case. No prophetic intimation induced Israel to adopt the calf-idolatry, neither could they find fnult with their neighbours for seducing them into it. It was their own device, nnd had its origin with their king and themselves, How sa.d that Israel should make themselves so vile I-that lsrnel, forgetful of their high lineacre; that Israel, unmindful of their great progenitor, whose title of nobility was "prince ;ith God;" that Israel, whom God had taken into covenant to be his peculiar people, and who at the ~ ,ot of Sinai nvouched tho Lord to be their God, should prove so unspeakably sottish as to worship a man-made God, having" changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass" I But those calves of Dan and Bethel, or this calf of Samaria, in its col- lective sense comprehending all and considered by them as a" sort of tutelary deity of the ten tribes," was- as contemptible in its end as at its beginning. Made by man's hanrl, it was to be unmade by the same; fashioned by man, it was doomed to be broken into fragments by man, and, like .Aaron's calf at Sinai, broken into pieces and ground to powder. . V. A MORAL BEED-TIME AND ITS HARVEST. The account of Israel's punishment is continued in two striking similitudes, one of which presents the positive side and the other the negative. The positive side is that of a man sowing the wind and reapin.:; the whirlwind, as if a person took immense pains, toiling and labouring like a hu.~banrl- man when he sows his seed; but the seed sown is wind, a thing of nought and unsub- stantial-mere empty sound, and nothing more or better; then when harvest comes, as might in such circumstances be expected, there is grievous disappointment, and not only disappointment, but destruction, utter destruction, represented by a fearful whirl- wind (the double termination intensifying the meaning). "If it may be suppos~d," says Pococke,," that a man should sow the wind and cover it with earth, or keep i. there for a while penned up, what could he expect but that it should be enforced by its being shut up, and the accession of what might increase its strength to break forth again in greater quantities with great.er violence?" Israel expended gold and silver on their idols, and were assiduously laborious in their worship ; but instead of reaping any benefit from them, or increasiug their prosperity by them so as to equal the idolatrous nations _around, they laboured in vain and wearied themselves for very vanity. Nor was that all; they reaped ruin, being swept away by the whirlwind of Divine wrath. The nega- tive side exhibits three degrees of development, or three stages of progress. They sow, and, as the husbandmau expects a crop, so they look for a harvest of peace, plenty, and prosperity. But lo! the seed they sow never comes up, it has neither blade nor stalk; or if it should spring .up, produce a stalk or standing corn and develop an ear, it never reaches maturity-the ear does not fill, there is no ripe corn in the ear, and so the bud yields no meal; or suppose it to advance yet further, and to ripen and yield meal, it becomes a spoil to the enemy, for straugers swallow it up. How many every year, every month, every week, ay, every day, are sowing in this way foolishly and even fatally, being doomed to reap, not only disappointment, but destruction! The apostle tells us that they who sow to the flesh shall reap c01TUption. It is observable that in the passage referred to (Gal. vi. 8) there is a distinction: the seed (3 -yap J/zv ,nnlpp) and the soil, or the field ( •is ..-¾,v udpKa.), and that which is sown in it. 'l'he field is the flesh, or sensuality in genP,ra[: in tbat field some sow the seed of licentiousness, and they reap rottenness; some sow intemperance, and they reap corruption. VI. 'l'HE SAD SEQUEL OF ISRAEL'S SIN. 'l'he figure now resolves itself into a fact-a threefold fact-namely, Israel's consumption, captivity, and contempt. 1. They are swallowed up as a victim is swallowed by a beast of prey, and consumed from berng a nation. And yet this consumption is not annihilation, nor extinction, as we learn from the remainder of the v3rse. It is rather impoverishment-their substance devoured by dtrangers, and the produce of their land ea.ten up. The expression may b& paralleleJ. by the Homeric- •• Prbm and all his house and all his host Alive devour; then, haply, thou wilt rest.'' :More appropriate still i, the Scripture parallel, "Have all the workers of iuiquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread." 2, Their dispersion_ and captivity Ill Gentile lands were soon and certainly to come to pass. Driven from thei~ own country. and deprived of those ordinances which, when they might. have enjoyed and profited l,y T:i'm llOOlt OF" ll:OSlllA. [otr. vm. 1-14.
them, were ahnsed and dfspised, they shall ere long find themselves strangers lb. a foreign lAnd and smong h8!1then people; fot "now shall they be among the Gentiles." 8. In addition to c.aptivity, they are doomed to contempt, like vessels put to the vilest use, and into which the filthiest things are poured. They have been vessels of dishonour, despised broken vassels, in which there is no pleasure. And has it not been so with lsrnel for nMrly, or perhaps we might say for more than, two thousand years? Not- witbstandin~ the eminence to which indi'Viduals of that race have risen in the different professions and in varions walks of life, they have as a people, in the lands of their di~rersion, been subject to outrage, treated with contumely, scorned and spoiled and peeled. 4. Though these calamities were peculiar to farael in a special manner, yet less or more they have been common to sinners at all times and in all lands. 'l'hose that corrupt religion or contemn its privileges are not unfrequently deprived of them; gospel-despisers are deprived of the gospel"; those that dishonour God nre dishonoured by their fellow-men, for "them that honour me," says God, "I will honour; and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed."