then•fore will I change their glory into shame." The "increase" referred to in the text is in all probability an increase in the number of the population. Israel had b<>come a nuru<>rous people. Ilut it might also refer to their increase in wealth; this is the application that we shall make of it, and notice three points. I. SECULAR PROSPERITY ATTAINED BY THE WICKED. They wore an idolatrous and rebellions people, yet they had grown rich. Their lands brought forth plentifully, and tht>ir mercha.nd.ise was prosperous. 1. This is a common fact. \Vickcd men, in nil n"es from the beginning, have not only been successful in the accumulation of wealt.h, but as a rule have been more prosperous than their contemporaries. Two things mo.y account for this fact. (1) 1'heir secular earnestness. Material good is the one thing that fills and fires an unregenerat,e soul, and for this he labours with might and main. 'J'he more earnest a man is in any pursuit (his aptitudes being equal), the more success- ful. The mere worldly man is" fervent" in business. (2) 1'heir moral unscrupulous- ne.,s. They have no high sense of honour, no inviolable rules of right, no swaying sense of more.I responsibilities. Hence they will not reject the fraudulent and the false if they will serve them in their course. Fraud and fah;ehood are perhaps the chief factors in fortune-making. No wonder, then, that the wicked become rich. 2. This is a trying fact. Men of incorruptible truth, honesty, and high devotion have in all ages been baffled and distressed by this fact. " Wherefore do the wicked prosper?''. This has been their puzzle. II. SECULAB PROSPERITY A.DOSED BY THE WICKED. "As they were increased, so they sinned against me." Wealth has a wonderful power either for good or ill. Wit.hit the truly generous and holy can widen the empire of spiritual intelligence and advance the cause of human happiness; and by it the wicked can increase the corruption and swell the tide of human depravity. In the hands of the wicked wealth can: 1. Promote injustice. Wealth gives a man power to baffle the cause of justice, trample on human rights, and oppress the poor and the innocent. Wealth fattens the despotic in human nature. 2. Promote sensuality. It provides means to inflame the low passions of human nature, and to pamper the brutal appetites. It tends to bury the soul in the warm and sparkling stream of animal passions. 3. Promote practical atheism. The man who has an abundance of the things of this life, and who has not the fear of God in his heart, is sure to sink into an utter forgetfulness of the Author of all good. Thus, then, "as they were increased, so they sinned against me." A terrible fact this. III. SEcULA.B PROSPERITY RUINOUS TO THE WICKED. "Therefore will I change their glory into shame." I will str~p them of a~ they now glory in, _all their_ worldly wos- perity, and give them shame mstead. I will quench all the hghts wh~ch t~ey have kindled, and which glare around thew, and there shall be darkness. I will bring them into wretchedness and contempt. "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee." "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could ,not be found." " To-day be puts forth The tender leaves of hopes, to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blW!hing honours thick upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing frost: And,-when he thinka, good easy wan, full surely HiB greatness is a-ripening,-nips his root, And then he falls, as I do." (Shakespeare.) D.T.
Ver. a.-Feeding on llin. "They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity." Dr. Henderson renders these words," They devour the sin offering of my people." "The pri_ests greedily devour~ what the people brought _for tl,e expiation of their sins; and mstead of endeavourmg to put a stop to aboundmg iniquity, only wished it to increase, in order t~at th~y might profit by ~he.multitude of the victims presented for sacrifice." The ?nests lived upon the sacnfic1al meat (s~e Lev. vi. 26), and the inore the7 hlld of thlS the more the7 were plealltld, B-"t th11 OIi, IV, 1-19,] 'l'HE BOOK OF HOSEA. 12n