Vers. 12-14.-Vessels of wrath. This is another similitude having the same general purpose as the former one. "Every earthen flagon (cf. eh. xlviii. 12)-the inhabitants of Jerusalem, her king, her priests, and prophets-will be filled with the wine of the intoxicating beverage of God's wrath (cf. eh. xxv. 15; Isa. xxviii. 7; li.17; Ezek. xxiii. 31; Ps. lx. 3; lxxv. 8) given them as a punishment for the pride and cruelty and impiety which they drank greedily as wine; cf. Rev. xiv. 8; xvili. 3, where the harlot drinks the wine of her own fornication and gives it to others, and intoxicates herself and them with it (Rev. xvii. 2; xviii. 6), and therefore God gives her the cup of his wrath, and she reels under it" (Wordsworth). The awful threatenings of these verses teach us much concerning the characteristics of those whom the Lord " will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy" (ver. 14). L 'l'HEY GRADUALLY DECOME VESSELS OF WRATH. Not till they are filled with their intoxicating sin are they certainly to be so called. But this goes on daJ, by day. II. THEY COME TO JEEB AND MOCK AT BOTH THE MESSAGE AND THE ME'SSENGERS Goo SENDS TO WA.RN THEM. Ver. 12, "Do we not certainly know," etc., as if they would say, "Tell us something we do not know." It is an utterance of unbelieving and mocking contempt. llL THEY A.BE AS DRUNKEN MEN: bereft of reason, unable to help themselves or their brethren, the sport of fools, and at the mercy of the most contemptible foe. Either torpid and insensible to all that concerns them, or else filled with fury and lost to all natural affection, hurtincr and destroying those nearest and dearest to them (ver. 14). IV. .ALL VESSELS, L~GE AND ~MALL, ABE FILLED ALIKE. (Ver. 13.) Not alone the common people were to be thus filled, but the magnates of the land-king, priests, etc. V. '.l.'HEY ABE MUTUALLY DESTRUCTIVE. (Ver. 14.) Such is the doom of sin. CoNCLUSION. We all are vessels. We all shall be filled. But what with? Pray that it may not be with the wine of the wrath of God, but" with the fulncss of God" (Eph. ili.).-C.
Vere. 12-14.-17ie la6t results of sin. I. GOD AND HIS MESSAGE MOCKED, JI. OUR ENTIRE NA.TUBE- UNDER ITS CONTROL, Ill. ALL R.il'KB AND ORDERS POSSESSED BY IT, IV. EVERY MAN18 H.AND AGAINST HIS FELLOW, V. GoD KNOWN ONLY AS THE Gon OF WRATH.-O. Ver. 15.-" Be not proud." It is difficult to see whllt those whom the prophet was a.<idressing had to proud of; but it is certain that they were proud, and that thereby en. xm. 1-27.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. 313