Ver. 27. — Touching the apple of God?s eye. A father may chasten his bod, but will bo very wrotli if he sees another man so dealing with him. No one may punish the child but the child's father. Now, thus is it with the Lord and his people. He will, he does, punish them himself, but he allows none other to do so ; or, if they presume to touch them, as Moab had done to Israel, then sure, if not swift, venseanoe follows. Then is fulfilled the saying, " He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye " (Deut. xxxii. 10; Zech. ii. 8). Now, why is this? The case supi)(ised of the father who, though he chastens his own son, is yet angry if another touch him, may help us to answer this question. 1. The child is wider no obligation to the stranger. The father has right to claim all obedience from his child ; not so another. 2. ITie child is not beloved by a stranger. Anger and revenge can alone impel the stranger to do the child harm. But these are the last motives, are never the motives, of the chastisements the father inflicts. 3. The child is unknown to the stranger or but little known. Such a one, therefore, evun if he be not actuated by evil motives, cannot possibly deal wisely with one of whom and whose character, circumstances, and needs he is ignorant. 4. The child wUl get no guodfrom chastisement by a stranger. A father's chastisement, because of the father's love, cannot but have a mighty moral influence upon the child for his good. " What son is he whom the father ohasteneth not ? " But what good could come, or ever did come, to Israel and Judah from the cruelties inflicted upon them by such people as the Moabites, and of which the prophet here tells ? 6. The child will very likely be dealt cruelly and injuriously with by a stranger. A father will chasten for his child's profit ; wisdom and love will guide him. True, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, " We have had fathers of our flesh who verily chastened us after their own pleasure." But we trust that his experience was a limited one, and that there were, and yet more that there are, but few fathers who " for their own pleasure " would chastise their children. 6. And the child, with all its guilt — in the case of the Lord's children — deserves to suffer less than they who have presumed to punish him. Israel and Judah were guilty without doubt ; but were Moab and Ammon, Babylon and the rest, less guilty ? Had they nothing to answer for ? Had they not far more ? And so, whilst the sin of a child of God is sin indeed, yet it does not make him so heinous, so black, scf repulsive, as the persistent, high-handed, never-repented-of sin of the godless, the profane, and the unbeliever. To see one who is chargeable with great sin punishing one whose sin is comparatively trivial; the man who had incurred the debt of ten thousand talents taking by the throat him whose debt was but a hundred pence ; — that Is evidently a monstrous thing. 7. But chief of all, because Ood's people are God's children in Christ. We are identified with the well-beloved Son. " Members of his body, his flesh and his bones, one with him." It is so, but it is not so with those who have never yielded themselves to God. Such surrender, which is faith, vitalizes the connection between us and God, and he becomes our Father, in a sense that he never ■was before. Conclusion. All history demonstrates the truth now insisted on, that " he that toucheth you," etc. Let us thank God that he will suffer none to chasten us but himself. Seek that such chastisement may be no longer necessary. Strive to do good to all, " especially to them that are of the household of faith," and tremble to do uem
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242 THE BOOK OP THE PBOPHET JEREMIAH, [oh. XLvm. 1—47
harm. " Whosoever offendeth one of these little ones," said our Lord, " it were better for him that a millstone," etc. — 0.
Ver. 29. — Concerning pride. The graces of God's Spirit are like choice flowers and fruits. They will not grow just anywhere, nor without cultivatiou and careful tending, and they are easily destroyed. Not so with moral evils like piide. They are as the ill weeds which grow apace. They will grow anywhere, and require no cultivation; the more you let them alone the more they will increase, and, do what you will, you can hardly destroy them. Now, concerning this ill weed, pride, note —
L That it is very hateful in the sight of God. See here, in this verse, with what varied names it is branded. Evil names, all of them. And turn to the many utterances in Scripture concerning this same sin, and the condemnation of God upon it will be yet more clearly seen. " There never was a saint yet that grew proud of his fine feathers, but what the Lord plucked them out by-and-by ; there never yet was an angel that had pride in his heart, but he lost his wings, and fill into Gehenna, as Satan and those fallen angels did; and there shall never be a saint who indulges self-conceit and pride and self-confidence, but the Lord will spoil his glories, and trample his honours in the mire, and make him cry out yet again, ' Lord, have mercy upon me I ' less than the least of all saints, and the ' very chief of sinners,' The first Adam was for self-exaltation, and to be as gods ; the second bids us be as he was, ' meek and lowly in heart.' "
IL Its signs and tokens. Sometimes it is so concealed and masked that only a very intimate acquaintance with the man enables you to detect it ; and sometimes the man himself may be imaware how proud he is, and may deem himself a very Moses for meekness, when he is just the reverse. But at other times it may be discerned in the countenance. There is " a proud look." The face is the dial-plate of the character, " the expression " of what lies silent in the mind. Conduct yet more betrays it. Note how a man acts towards those whom he deems superior or inferior to himself; he will fawn upon the former, and be disdainful towards the latter. He will " mind high things," but will not " condescend to them that are of low estate." Who does not know pride's hateful ways, and has not had to suffer from them ; and alsc^ alas I has made others suffer from them at one time or another ? But note —