priest. How snd their condition I and sadder still when they felt it to be the legitimate consequence of their sin, national, social, and lndividnall V. Loss 01/' REl,IGIOUB SOLEMNITIES IB AN AOOBAVATIOJ.11' 01!' THEIR LOBB OJ' BELIOIOUB ORDINANCES, 'l'he solemn day, or day of the feast of the Lord, as often as it came round wa~ e. high _da.y as well as e. holy day ; a dar of joy and gladness, of thanksgiving and praise. Besides the weekly sabbath solemnity and the monthly solemnity of the new moons, there were the three great annual festivals of the Passover, Pentecost, and 'l'abernncles. Of the benefit and blessing of these solemnities, with all their instrnction, edification, comfort, and encouragement, they are now deprived. No wonder the prophet asks in e. tone of pity, not unmingled with pathos, " What will ye do then?" To this inquiry a practical commentator makes the following not inappropriate reply: "You will then spend those days in sorrow and lamentation, which, if it had not been your fault, you might have been spending in joy and praise. You will then be made to know the worth of mercies by the want of them, and to prize spiritual bread by being made to feel a famine of it." To this he adds the pithy remark, "When we enjoy the means of grace, we ought to consider what we shall do if ever we should know the want of them ; if either they should be taken from us, or we disabled to attend upon them." VI. Loss 01/' ALL THINGS ONCE HELD DEA.JI. CONCLUDES THIS BAD BUMlliBT OJ' 'l'BE EVIL EFFECTS OF BIN. Never was there a darker outlook, never was there a gloomier prospect! What havoc sin works I What distress it occasions! In a single verse are crowded together the destruction of their country by one heathen power, that of Assyria ; their dispersion in the country of another, namely, Egypt; their death in that foreign land, and their deprivation of decent sepulture; the desolation of the dwellings they had left behind-a desolation so great that nettles had sprung up in their treasuries aod thorns in their tabernacles; nor was respite, or relief, or restoration to be expected. They had deluded themselves with false hopes and had resorted to carnal devices, distrustful of God, as men often do, and with like result. Instead of retnrning to that God against whom they had rebelleo, and who might have opened to them a door of hope, they departed more and more from him, placing their dependence on the sinful, unavailing shifts of their own devising. Vere. 7-9.-There is no joy, any more than peace, to the sinner. However men put away from them the evil day, they can neither stave it off altogether nor delay its coming. I. THE CERTAINTY OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS OVERTAKING SINNEBS. In the previous verse the prophetic past is used, to intimate that, though the event predicted had not yet taken place, yet was it as sure of accomplishment as if it had already occurred. Here the words " a.re come " are repeated to apprise sinners of its certainty ; thus we read in the same tense, and with like repetition," Babylon is fallen, is fallen." So also in Ezek. vii. 6, "An end is come, the end is come; . . . behold, it is come ; " while in the verse preceding, and in the one succeeding, the same expression is repeated to impress men with the fact of the threatened judgments being both sure and near, and thus prevent self-deception. II. THE CHARAOTER OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTB. 1. They are days of Divine visitation. Men's sins shall be searched out and brought to lrght; they shall be scrutinized by the omniscient and heart-searching God. 2. They are days of recom- pense, when not only shall an exact account be taken, but a just recompense of reward dealt out to each according as bis work shall be. The recompense shall correspond to the visitation; the stricter the former, the juster and more exact the latter. 3. They are days near at hand, so near as well as certain that they are spoken of as already come. . III. THE CONDUCT OF THE PROPHET. If, as some suppose, the prophet here mentioned 1s (1) the false prophet, he deluded the people with false hopes, and God gave the people over to stron~ delusion that they might believe a lie. They awak~ not out of their day-dream until roused by the visitation and recompense of the Almighty. God, by afflictive dispensations, has to stir men up when milder means have failed. But (2) the prophet mentioned may be a true prophet, and it may only be in the estimation of the people that he is fool and madman. In this case, those that thus treated him with 280 THE BOOK OF HOSEA. [err, IX. 1-17.
contempt and ridicule shall be awakened by the visitations of the Almighty to e. eenee of their sin and shame. Then (3) shall they know, as stated in the first clause, not only the nearness and certainty of the Divine visitation and recompense, but shall also know that II prophet had been among them, tha.t he had discernment of the times and had faithfully com·eyed to them the message of God. 'l'beiy (4) shall know to~ to their cost and by bitter experience, many things about God, about his ambassadors ~nd about their own heart-less misconduct. 'l'hey shall know, says an old divine, th~se thinas: "1. What a great God they had to deal with. 2. How vile a thing sin is. 3. •l'he vanity of all their shiftings. 4. The dreadfulness of Divine wrath. 6. '!'he faithfulness of God's prophets. 6. The wisdom of those who dared not do as they did. 7. 'l'he folly and vanity of all the false prophets that did before seduce them." IV. THE CAUSE OF ALL THEIR ERRORS WAS THE MULTITUDE OF THEIR BINS. Faults in their life, as is not unusual with wicked men, bred errors in the brain. '!'heir iniquity had been great and aggravated, and, in addition to their multiplied iniquity they were just objects of hatred and subjects of the same-at once" hateful e.nd he.ting.': Besides their vile heart and wicked life, they hated God, his ambassadors, his ways, and all godliness. Could they fail to be children of wrath while their carnal mind was thus enmity to God? It was reasonable that God should abandon such persons to prophets of lies, to deceive and undo their souls; or, on the other hand, it was in keeping with the malignity of their hearts and the malice of their nature to calumniate the prophets of the Lord and vilify them as fools and madmen ; while the fact of accounting them so, aggravated their sins, hastened the fast-coming visitation, and intensified the recompense of reward.