nnturo to appear better in some respects and worse in others than it really is. The description here may, therefore, be taken as applying even more forcibly to the heart that knows than to the heart that is to be known. Here the great difficulty and dan,.,er0 lie. For the deceitful and corrupt heart can be known, if not by any one else, at all events by'Jehovah himself. But the deceitful and corrupt heart cannot know; it does not, in the' fullest sense of the word, know anything at all. With hearts put ricrht, wha.t a wonderful increase of knowledge and of the profit and pleasure of knowledge will there be I • But till then we are not unlike those who suffer from diseased intellects. They eorne into great eontrast with sa.ne people from the way in which their minds get filled with hallucinations and'incongruities. And so, if we try to compare ourselves in our riotions •of things with Christ's teaching, we shall see the difference between the view· taken by a sincere sound heart, such as was that of our Lord, and the view taken by corrupt, deceitful hearts, which ours are and must be till we discover the need of a new and pure life to be put into them. IV. Gon's PERFECT KNOWLEDGE STANDS IN THE PLACE OF OUR IGNORANCE AND ERROR. God knows us in all our motives, through all our concealments, and can set our. secret sins-the operation of destroying causes that lie even below our conscious- ness-.:.in the light of his countenance. When once we discover how competent God is to search and try, we shall then ·see that it is vain for us to deny what he affirms, to excuse what he condemns, and to make out that we are not responsible when he lays evil at our doors .. Jeremiah's seornful audiences may have said to him, "How come· you to know these things about us? How come you to be so uncharitable as to bring these dreadful charges?" . But then we kn,ow that they were not the prophet's own charges, but came from God himself. It was part of Jert:miah's grief that, on Jehovah's authority, he should have to believe things so bad of his nation. What God did to Israel was just; and. more and more, as time went on, it was seen to be just. In all great exhibitions of Divine wrath we must be silent, recollecting that God knows what we cannot know, and perceives necessities where we can perceive none.-Y.
Ver.-11.-Riches wrongly gotten, and the consequence. Here is an instance of an illustration 'which, so far as our knowledge is concerned, is more obscure than the thing to be illustrated. But there was, no doubt, with regard to some bird a popular opinion which made the prophet's reference 'very suggestive to his hearers. The fact supposed is that some bird ,gathers the young of other birds, despoiling tho nests of the real parents, only to find, when the youog ones get sufficiently strong, that they can no longer be kept to its nurture a,nd control. Whether there was a real fact corresponding matters very little. If we want a familiar and sufficiently corresponding instance, we may find itin the not unfrequent one bf a hen hatching a brood of ducklings, only to find how soon their alien nature is manifested when a pool of water comes within reach. N oie-:- I. THERE IS A RIGHTFUL GETTmG OF WEALTH. External property occupies a position of approval in the Old Testament which is denied to it in the New. All the way through the New Testament the perils and deceptions attaching to mere external wealth are strongly insisted on. If not condemned per se, which of course is not possible, it is yet put forward as a heavy burden and perpetual stumbling-block to tho Christian wh9 has it. But in the Old Testnment that very wealth is magnified, doubtless as a symbol of those better riches which would appear in something of their proper glory and sa~isfying power through the eI1ergetic ministrations of Christ's Spirit. God saw fit for a timo to recognize ability, industry, and integrity in a way which would be plain to the most carnal of men. Take Job, for instance. And even in the New Testament a sharp line is drawn between wealth gotte11 honestly and that which canie by extortio_n and cheating. 'fhere is a stnndnrd of integrity recognized by the natural man·; and God also recognizes this standard, so far as it goes. Miserably short does it fall of his appointed height of pcrfeclion, but it is better than nothing. Those who fall short of even the moderate requirements of their fellow-ruen·.God will condemn. On them he will set an unmistakable mark. Dut in order to do this there must be some sort of modified approval of those who, in seeking wealth, strive to keep their integrity and refrain from d1Jing that which may dcgra\lO nnrl impoverish their fellow-men, 436 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. [cH, xvu. 1-27,
II. THE PECULTAR UNCERTAINTY OF ILL-GOTTEN WEALTII, All external wealth is uncertain. "Riches take to themselves wings and flee away," They furnish one of the most impressive testimonies to the instability of terrestrial society. But ill-gotten ga.ins are peculiarly unstable. Every rich man is envied, and few such escape slander. But he who becomes rich by unscrupulous methods has to lay his account with hostility on the part of all whom he has spoiled. Methods of unjust gain cannot but provoke the resolute, persevering, a.nd ultimately successful opposition of a.11 who hate injustice. Recollect the sudden and complete loss which came to the slave-holders of America, when their slaves were freed as a matter of military necessity. It is true that unjust gains seem to be often a.s stable as just ones; but still the peculiar uncertainty remains. A Christian possessing external wealth bears in mind tho uncertainty of it, just as he bears in mind the uncertainty of his own natural life; but the heaper-up ofjilth_y lucre has to reckon, not only with the perils of all human life, but also with those inseparable from his own evil courses, In some great storm, fatally threatening the ship of state, such a. one may have to be thrown overboard, Jonah-fashion, in order to secure the safety of the rest.-Y.