Bethel, "Surely God is in this place, though I knew it not." Hearken how he speaks of God when blessing the sons of Joseph. He tells of him as "the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil." Such was his confession of that never-failing care, that incessant interest with which the Lord God had watched over every stage of his life's journey. How all his very steps had been ordered by the Lord I This is another characteristic of the portion which Jacob had in Goel. And must not that man be blessed who consciously realizes that he has this God for his Help? 'l'o have our lives:made God's care, our interests his concern, to have his angels evermore keeping watch and ward over us, encamping round about us to deliver us,-this is another blessed element in the portion of Jacob and of all like him. V. MEETNESS FOR .. THE INHERITANCE OF THE BAmTs IN LIGHT." Gradually, step by step, sometimes with seeming retrogression, but ever advancing on the whole, Jacob was lifted up from the low level of his former spiritual life, and ceased to be any longer Jacob, and became Israel. Such elevation, such meetness for" the inheritance of the saints," was and ever is part of the portion of Jacob, and a most blessed part it is, And now, IN CONCLUSION, let us ask, Is there such a Portion anywhere else 1_ Our text affirms, "'l'he Portion of Jacob is not like them." The prophet is speaking of the wrctclied idols before whom his countrymen were so prone to bow down. It seems wonderful that any should have ever thought that the God of Jacob was like them. Like them! when even to think of them was to despise them with utter contempt. ,vhat a contrast to him, whom mind, and heart, and will, body, soul, and spirit could never sufficiently adore! It seemed monstrous that any should substitute for him those wretched idols, upon whom the prophet, in the preceding part of this chapter, pours forth his bitter scorn. But he means by the assertion we have been considering to declare that the Portion of Jacob is an incompai-able Portion. None can be put beside, still less put in the place of him. And this is a truth for to-day. We ask again the question, "Is there such a Portion anywhere else?" Oh that they whom the psalmist calls "men of the world," and of whom he says, "they have their portion in this. life," would compare the two--Jacob's and their own! Ah I you who have not the Portion of Jacob, we allow that you may have very much that is bright and fair. God may fill your veins with health, your coffers with gold, your houses with all luxury, your gardens with flowers, your fields with fruits, and your life with comfort and outward peace; but you arc like those trees which in the winter-time are called Christmas-trees. "One feels a kind of pang at the first sight of such trees. No doubt it is beautiful in its way, with the little lights twinkling among the brauches, and the sweet gifts of affection hanging from every twig. But the tree itself, are you not sorry for it ?-rooted no longer, growing no more, no more circulation of the living sap, no sweet discoursing by its means between air and soil, between soil and air. 'l'he last waves of its life are sinking, and the more you hang upon it and the more you gather round it the faster it will die" (Dr. Raleigh). And if we have not the Portion of Jacob, we are like one of these trees. Loaded it may be with all manner of pleasant things, and su1Tonnded with affection, but dying all the while. But "the Portion of Jacob is not like them "-one that will abandon you at the close of your life, or maybe long before, and leave you l1elp- less and forlorn. Oh no; but then, when "heart and flesh fail," God will be" the Strength of your heart," and your "Portion for evermore." That is the portion of Jacob, and oh may God grant that it may be yours and mine, and that of all we love I Amen.-C.
Vers. 17, 18.-Wl,erefore God doth ;'udge tl1e world. It is not of the world at large, but of Judah and Jerusalem, that the prophet is here speaking. But nevertheless the judgments of God and the design wherewith they were sent, though haviug reference only to one people, are true example~ of all like judgments, whenever, wherever, and Low~ver they come. Therefore note- • L THE JUDGMENTB FORETOLD. 'l'he people are to be driven forth into exile and captivity. The whole book tells of their sorrows. Jeremiah'ij prophecy is one long denunciation of the wrath of God about to come on tho guilty land. He was sent to ~ecla.re_ this in the hope that those to whom he spoke might yet turn to the ~ord nw.l live? like Noah, that" preacher of righteousness" who warned the godless of his day of the .1udgmcnt that was coming upon them. More particularly in these verses Jeremiah tleclares (ver. 17) that not even the meanest and poorest will escape. The "wares" 0li, x. 1~20.] THE BOOK OF THE rnOPHET JEREMIAH. 281