62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.

63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.

pence, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.

65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.

66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens

64 Render unto them a recom- of the LORD.

LECTURE 1276.

Our sufferings made to work for our good through Christ. When we find in the prophetic books of Scripture prayers for vengeance on the enemies of God and of his church, we may always consider them as implying, for our warning, that such vengeance will surely be inflicted. And it is not improbable, since these Scriptures all testify of Christ, that such prayers or imprecations are especially directed against those who are especially his enemies, against the gainsayers of his Gospel, the persecutors of his disciples, the revilers of his cross, or the practical despisers of that great salvation, which He, by being crucified, wrought for all men. And if thus in this passage we may find an intimation of the vengeance to be taken on Christ's enemies, we may see here also a prophetic description of the sufferings which He patiently and cheerfully endured, for the sake of them whom He vouchsafed to call his friends. For that which was in the first instance written of his church may usually without violence to the sense be applied to our blessed Lord Himself; who took on Him not only all the sufferings due to sin, but also all its offensiveness, who submitted to be made vile that we might become precious, to be made sin that we might be counted righteous before God.

Of Him then, and of his behaviour, we may think with thankfulness, when we read that "it is good for a man, that he bear the yoke in his youth." He it was who humbled Himself to the dust, that we might have hope. He gave his cheek to the smiters, and was filled with reproach. Considering that He was that beloved Son in whom God the Father was well pleased, his sufferings give us the plainest proof, that God does not willingly afflict the children of men, and would by no means have us grieve or oppress each other. No it must be for a great and good object that evil is inflicted or permitted to exist; if even the Son of God most High subjects Himself unto it. Our transgressions have provoked it. And God has found a way to make it the means of our forgiveness. The sufferings of our Saviour atone for our sins. And if we also suffer, it is in order that suffering with Him, we may be also glorified together. The ears of the Lord are no longer closed against our prayers. He rejects not the tears of our repentance. Our afflictions however great, our fall however low, our fears however painful, our dangers however imminent, are all now made to work together for our good; through Him who is One with us, and we one with Him, alike in suffering and in rejoicing, in death and in life eternal.

The grievous punishment of Zion's iniquity; and its end. 1 How is the gold become dim! ter of my people. how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.

2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. 4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.

5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.

6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the pu nishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her. 7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:

8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.

9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.

10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daugh

11 The LORD hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.

12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,

14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.

16 The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.

17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets : our end is near, our days are fulfilled

for our end is come.

19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.

20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall

live among the heathen.

21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.

.

22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.

LECTURE 1277.

The fulfilment of God's promises to his people. Some of the most horrible particulars of the sufferings which the Jews endured in the siege and taking of Jerusalem are here set forth. And they agree with what happened in after times, when the city was taken by the Romans no less than with what took place when it was taken by the Babylonians. There were some circumstances of such unparalleled horror, arising from the extremity of the famine, that even "the punishment of the sin of Sodom," dreadful as it was, being of a less lingering kind, is here represented as lighter in comparison, than the punishment of the iniquity of Zion. So singularly abominable were the sins for which Zion was visited by the Lord. So hateful in his sight is idolatry! So doubly hateful, in those who have the knowledge of the true God by his own express revelation! So far worse than all other unfaithfulness is the refusal to believe in Christ! So great is the sin of rejecting that Son of God, who vouchsafed to die upon the cross as the Saviour of sinners!

That these words of lamentation refer to later times than those of the Babylonish empire is evident from the concluding message of comfort: "The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion;" he will no more carry thee away into captivity he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins." Here we have a reference to something subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; to a period when the church of God in Zion will be finally restored, and when all the enemies of God and of his church will be finally discomfited. Here we see, that whilst the sins of them that are God's people are doubly hateful, still his covenant, notwithstanding their transgressions, will never fail. They may be humbled to the dust. And yet will He in his due season, lift them up. They may be reduced to such extremity of want, and pain, and shame, as never any other people suffered in all the world. And yet the promises of God cannot be made of none effect. He will find a people in whom amply to fulfil them. And they will be the very people to whom his promises were pledged, the children of faithful Abraham. May we be counted for Abraham's children by faith! May we inherit the promises of the faithful! May we profit by the record of the sufferings which have befallen the unbelieving; and rejoice in that hope of glory, of which some intimation is graciously vouchsafed, even in the midst of these terrors of the Lord!

The people of God make their complaint to Him with prayer.

1 Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.

2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. 3 We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows. 4 We have drunken our water for money: : our wood is sold unto

us.

5 Our necks are under persecution we labour, and have no rest.

6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.

8 Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.

9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.

10 Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.

11 They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.

their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured.

13 They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.

14 The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.

15 The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

16 The crown is fallen from our head woe unto us, that we have sinned!

17 For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.

18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.

19 Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.

20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?

21 Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

22 But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth

12 Princes are hanged up by against us.

LECTURE 1278.

The advantage of meditating on the terrors of eternity.

How manifold are the sorrows and sufferings, here recounted by the prophet, in the name of the people, as heaped on them by the Lord in his displeasure! How gracious is the Lord in thus shewing us, that He is not unwilling to listen to the complaint of his people in distress! These Lamentations would not be thus written in his word, if they were not such as it was meet for his people to utter. And that which it became God's ancient people to express, must be suitable for our case also, with such alterations as may be required by our altered circumstances. When therefore our spirit is in heaviness we may complain. And

we may learn here how to complain without murmuring. It is when our complaint is conceived in the spirit of prayer. It is when we at once point out our griefs before God, and humbly implore Him in his mercy to consider them.

This makes all the difference between such lamentations as a Christian may properly utter, and such murmurs as are apt to burst forth from the lips of those who know not God. Most awful are the expressions of malignant hatred which the wicked are often heard to make use of, when overtaken by calamities far less serious than those which are here recounted. What must be their daring imprecations, when they are subject to such a visitation as this! What murmurs, what curses, what blasphemies, must go up from earth to heaven, for a testimony against the faithless and impenitent, whether heathen, or Jews, or Christians, when they have their city taken by a siege, their inheritance seized by strangers, and their nearest relations slaughtered; when they are reduced to the extremity of famine, brought under the yoke of bondage, subjected to every kind of personal indignity, men and women, old and young, rulers and people, all brought down to the most abject condition of want and weariness, of distress and degradation!

The effect of such calamity on those who have not the fear of God before their eyes, nor any reliance on his comfort in their trouble, is indeed most awful to imagine. And it may serve to give us some notion of the hopeless anguish, and horrible despair, which awaits the wicked in that day, when it shall fare with the world as it had now fared with Jerusalem, when "the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." 2 Pet. 3. 10. The loss of all that has been here enjoyed will indeed form but a small element of the complicated agony then to be felt by the ungodly. A worm that never dies, a fire that is never quenched, will then begin to do their part; and will prey upon that immortal body with which the wicked will arise for judgment. But doubtless their chief anguish will be anguish of the soul. And when their lamentations hereafter shall be heard, it will be the voice of complaint without prayer, of remorse but not repentance; it will be the cry of agony in which there is no hope, of torment for which they know there is no relief, of misery to which they are well aware that there is no end.

It must be good for us all sometimes to imagine how dreadful those horrors are to be, that we may the more earnestly flee from the wrath to come. And such a calamity as the destruction of Jerusalem, when God spared not the place which He had chosen to put his name there, may well remind us, that neither will He spare this world of ours, which may be for aught we know a place chosen out of all the universe, even as Jerusalem out of all the earth, as the object of his peculiar regard. Neither will He spare his creature man, made though we have been in the image of God,