dar~n~s_s and is gone. But it is deeply significant of the dulness of on1· spiritual sens1b1hty that we can gaze so often on the world of wonders around us without beina0 solemnly impressed with the presence of the living God. II. THE SELF-WILL THAT SPURNS THE DIVINE CONTROL. A contrast is here drawn between the subjection of the great sea to the laws God's will has imposed on it and the bounds his hand has drawn around it, and the insubordination of the rebeilious spirit of man. It is e. grand expression of Divine power in the material realm that the sea-shore presents. We are impressed ,vith the majestic force of the rolling tide, but after all, there is something still more wonderful in the solid strength of the belt of sand. that resists and restrains it. (Even as the moral strength of a man is seen not so mucn in the ungoverned fury of his passions, as in the calm resolution that controls them.) The sea is subject to restraint; not so tho wayward spirit of man. The sea, in its wildest raging, obeys the laws that are imposed on it, and "its own appointed limits keeps; " but the rebellious heart of man defies all authority other than its own impulses. How deep the mystery of this difference between material and spiritual forces! How awful the prerogative of a being on whom God has conferred a moral freedom like his own! He will never violate that freedom in any of his dealings with us; that were to destroy the very nature he has given. But in proportion to the dignity of the self-determining power, so dreadful must be the penalty of abusing it. III. THE INGRATITUDE THAT YIELDS NO RETURN OF LOVE FOR THE DIVINE BE1'LFICENCE. It was an aggravation of the guilt of Israel that they were as unmoved by the perpetual manifestation of the goodness of God as they were by the revelations of his power. Even that did not lead them to repentance or teach them to fear him. Few evidences of the thoughtful goodness of God have been more conspicuous through all the ages than the beneficent round of the seasons. In spite of all the wickedness of man's ways," he left not himself without witness, in that he did good," etc. (Acts xiv. 17). The appeal this great fact makes to the consciences and hearts of men is specially forcible a.s bearing on those whose calling is to be fellow-workers with God in develop- ing the harvests of the earth. "Labour is a sublime necessity," not as a mere "necessity," but because of its moral meaning and moral uses. And of all physical labour, the husbandry of the earth is most rich in moral associations, as educating men to lowly dependence on God, and grateful devotion to him in response to his fatherly providence and long-suffering grace. Learn-As all Divine manifestations speak to us alike of infinite power and infinite beneficence, so the result in us should be the blended affections of fear and love.-W.
EXPOSITION. Mr. Fergusson points out. "The boundary CHAPTER VI. between Judah and Benjamin ... ran at the A prophecy, in five stanzas or strophes, foot of the hill on which the city stands, so that the city itself was actually in Benjamin, vividly describing the judgment and its while, by crossing the narrow ro.vine of causes, and enforcing the necessity of re- Hi.nnom, you set foot on the territory of pentance. Judah" (Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible,' Vera. 1-8.-.Anival of a hostile army i. 983). It is merely a specimen of the un- from the north, and summons to flee from natural method of early harmonists when the doomed city. Jewish writers tell us that the altars and Yer. 1.-0 ye children of Benjamin. The the sanctuary were in Benjamin, and tha political rank of Jerusalem., as the capital of courts of the temple in Judo.h. The words the kingdom of Judah, makes it difficult to of " the blessing of Moses " are clear (Deut. realize that Jerusalem was not locally a city xxxiii. 12) : " The beloved of the Lord I he of Judah at all. It belonged, strictly speak- shall dwell in safety by him, sheltering him ing, to the tribe of Benjamin,a tribe whose in- continually, and between his shoulders he significance, in coro pa.risen with Judah, seems dwelleth;" i.e. Benjamin is specio.lly pro- to have led to the adoption of e. form of ex- tected, the sanctual"y being ou Banjo.mite pression not literally accurate (Hee PH.lxxviii. soil. And yet these highly fo.voured "chil- 68). The true state of the case is evident dren of Benjamin" are divinely warned to from an examination of the two parallel pas· flee from their so.cre<l homes ( see eh. vii. 4- sages, Josh. xv. 7, 8, and IViii. 16, 17. As 7). Gather yourselves to flee; more strictly, en. v1. 1-30.] 'l'HE BOOK OF 'fHE PROPHET JEREMIAH. 145