IFESTLY, IN THE DESOLATION OF THE HOLY LAND, IS SEEN THE EFFECT OF THE WRATH OF GoD ! To this even Volney bears witness. He asks," From whence proceed such melancholy revolutions? For what cause is the fortune of these countries so striki.n<T]y cbanged? Why are so many cities destroyed? Why is not that ancient population reproduced and perpetuated? A mysterious God exercises.his incomprehensible judgments. He has doubtless pronounced a se_cret curse agamst the land. He has struck with a curse the present raco of men m revenge of past generations" ( quoted by Jameson, in Zoe.). IL How IS THE ACCURACY OF THIS PART OF THE OLD BooK THEREBY CONFIRMED I It is now a favourite canon of scientific men, that whatever cannot be verified must be relegated to the past and forgotten. To this there can be no objection, if those who insist on this negative will insist equally on the reciprocal positive, and say that whatever can be verified must be accepted. For it would be simply a proof, either of discreditable ignorance or of perversity, if men were to deny or to spurn the repeated verifications of the words of Moses in the subsequent course of history. And it is of no use for men to declaim against the possibility of miracles, when there is the standing miracle before our eye, of some superhuman knowledge having forecast, three thousand years ago, precisely the line along which Hebrew history would move, down till the present day. While there is also this difference between miracle in mighty works, and miracle iu prophetic wQr<le: The proof of the works is most clear to tLose wh<' see them at the time; it may possibly diminish with the lapse of years. That of a prophetic word is ni1 at the time: it awaits confirmation from the lapse of yearfi. And as long as our present historical records stand, so long will there remain the confi.rma.tion of the precision with which Israel's lawgiver, speaking in the name of Jehovah, laid down beforehand the lines along which the Jewish nation should move for thoUBands of yea.re. When we put together the land and the Book, the work and Clb, XXIX. 1-29.] TUE nooK OF DEUTERONOMY. 453
the word, and see the correspondence between them, we cannot but 1ay, "This is the finger of God In