2. .And he has done so with sorrow. Grief had been for ages going about the world, a sad-robed, sombre, and ever-tearful guest in whatever house she took up her temporary abode: nnd there was no house she did not visit. But since the Lord Jesus became the "Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," she, in virtue of that acquaintance, has changed her very nature, and the curse is turned into a blessing. She ministers help to the soul, in releasing it from the bonds of this evil world and in uplifting it t°'vards its true Father and home in heaven. 3. .And so with death. Its sting is taken away. To them who are in Christ he is rather a friend than a foe, for he it is who opens the door of our prison-house and lets the soul go fro, md rise to that place--:- " Where loyal hearts e.nd true Stand ever in the light, All rapture through o.nd through, In God's most holy sight." c. Ver. 10.-Battlements not the Lord's. Jeremiah is telling of tho defer )es of Jud,1h and Jerusalem. In the o.pproaching invasion they should fall and . rove utterly worthless; for, by reason of the people's sin, that blessing of the Lord wh;ch had made their battlements impregnable hitherto was withdrawn, and so, the people being no lonaer the Lord's their defences were not either, and so were no defences at all. But oft;n those who ;re not under the Divine displeasure-nations, Churches, individuals- are found relying on defences that are not Divine, thinking to find shelter and safety within battlements that are not the Lord's; and when such is the case tbo Lord won Id ever have such battlements taken away. The course of bis providence not seldom makes plain his displeasure in these things; for they get torn down and <l.cstroyc,l hopelessly if they who trust in them are not wise in time, and themselves take them away. '!'here are many references in Scripture to such battlements. 'rhey are spoken of either as "walls daubed with untempcred mortar," or as" broken cisterns which holu. no water," or, more plainly, as " refuges or lies," or :1• "a house built upon th, 136 THE IlOOK OF 'l'lllll PROPHE'l.' JEREMI.A.ll. [cu. v. 1-31.
s:md," or a.s the building upon the fouudntion of" wooc, nay, stubble." Such are somo of the parallels to the truth taught in the text. But take some illustrations of this erecting of a.nd trusting in battlements not the Lord's. I. IT BAS BEEN BEEN IN THE DEFENCE OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. Nothing in the world is so precious, so essential to the world, as the Church of Christ, and he has promised to preserve it unto the end. But men have often tried to plant, maintain, and spread it in anything but Divine ways; e.g. when: 1. They have relied on the secular arm. They have done so, and with what consequences let the present state of Christendom tell. When will men trust the glorious inherent power of the faith of Christ, and throw to the winds those carnal weapons which she wields only to her own wounding? When will she hear the voic11 of God saying, concerning such battlements, •• Take them away; they are not the Lord's"? 2. Or_qanization is another of these very questionable defences. That it has its use, and is capable of much and valued service, he would be a fool who should deny. But the peril is lest the artificial and merely human supports which organization supplies should be allowed to serve instead of that Divine life which alone is the true defence of any Church. Church arrangements which necessitate that when that life is wanting everything shall collapse about such a Church, that it shall cease to be and not present the mere simulacrom of what it is not,-it is a question if this be not n. better order than one which, by means of its elaborate organization, keeps up the show of Church life when the reality is not there. 3. And the same may be said of all those adventitious aids to the Church of Christ upon which men are apt so much to rely. Wealth, social position, learning, eloquence, numbers, gifts, and other such advantages,-let a Church place her trust in any of these, and the command of the text will go forth at once. But the true defecce of a Uhurch is the life that is in her, the manifest godliness of her members; that is a battlement which is the Lord's, and which none can take away. II. IT HAS BEEN SEEN IN THE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH. The faith of the Church is, without doubt, most precious; acd it is our duty to contend earnestly for it. But men have sought to guard and defend it in wrong ways. 1. Persecution has been tried. 2. Demanding subscription to fixed creeds. There may be and are good reasons for demanding such subscription, but it cannot be said that such sub- scription has kept the faith one acd entire in all the members of the Church. Probably there is more ucity of belief in those Churches which demand no such subscription than in those who do. 3. Relying mostly on the intellectual defences of the faith. There are such, many, varied, cogent, clear, invaluable, but they may be all read and mastered;and the citadel of the heart be not woo. But the true battlement of the faith is in the fact that it commends itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Let conscience be awakened and then the faith presented, and the fitness of the faith to the needs and teachings of cocscience are visible at once. JII. IT IS CONTINUALLY BEEN IN MEN'S OONDUOT IN REGARD TO TIIEm OWN PERSONAL RA LVATION. What else is: 1. Trust in sacraments P 'l.'hey are, without doubt, means of grace to the believer in Christ-the experience of myriads of saints attests that ; but he who luoks to them as a viaticum that will open a way to hcaveu for the vilest, surely that is a refuge of lies. 2. Reliance on human priests 1 This reliacce is by no meacs confined to the Church of Rome. Deep seated in men's micd is the idea tliat ministers of religion can really help the soul in its great needs. Much of sendic~ for ministers in cases where death is anticipated is based on this false belief. 3. Trust in such poor righteousness as we can offer to God; what can it do? 4. Resting on an imagined leniency in God, which will prevent his carryicg out the threatenings of his lboly Law as he has said he would? How many soothe and still all disquiet of con- science by such false confidecce as this I-a confidecce which the facts of life, apart from the Word of God, utterly shatter and show to be false. But the true defence of the soul is Christ; that battlement is the Lord's, yea, is the Lord himself, and he will keep that which is committed to him even unto the great day.-O,