the control of our lives. (2) Scripfore. We have cited some instances already. (3) Observation. The world is strewn with the wrecks of men who have disregarded the chart given them of God, and have run upon the rocks in consequence. (4) But the most strenuous and resistless teacher of all is Ezperience. He will make a man learn, almost whether the man will or no. And it was this teacher who had been instructing, in his emphatic manner, Judah and her people. By the miserable mess they had made of their lives, and the frightful calamities which now were close at their doors (ver. 22), they had at length come to see and confess their own wretched ordering of their way. Hence now the confession, "0 Lord, I know that," etc. It is a blessed fruit for folly and fault to bear. It is not the natural fruit, but one of God's gracious grafts. Peter's folly of boasting bore such fruit when "he went out and wept bitterly." Let our prayer be that the faults and follies, the sins and sorrows, with which our lives are scattered over may make us see and own, "0 Lord, I know that," etc. 3. Of their trust, nevertheless, in God's infinite love. For not improbably this confession has not only an upward look to God as the Director of men's ways, and an inward look upon their own sin, but also an outward look upon those dread foes who were hastening to destroy them. And this was their comfort that, after all, these enemies of theirs were in God's hands. No doubt they designed fearful things against God's people (cf. ver. 25). But then, "the way of man is not," etc. Hence even these fierce, relentless foes might be held in and turned about by the bit and bridle of God. Had not God, in the days of the good King Hezekiah, proved this in regard to the King of Assyria and his e.1my? Had he not, as Isaiah said, "put a hook in his nose ... and turned him back by the way by which he came"? And this confession breathes this hope and trust that God would do the like by their enemies now about to fall upon them. It is a real comfort to know that all our enemies, whether human or spiritual, are under the control of God. Even the apparently omnipotent prince of evil has bnt a limited power. He, too, cannot direct his own way. "'l'he Lord, he is the trne God, the living God, the everlasting King" (ver.. 10). II. THE l'BAYEB. Ver. 24, "0 Lord, correct me, but," etc. 1. This is a model prayer. For: (1) It confesses wrong. It owns the need of correction. The man is no longer right in his own eyes. He is seen, like the publican, "standing afar off," etc. (2) It desires to be put right ( cf. Ps. Ii.). As there, so here, there is the longing for renewal, the clean heart, the. right spirit. (3) It deprecates, not the correction, but the wrath of God. 'l'he man has. a clear view of that wrath-its crushing, destroying power. lt is good to have this. Without it there is the danger of our looking lightly upon our sin. 2. It is a most instructive prayer. It teaches us: (1) That all the cor- rections we have received have been fatherly ones-" in judgment," not "in anger." For had they been in anger we had not been here at all. (2) That we are alive and in God's presence proves that the love of God, and not his anger, is ours still. For his anger would have "brought us to nothing." (3) That there are corrections in anger. There have been such. Where are Egypt, Nineveh, Be.bylon, Rome? God brought them " to uothing." And there will be for all who harden themselves against God. (•!) That, seeing all need correction and will therefore receive it, either" in judgment" or " in anger," our wisdom is to make this prayer our own. One or other of these cor- rections we must have. Which shall it be? This prayer was answered for Israel. They have not been brought to nothing, and they were corrected. That sin of idolatry which brought on them God's correction they have, ever since that correction, utterly abandoned. '!'hen let us make this prayer our own. Ill HoLY ANGER AGAINBT THE ENEMIES OF GoD. We can readily see that vers. 23 and 24 are the fruit.a of a chastened spirit, but this fierce utterance of ver. 25 seems of another kind. But it is not. No doubt it has somewhat of the fierceness which belonged to that stern age, but it is none the less a real fruit of a right spirit. We ought to be very doubtful of our own spirit, however meek and contrite it is, if it be not accompanied with an intense detestation of evil. "Do not I hate them, 0 Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those thnt rise up against thee?" Such sentiment is a true note of the Spirit of God, and a religious life that lacks it is sure to be lacking in vigour, strength, and reliability. It is not personal hatred_ that finds utterance here, so much as a deep sense of the wrong dono to God anu the hmdrance that is placed in the we.y of his will. 'l'he seventy-ninth psalm is an expressiou of this petition. Our 288 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. [ou. x. l-2ii.
e.ge, and the temperament that so soft an age induces, are apt to mnke us be too easy with sin and sinners. ,ve are so bred up in the idea of the" Gentle Jesus, mee\1 e.nd mild," that we forget how anything but gentle and mild he was to tho hopelessly bad who were, in regard to the spiritual well-being of his people, doing ns is here said cc eating up Jacob, devouring him," etc. What nwful words poured forth from th~ Saviour's lips towards such I Let us suspect a meekness that makes us mild towards such. A man may make the confession of ver. 23, and offer the prayer of ver. 24, and fall and fall again; but if he have the stern spirit of ver. 25, that deep, intense hatred of evil, sin is far less likely to have dominion over him for the future; he will be "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." Therefore, whilst we crave that fruit of the Spirit which is seen in vers. 23, 24, let us crave that also which we have here in ver. 25. It is the result of our being "strengthened with might by the Spirit of God in the inner man," and leads on, in blessed, successive steps, to our being "filled with all the fulness of God."-C.