HOMILETICS. Vere. 1-16.-..4. model in.~tance of Divim goodness and opportunity prolonged to one w'ho anmdled aU, and viti,ated every highest privil,ege vouchsafed to him, by the one fact of his own infidelity of heart. We are strikingly taught, and we vividly recall from the contents of this chapter, the following lessons and facts. I. How VERY PRONE FORGETFULNESS OF OUR PAST SINS 1B TO FOLLOW WITH SWIFT RAPIDITY ON PRESENT RESPITE FROM FEAB, BELIEF FROM SUFFERING, REMISSION 011' PUl.'ISIIMENT, RESTORATION OF OUR FORMER STATUS, IN WHATSOEVER KIND I Yet reten- tive memory of that sin would constitute our duty, our best wisdom, one of our surest cautions for the future, one of the likeliest fertilizings of penitence, and springs of humble gratitude. II. How VERY PB.ONE SECURITY, .ABSOLUTE OONFIDENOE IN SELF, AND THE SPIRIT OF EITHER DEFIANCE OB RECKLESS DISREG.ABD TOWARDS WHAT MAY AGAIN INV.ADE, IN FEAB, IN PAIN, IN PUNISHMENT, IN LOSS OF EVEN THE EAllTHLY POSITION WE LOVE BO WELL, ARE TO FOLLOW QUICKLY ON PRESENT BELIEF! Too often, when the deeply useful memory of the sin is put far away out of sight and out of memory, it is but the precursor of the springing up of a very crop of positively harmful growth. The ground that is unoccupied by sweet pasture will be sure to seed itself, of all floating ill weeds ; and to bring forth even of its own self, and own emptiness, or own pravity, the baneful, the noxious, the poisonous herb! IIL How KI!-.'D THE PUNISHMENTS OF Goo ABE ! They a.re essentially so. Their intent is to recover, to reform, to improve. With lesson in them, with suggestion in them, with caution and warning in them, with course and system of discipline, they offer e:xactly what it were impossible to get of self, or to get of others, or to get from anywhere except from the touch of the hand or the finger, or the rod of that tenderest to smite, the all-knowing Father of UB all I So ver. 8 says deliberately, distinctly, that God would tea.eh Rehoboam and condescendingly wait near him some while, to teach him, the comparison of services, the difference by experience of bis yoke, burden, and service most ennobling, and those of such a one as Shisha.k King of Egypt. Rehoboa.m would fiud a greater difference between the two than that of his own well-known figurative language, the "whip" and the" scorpion." In tenderer connection, equally truly and sweet, did Caroline Fry, once on a time, tea.eh every chastened child of God, and of sorrow, and of smart, and of even woe, to sing- " Often the clouds of deepest woe Bo sweet e. message bear, Dark though they seem, 'twere hard to find One frown of anger there I "' It needs our hearts be weaned from ea.rtht It needs that we be driven, By lose of every earthly stay, To find our hope in heaven In IV. How BEA.DY TQ FORGIVE, TO GRANT RESPITE AND FURLOUGH, TO GIVE "BOOM AND fPACE FOB BEPEBTAl'!OE," THE LORD Goo OF VB ALL IB I Fully thirteen years, as it; 011. xn. 1-16.] THE SECOND BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. 145
appears, did such mo.nner of long-suffering, of forgivingneBR, even when it could not be precip!tnted _into obje~tive forgiveness, hold out-sparing! pitying, prolonging probation, rcpe~t_mi;; trial, accep!mg the wor~s, the posture, the fa_stmgs, the tee.re, the petition3 3f hum1lmhon, t~e part!e.l e.nd tre.ns1ent e.mendments of hfe and conduct, in ce.se anything ree.l, deep, lastmg, might haply come of them. Fully thirteen yee.rs (see vers. 2, 13) was Rebobo11m kept on the throne, and all this long-suffering, considerate mercy shown to him, ns though for him e.lone, or for him first, or for him chiefly, it bad been written, " For he knoweth our frame ; he remem bereth that we are dust "-who all the while was neutralizing and cancelling Divine (l;Oodness, gift, opportunity, by the one damning vice that wrote itself as his epitaph, itself history's last memorandum of him, the lament- able summary in a sentence, " Because he feed not hie heart to seek the Lord I"