The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 256

he also reap." The threatenings of God are not, as are many of the threatenings of men mere empty vapourings, great swelling words, never designed to be fulfilled. Let th~ records of all human history, of all human lives, whether told of within or without the pages of the Dible, attest the absolute certainty of fulfilment which evermore characterizes the threatenings of God. When and where has he ever threatened and failed to fulfil his threat? Let the Fall, the Flood, the destruction of Sodom, the plagues on Egypt, the deaths of the generation of unbelievers in the wilderness, and ten thousand instances more, all prove the steadfastness of God to his word. And it is this fact of the absolute certainty of his threatenin~s being fulfilled that adds to them a_ yet further terribleness. There is no chance of escape, no hope of Gocl's relenting; as certain as the fixed laws of nature are these awful denunciations of God to him who persists in bringing them upon himself. II. DuT THEY ARE THE THREATENmas OF LOVE. 1. He who utters them is the God who in his very nature and essence is love. How manifold are the proofs of this in creation, in providence, in grace I He, therefore, has no pleasure in the death of the wickecl; judgment is his "strange work." 2. Those against whom they are uttered are the objects of his love. His love for them is deeper than his anger ag,\inst them. Hence it is that the contrite sinner never fails to gain the pardon he seeks. "Fathers of our flesh" may " chasten after their own pleasure, but he for our profit " ( cf. ver. 7). 3. His purpose in these threatenings is a loving purpose. He would compel by the scourge of fear his rebellious children to abandon their evil ways. 4. And if at length he is compelled to execute his threatenings, it is out of love that he docs so. For the love of God is towards his children, not to any one particular child, and the welfare of the family is the chief consideration. Salus populi suprema le3!. If consistently with that the transgressor can be restored, he will be, but not else. Hence, as an carl!hly father would not permit one of bis children, ill with terrible and contagious disease, to mingle with the other children; or, as in the far more sad case of utter moral wickedness, intercourse with the rest would be forbidden; so, for the sake of the rest of bis children, God will separate them from the wicked and the wicked from them. llut it is love which constrains to this, and hence it is that the ~coming contradic- tion is true, that he who is the God of love is also "a consuming fire." The very fatherhood of God is the most fearful fact of all others against the persiBtently rebellious and ungodly soul. Hence- lll. SuoH ~HBEATENlliGS ARE EVER THE MOST TERRIDLE OF ALL. Cf. the threaten- ings of our Saviour. The most awful utterances to be found in the whole Bible proceeded from hie lips-the lips whose words were wont to be so " gracious " that the people "wondered" at them. It is his sayings which have lit up the lurid glare of the firos unquenchable of hell, and it is he who has made our souls shudder o.t the sight of" the worm that dieth not," and of the "outer darkness" where there is" weep- ing and wailing and gnashing of teeth." See, too, the Revelation of St-. John. That apostle, whose great theme is the love of God, whoso soul was more nttuned to the music of love than that of any other, wrote that awful book, which is full through- out of" mourning, lamentation, and woe," and which almost reeks with the blood 11ncl. fire and smoke of tormeuts of which it tells. These facts can only be accounted for- and there are more like thorn-on the ground that the threatenings of love are ever the most terrible of all. And they are so, for such reasons us these: 1. Love so hates what tencl.s to the harm of those it loves. Hence it brands with its deepest curse that sin which harms God's children most of all. One chief argument with many minds for the retention of capital punishments is that only so can a government or nation mark its sense of the supreme wickeclness of the crime it so punishes. Punish it as other crimes are punished, nnd it will come to be re_grmlcd as no worse than tboy. And in like man11.er God would inspire us with a holy abhorronce of sin by the awful condemnation that he has pronounced against it. 2. Love so yearns to rescue those it loves. The rope may cut and wound the hands of the drowning sailor to whom we hnve thrown it, but we do not mind that if thereby he be drawn safe to shore. The knife of the surgeon may cut deep and cause fenrful pain, but if it snvcs the imperilled life we are thankful notwithstanding. So God sends forth these stern, rough, o.nd terrible thrcntenings, that souls under the spell of sin mo.y bo o.wo.kened, alnrmed, made to tremble, and to" seek the Lord while he may bo fou:1d." No gcuLler means will  256 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. [oH. ix.1-26,