Jehovah is with us," said these wise men; but it was a valuele.'IS connection, whereas the prophet had that Law written in his heart. Being in full sympathy with all that was right, and loving, and generous, and pure, he was a.fit subject for the solemn impulses that came to him from on high, and thus he went forth to speak on themes immeasur- ably deeper than the passing phenomena of a.n age. And so it is that his words, despised and rejected at the time, nevertheless abide, and are felt to be very precious by all who lack wisdom. As we notice the arro~ancc of spurious wisdom hero and also in such passages a.s John vii. 48 and 1 Cor. i. 22, we turn away to welcome that heavenly light which in the very shining of it proclaims its source to be entirely different from any earth-enkindled light. Our true wisdom in presence of the Law and the prophets, the Christ and the apostles, is to feel very deeply how ignorant, benighted, and astray we are without them. And there is true wisdom also in that power of the heart which enables us to discern between the false prophet and the true, the false Christ and the true. Such wisdom may be found in the heart of a little child or of a man on the common level of humanity, when it is utterly lacking among many who lead the world in temporal affairs, Full of darkness and duplicity must the minds of these leaders in Jerusalem have been when they lacked the power of seeing that Jeremiah, unpromising as his outward appearance might be, was indeed a prophet of God.-Y. Ver. 17.-The serpents which cannot be cha1·med. I. THERE ARE SERPENTS WHICH OAN DE CHARMED, Serpent-charming must have been a not unfamiliar sight to the Israelites (see' The Land and the Book,' pp.154, 155). This means, taking the figure a.way, that there were many groat and pressing evils which lay within human resources to mitigate, perhaps to remove. Thus when sore famine fell upon Canaan, Jacob found corn, though he had to send as far as Egypt. The resources thus employed a.re, no doubt, exceptional, and need peculiar skill and aptitude to discover and use them; but still-and this is the thing of importance here to remember-they are within the reach of the natural man. 'fo say that necessity is the mother of invention is only another way of saying thnt there are serpents which can be charmed. Man stands upon the known and the achieved, that he may reach forward and win something more from the unknown. Not everybody can charm a serpent, but some can. So there are a few physicians, one here and another there, who have wonderful skill in the cure of special diseases. Part of the ills of human life can be swept away by wise and timely legislation. Epidemics may be restrained and made comparatively mild by cleanliness and attention to sanitary rules, Ills which in one age have been thought beyond remedy, in the next age are perfectly understood as to their causes and their cure. II. THERE ARE SEnPENTS WHIOH CANNOT BE CHARMED, We may assume that it was so literally; that there were certain serpents which proved obdumtc ag1\inst every wile. And the danger of the serpent's bite would in such an instance become most dreadful, just from this very insensibility to everything in the shape of o. charm. An enemy was to be brought on Israel whom no bribe, no promise, no o.rt of persunsion whatever, could turn back. If he was to be turned ha.ck, it must be by main force or by Divine interposition. So we have to consider that, whatever ills we may succeed in neutralizing, there are others still left behind, unabated in their deadly efficiency by any resources we have in ourselves, It matters little that we can- charm somo serpents, if we cannot charm all. If there be left only one superior to our skill, that one is enough to ruin all. The most successful charmer among us will discover bis match at last. He may charm poverty away, only to find, in a little while, ennui and possession without enjoyment, He may have the experience indicated in Prov. xxiii. 32: be may charm a.way, as he thinks, the peril of the wine-cup, and exult in assured mastery, only to discover o.t last that the foe with whom he has been trifling "bites like a serpent, and stings like a.n adder." So a man may achieve most of his purposes, charming a.way, a.s it were, obstacles on every side, only to find in the end that be cannot charm his conscience, that it will not be silent and sleep before the memory of much wrong-doing, III. THERE ARE SEllPENTB WHICH CAN DE MORE THAN CHAnMED, There is much in the conjecture that the reference to the serpent here is suggested by the mention of Dan in the previous verse, Jacob'd word for his son Dan was, "Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that hiteth the horse heels, so that his rider she.II fall backwards" (Gen, xlix. 17). But we shall do wisely in consi<lering the 238 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. [cu. vm. 1-22.
reference as having a deeper connection with the work of him who is the serpent from the beginning (Rev. xx. 2). All the painful serpent-bites of life, all the deadly ills, prooeed from the brood which in some way or other originate with him. And thus thinking of him, the great dragon, the devil, the adversary, we must needs think of the correspondingly profound work of Jesus over against his work. Jesus was a seipent- charmer; and his efficacy as a charmer is most graciously manifested in the miracles which he wrought to remove physical defect, disease, and death. These miracles had in them something of the nature of a charm. They did not destroy the maleficent power, but they curbed it, made it for the time dormant and inoperative. But after having done all these miracles, Jesus is seen proceeding to a. work which is more than that of the charmer. He who was lifted up to draw all men to him makes the victim of the serpent-bite impervious, for all future existence, to any further danger. The bite may come, in the sense of inflicting pa.in, but the peril is past. The serpent-poison becomes neutralized by the vigour and purity of that eternal life which is in Christ Jesus the Lord.-Y.