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13 [and] I will not keep [anger] for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, confess it, and be truly penitent for it, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, run up and down to the gods of neighbouring nations, and ye have not obeyed 14 my voice, saith the LORD. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion; ye shall be restored again; and though but few shall come, yet 15 those shall not be overlooked: And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and 16 understanding, and no more entice you to idolatry. And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit [it ;] 17 neither shall [that] be done any more.* At that time they shall call Jerusalem, The throne of the LORD; God will give them evident proofs of his spiritual residence among them, and his regard to them as their king; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they 18 walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers; many of the Israelites shall return with the Jews to Ca19 naan. But I said, How shall I put thee among the children, there must be a great change in you before I can do this, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations; or, a land which the nations desire, for they envy you this land, and desire to possess it? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from me; I will bestow upon thee a filial frame of heart toward me; thou shalt return to me as thy father, and continue faithful to me; then I will bestow these favours upon

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Surely [as] a wife treacherously departeth from her husband; so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith 21 the LORD. A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping [and] supplications of the children of Israel, repenting and asking mercy for, or because, they have perverted their way, [and] 22 they have forgotten the LORD their God. Return ye backsliding children, [and] I will heal your backslidings. This is God's invitation: to which they reply, Behold, we come unto thee, for thou [art] the LORD our God, and wilt heal and comfort 23 our hearts, which are wounded with grief and sorrow. Truly invain [is salvation hoped for] from the hills [and from] the multitude of mountains; from idols, or any foreign alliances: it is in vain to go

This seems to refer to the gospel, and to intimate the abolition of Jewish ceremonies, though perhaps the ark never was in the second tempie, at least there was no Shekinah, and Boine suppose there is a reference to that.

up to the mountains to look if they are coming: truly in the LORD 24 our God, [is] the salvation of Israel. For shame, that is, bin and idolatry, hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters; these have wasted our substance, and brought our 25 enemies upon us. We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us; we are not able to bear up under it: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God. In answer to these expressions of sorrow and repentance, God assures Israel,

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CHAP. IV. If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me heartily, not by outward profession only : and if thou wilt put away thine abominations, thine idols, and thy sins, out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove, but be established in 2 the land. And thou shalt swear, The LORD liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; thou shalt no more swear by idols, but in important cases make thine appeal to God for the maintenance of truth and justice; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory; many heathens shall become proselytes, shall esteem themselves happy in being the people of God, and shall triumph in their relation to him and interest in him.

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REFLECTIONS.

HE judgments of God upon others are designed as warnings to us, and he is displeased if they are not attended to. He expected that Judah should be alarmed by the captivity of Israel, and it was an aggravation of their guilt that they were not. God gives us many awful warnings by his word and providences; even the calamities of Israel and Judah, are standing warnings to us, and are so described in the New Testament. God knows what admonitions he hath given us, and what effect they have had; and if we overlook them and prove treacherous to our religious professions and engagements, we shall fall under his displeasure, for his power and wrath are against all them that fcrsake him.

2. The abundant mercy and reconcileableness of God, are motives to sinners to return to him. He commands his ministers and prophets to proclaim this; to assure sinners of his readiness to forgive; and invites them to return. May we hear the proclamation with gratitude and pleasure; and let our answer be, Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God.

3. It is happy for a people to have pastors after God's own heart; such as he approves on account of their character and fidelity in their office. They are good pastors in God's sight, who take care of the flock, endeavour to improve their understandings, mend their spirits, and make them wise to salvation. The people who have such pastors, (who are, alas! too few) ought to be very thankful to God, and esteem them highly in love for their work's sake.

4. Let us diligently attend to the terms of forgiveness and acceptance with God. Sinners are to acknowledge their iniquities with shame and sorrow; to put away all their abominations, to return to him as their father, to cherish filial dispositions, to give themselves to prayer, to reverence the majesty and omniscience of God, to place all their happiness in his favour, to be faithful in all their declarations and promises, and never to turn away from the Lord. May this be our character. Then will he heal our backslidings, put us among his children, and give us a goodly heritage, even an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us.

CHAP. IV. 3, to the end.

This prophecy is addressed to Judah and Jerusalem ; it is a call to repentance, and foretells their destruction by the Chaldeans.

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OR thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns; be humble and penitent, otherwise you are like an husbandman who sows among thorns without ploughing, and the pro4 duce is good for nothing. Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and ' inhabitants of Jerusalem; mortify your corrupt affections, and donot content yourselves with external rites: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench [it,] because of the evil 5 of your doings. Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, Blow ye the trumpet in the land cry, gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the 6 defenced cities for security, against the Chaldeans. Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil 7 from the north, and a great destruction. The lion is come up from his thicket, Nebuchadnezzar is coming from Babylon, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way, or, the scourge of nations, that hath made desolate the neighbouring countries, is on his march against you; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; [and] thy cities shall be laid waste 8 without an inhabitant. For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl for the fierce anger of the LORD is not turned back 9 from us. And it shall come to pass at that day, saith the LORD, [that] the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes, they shall be quite stupid and confounded; and the priests, that should blow the trumpet and encourage the people to war, shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder, that is, 10 the false prophets, that said the calamity should not come. Then said I, Ah, Lord God! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, that is, thou hast permitted it to be done, hast suffered the false prophets to deceive them by strong delu

sions, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reach11 eth unto the soul. At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the high places in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse, but to destroy the fruits of the earth, to scatter and carry 12 them away; [Even] a full wind from those [places] shall come unto me; or, as it is better rendered, a full wind for a curse shall come at my bidding, too strong for them to withstand: now also 13 will I give sentence against them. Behold, he shall come up as clouds that cover the sky, and his chariots [shall be] as a whirlwind his horses are swifter than eagles. Wo unto us! for 14 we are spoiled. O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee? thy foolish devices, expectations, 15 and dependences, to which you have so long trusted: For a voice declareth from Dan, and publisheth affliction from mount Ephraim; which lay north, nearest to Babylon, from whence the 16 tidings came. Make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, [that] watchers come from a far country, soldiers that watch over them to do them mischief, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah, who encourage one 17 another to full on and subdue them. As keepers of a field, are they against her round about, surrounding her cities; because 18 she hath been rebellious against me, saith the LORD. Thy way and thy doings have procured these [things] unto thee; this [is] thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reacheth unto thine heart like a deadly wound.

19 - My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war; I tenderly sympathize with my country in the prospect of 20 these miseries. Destruction upon destruction is cried,* for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, [and] my 21 curtains in a moment, as easily as tents are removed. How long

shall I see the standard, [and] hear the sound of the trumpet? 22 For my people [is] foolish, they have not known me; they [are] sottish children, and they have none understanding: they [are] wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge; they are skilful in the arts of sin, but are strangers to religion; they 23 show no contrivance or quickness but when it is to do evil. I beheld the earth, and, lo, [it was] without form and void; and the 24 heavens, and they [had] no light. I beheld the mountains, and, 25 lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and,

lo, [there was] no man, and all the birds of the heavens were 26 fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place [was] a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, [and] by his fierce anger; a figurative description of the confusion and calamities of the nation, as if the frame of nature was

Five of their kings in succession were slain or deposed, in a few years.

27 destroyed, and the earth reduced to its original chaos. For thus hath the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will 28 I not make a full end, a remnant shall remain. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black because I have spoken [it,] I have purposed [it,] and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it; foreseeing that they will not repent as a nation, I determined that the remnant 29 only shall be saved. The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks to save their lives: every city [shall be] forsaken, and not a man dwell therein. 30 And [when] thou [art] spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, or, distendest thine eyes with paint, (some preparation used to contract the eyelids to make the eyes look larger, as the eastern nations reckon large eyes to be the most beautiful,) in vain shalt thou make thyself fair, like a strumpet courting her old lovers; [thy] lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life; thou shalt seek 31 help from thy idols and allies in vain. For I have heard the voice as of a woman in travail, [and] the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, when her pains as well as her fears are greatest, the voice of the daughter of Zion, [that] bewaileth herself, [that] spreadeth her hands, [saying,] Wo [is] me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers; because of the enemy, that makes such dreadful slaughter.

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REFLECTIONS.

ET us attend to the instructive views here given us of repentance and returning to God; it is breaking up the fallow ground. A beautiful description of a carnal heart; which is unfruitful, overrun with thorns, where no seeds of goodness will grow; and it must be broken up by repentance. This is a difficult work. It is hard to correct vicious habits; it is like ploughing ground that has long been fallow; yet it is a necessary work, if we desire to reap in mercy. Circumcise your hearts, subdue your corrupt affections, or, as it is expressed v. 14. more agreeably to christian language, and the ordinance of baptism, Wash thy heart, and be not content with external washing. It is not sufficient to regulate the life, and appear outwardly good; but we must see that the heart be cleansed by repentance and faith, and that sinful desires be suppressed for the future; because God searcheth the heart, and the wickedness that lodgeth there is an abomination to him. Let us therefore pray that God would create in us clean hearts, and renew right spirits within us.

2. Whoever are the instruments of our troubles, we should view them as coming from the hand of God, and that sin is the cause of them. The fierce anger of the LORD brought the Chaldeans upon Judah. They came round about her, because she had been rebellious

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