ing, and invit.ed guests would make special efforts to be present. Jesus, for instance, at the wedding-feast at Cana. Mere rioting and revelling, and the laughter of fools and such merry-making as cost the Baptist his life, were at all times forbidden. There ia much of rebuke to us in this command of the prophet here. He did not take part even in an innocent festive gathering. H jarred on him as he thought of the future, so different and yet so near. A.nd possibly, if we thought more as we ought.to think on what has yet to come in the way of judgment and destruction, we should walk through the world feeling that we had no heart even for what is reckoned innocent merriment. 'IV e can never be sufficiently serious when the burden of human: life, wiLh all its vast and varied trials, comes to lie upon our thoughts.-Y. Vers. 14, 15.-Two great recollections. Here once again we come upon the evan• gelical elemer,t in Jeremiah's prophecies; and once again we have to noLice that, when this element does appear, it makes up for its infrequency by the brilliance and emphasis of the prediction. The prophet has just been compelled to speak of domestic suffer- ing, national exile, and the withdrawal for a season of Divine favour. These necessary judgments must be magnified and stated in all their severity; not one of them can bo omitted; the cup poured out by Jehovah must be drunk to its last drop. But when all these experiences are over, terrible and yet full of discipline, a glorious future remains. 'l'he manner of the prophecy is full of encouragement, and not least in this, that there is such a sudden turning from the deepest darkness to the brightness of noon. We have to consider- !. THE INDIOATION OF WHAT HAD BEEN ONE OF THE MOST CUSTOMABY FORMS OF OATH HITHERTO. On important occasions, when a promise had to be made or an assertion verified, it was the Israelite's habit to make a solemn appeal to the Ii ving Jehovah. "As Jehovah livcth" was the general formula, to be combined with Lmore particular references, agreeing with the occasion, as to what this living Jehovah had doue in the past. The reference might be to something that had happened in the experience of the individual, and probably still more frequently to greater events in the larger experi- ence of the nation. To give such an appeal all possible solemnity it was needful to think of Jehovah in the most magnifying way; and what coul<l magnify him more than a recollection of the great <leliverance from Egypt, which he had wrought out for Israel '? 'l'hat deliverance gave Israel its great chance of service and glory as the people of God. Up to that time a nation of helpless slaves and sufferers-helpless, that is, for anything they could do-they nevertheless became in a very few days a nation of free men, travelling towards a land of iheir own. And all this was by direct Divine interven- tion; and not only was it a great deliverance in itself, but all the circumstances made it doubly memorable. 'l'he narrative of- what had been done needed no embellishments to grave it indelibly on the memory of each generation. Moreover, Jehovah himself had made provision for the continued recollection of the deliverance by the institution of the Passover. He wished it to bo remembered. ·we may well conclude that such a form of oath as appealed to him iu his character as the Deliverer of Israel from Egyptian bondage, was peculiarly agreeable; it being always presumed, of course, that the oath was uttered sincerely. II. THE INDICATION OF HOW THIS VENERATED OATH wAS TO DE SUPERSEDED. Probably at the time of the deliverance from Egypt many Israelites may have said to themselves, "Nothing can ever happen in the history of our nation more memorable than this. Whatever our vicissitudes, whatever our perils, we cannot be more in need of Jehovah's intervention than we have lately been." But when either nations or individuals speak thus, it is in utter ignorance of how deep and terrible human need may become. There was a worse bondage than that of Egypt; it came wilh no external inconveniences, it was invisible to the outward eye, and, worst of all, it was heedlessly accepted by the boudman himself. The Israelites bad fallen into the bodily slavery of Egypt by no fault of their own; there was no point at which it was possible for them to stop the process. But the spiritual enslavement to i<luls aud to every sort of consequent evil came by their o\vn act. '!'hey had stooped to the yoke. It is II greater thing that has to be done now, so far as the result to the Israelite is concerned, than was done when he was taken out of Egypt. Then he was delivered from Pharaoh and his host-a. simpl~ !!latter comfarat-ivelu, for the des~ru9tiou of fl:i:i.raoh and his host in the l~eq Sea diu all 414 TliE BOOK OF 'l'HE PROPHET JEilEMIAll. [err. XVI, 1-21.
that needed to be done. But now the Israelite ha(to be delivered from hi'llt$elf. There has to be some sort of clrnuge within him, and this we may well believe wns broncrht about by the exile in Baby Ion. It is not enough to say that, after a time of exile, God bronght them back to Jerusalem. The mere transport from one place to another would have been no whit more memorable than the deliverance from Egypt, Surely there 1m1st have been a state of heart in the returning generation .which made thom very different from the generation going away into captivity seventy years before. That they came back to a true, spiritual, steadfast service of Jehovah is not to be suppoHed·; hut neither would they come back to the old idolatry. The sin into which they were hereafter to fall "·as a formal service of the true God, mere ccremonialism and Pharisaism, not apostasy to idols. The great effect of the exile in Babylon was deliverance from formal idolatry, evidently a matter to be more celelirated than the deliverance, centuries before, from bondage in Egypt. But in the future beyond there was something greater still to he looked for. There was a possibility of yet another form of oath, if Jesus had not recommended his disciples to dispense with all additions to the simple, veracious "Yes" and" No." Israel needed to be delivered, not only from formal connection with false gods, but from a mere formal connection with the true God. The Lord lives, who brought Israel out of Egypt. The Lord lives, who further delivered Israel from tempta- tion to fabricate idols and grovel before them in licentiousness and cruelty. And we may also add that the Lord lives, who makes individuals of every nation his children by the accepted indwelling of his Spirit; makes them partakers of the Divine nature, with all the glorious consequences thereof. Further, we may say that Jesus lives, who made the blind to see and who raised the dead. But it is a still greater thing to say; Jesus lives, who died to restore men to his Father, and rose again to bring life and immortality to light.-Y. •