Bible Commentary

Expositor's Bible Commentary Jeremiah 36:1 And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, CHAPTER III THE ROLL Jeremiah 36:1-32 "Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee."- Jeremiah 36:2 THE incidents which form so large a proportion of the contents of our book do not make up a connected narrative; they are merely a series of detached pictures: we can only conjecture the doings and experiences of Jeremiah during the intervals. Chapter 26 leaves him still exposed to the persistent hostility of the priests and prophets, who had apparently succeeded in once more directing popular feeling against their antagonist. At the same time, though the princes were not ill-disposed towards him, they were not inclined to resist the strong pressure brought to bear upon them. Probably the attitude of the populace varied from time to time, according to the presence among them of the friends or enemies of the prophet; and, in the same way, we cannot think of "the princes" as a united body, governed by a single impulse. The action of this group of notables might be determined by the accidental preponderance of one or other of two opposing parties. Jeremiah’s only real assurance of safety lay in the personal protection extended to him by Ahikam ben Shaphan. Doubtless other princes associated themselves with Ahikam in his friendly action on behalf of the prophet. Under these circumstances, Jeremiah would find it necessary to restrict his activity. Utter indifference to danger was one of the most ordinary characteristics of Hebrew prophets, and Jeremiah was certainly not wanting in the desperate courage which may be found in any Mohammedan dervish. At the same time he was far too practical, too free from morbid self-consciousness, to court martyrdom for its own sake. If he had presented himself again in the Temple when it was crowded with worshippers, his life might have been taken in a popular tumult, while his mission was still only half accomplished. Possibly his priestly enemies had found means to exclude him from the sacred precincts. Man’s extremity was God’s opportunity; this temporary and partial silencing of Jeremiah led to a new departure, which made the influence of his teaching more extensive and permanent. He was commanded to commit his prophecies to writing. The restriction of his active ministry was to bear rich fruit, like Paul’s imprisonment, and Athanasius’ exile, and Luther’s sojourn in the Wartburg. A short time since there was great danger that Jeremiah and the Divine message entrusted to him would perish together. He did not know how soon he might become once more the mark of popular fury, nor whether Ahikam would still be able to protect him. The roll of the book could speak even if he were put to death. But Jeremiah was not thinking chiefly abort what would become of his teaching if he himself perished. He had an immediate and particular end in view. His tenacious persistence was not to be baffled by the prospect of mob violence, or by exclusion from the most favourable vantage ground. Renan is fond of comparing the prophets to modern journalists; and this incident is an early and striking instance of the substitution of pen, ink, and paper for the orator’s tribune. Perhaps the closest modern parallel is that of the speaker who is howled down at a public meeting and hands his manuscript to the reporters. In the record of the Divine command to Jeremiah, there is no express statement as to what was to be done with the roll; but as the object of writing it was that "perchance the house of Judah might hear and repent," it is evident that from the first it was intended to be read to the people. There is considerable difference of opinion as to the contents of the roll. They are described as: "All that I have spoken unto thee concerning Jerusalem and Judah, and all the nations, since I (first) spake unto thee, from the time of Josiah until now." At first sight this would seem to include all previous utterances, and therefore all the extant prophecies of a date earlier than B.C. 605, i.e., those contained in chapters 1-12, and some portions of 14-20 (we cannot determine which with any exactness), and probably most of those dated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, i.e., 25 and parts of 45-49. Cheyne, however, holds that the roll simply contained the striking and comprehensive prophecy in chapter 25. The whole series of chapters might very well be described as dealing with Jerusalem, Judah, and the nations; but at the same time 25 might be considered equivalent, by way of summary, to all that had been spoken on these subjects. From various considerations which will appear as we proceed with the narrative, it seems probable that the larger estimate is the more correct, i.e., that the roll contained a large fraction of our Book of Jeremiah, and not merely one or two chapters. We need not, however, suppose that every previous utterance of the prophet, even though still extant, must have been included in the roll; the "all" would of course be understood to be conditioned by relevancy; and the narratives of various incidents are obviously not part of what Jehovah had spoken. Jeremiah dictated his prophecies, as St. Paul did his epistles, to an amanuensis; he called his disciple Baruch ben Neriah, and dictated to him "all that Jehovah had spoken, upon a book, in the form of a roll." It seems clear that, as in 26, the narrative does not exactly follow the order of events, and that Jeremiah 36:9 , which records the proclamation of a fast in the ninth month of Jehoiakim’s fifth year, should be read before Jeremiah 36:5 , which begins the account of the circumstances leading up to the actual reading of the roll. We are not told in what month of Jehoiakim’s fourth year Jeremiah received this command to write his prophecies in a roll, but as they were not read till the ninth month of the fifth year, there must have been an interval of at least ten months or a year between the Divine command and the reading by Baruch. We can scarcely suppose that all or nearly all this delay was caused by Jeremiah and Baruch’s waiting for a suitable occasion. The long interval suggests that the dictation took some time, and that therefore the roll was somewhat voluminous in its contents, and that it was carefully compiled, not without a certain amount of revision. When the manuscript was ready, its authors had to determine the right time at which to read it; they found their desired opportunity in the fast proclaimed in the ninth month. This was evidently an extraordinary fast, appointed in view of some pressing danger; and, in the year following the battle of Carehemish, this would naturally be the advance of Nebuchadnezzar. As our incident took place in the depth of winter, the months must be reckoned according to the Babylonian year, which began in April; and the ninth month, Kisleu, would roughly correspond to our December. The dreaded invasion would be looked for early in the following spring, "at the time when kings go out to battle." { 1 Chronicles 20:1 } Jeremiah does not seem to have absolutely determined from the first that the reading of the roll by Baruch was to be a substitute for his own presence. He had probably hoped that some change for the better in the situation might justify his appearance before a great gathering in the Temple. But when the time came he was "hindered"-we are not told how-and could not go into the Temple. He may have been restrained by his own prudence, or dissuaded by his friends, like Paul when he would have faced the mob in the theatre at Ephesus; the hindrance may have been some ban under which he had been placed by the priesthood, or it may have been some unexpected illness, or legal uncleanness, or some other passing accident, such as Providence often uses to protect its soldiers till their warfare is accomplished. Accordingly it was Baruch who went up to the Temple. Though he is said to have read the book "in the ears of all the people," he does not seem to have challenged universal attention as openly as Jeremiah had done; he did not stand forth in the court of the Temple, { Jeremiah 26:2 } but betook himself to the "chamber" of the scribe, or secretary of state, Gemariah ben Shaphan, the brother of Jeremiah’s protector Ahikam. This chamber would be one of the cells built round the upper court, from which the "new gate" {Cf. Jeremiah 26:10 } led into an inner court of the Temple. Thus Baruch placed himself formally under the protection of the owner of the apartment, and any violence offered to him would have been resented and avenged by this powerful noble with his kinsmen and allies. Jeremiah’s disciple and representative took his seat at the door of the chamber, and, in full view of the crowds who passed and repassed through the new gate, opened his roll and began to read aloud from its contents. His reading was yet another repetition of the exhortations, warnings, and threats which Jeremiah had rehearsed on the feast day when he spake to the people "all that Jehovah had commanded him"; and still both Jehovah and His prophet promised deliverance as the reward of repentance. Evidently the head and front of the nation’s offence had been no open desertion of Jehovah for idols, else His servants would not have selected for their audience His enthusiastic worshippers as they thronged to His Temple. The fast itself might have seemed a token of penitence, but it was not accepted by Jeremiah, or put forward by the people, as a reason why the prophecies of ruin should not be fulfilled. No one offers the very natural plea: "In this fast we are humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God, we are confessing our sins, and consecrating ourselves afresh to service of Jehovah. What more does He expect of us? Why does He still withhold His mercy and forgiveness? Wherefore have we fasted, and Thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and Thou takest no knowledge?" Such a plea would probably have received an answer similar to that given by one of Jeremiah’s successors: "Behold, in the day of your fast ye find your own pleasure, and oppress all your labourers. Behold, ye fast for strife and contention, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye fast not this day so as to make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I have chosen? the day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a rush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and a day acceptable to Jehovah?" "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy healing shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of Jehovah shall be thy rearward." { Isaiah 58:3-8 } Jeremiah’s opponents did not grudge Jehovah His burnt offerings and calves of a year old; He was welcome to thousands of rams, and ten thousands of rivers of oil. They were even willing to give their firstborn for their transgression, the whether the title "scribe" refers to the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul; but they were not prepared "to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God." { Micah 6:6-8 } We are not told how Jeremiah and the priests and prophets formulated the points at issue between them, which were so thoroughly and universally understood that the record takes them for granted. Possibly Jeremiah contended for the recognition of Deuteronomy, with its lofty ideals of pure religion and a humanitarian order of society. But, in any case, these incidents were an early phase of the age long struggle of the prophets of God against the popular attempt to make ritual and sensuous emotion into excuses for ignoring morality, and to offer the cheap sacrifice of a few unforbidden pleasures, rather than surrender the greed of gain, the lust of power, and the sweetness of revenge. When the multitudes caught the sound of Baruch’s voice and saw him sitting in the doorway of Gemariah’s chamber, they knew exactly what they would hear. To them he was almost as antagonistic as a Protestant evangelist would be to the worshippers at some great Romanist feast; or perhaps we might find a closer parallel in a Low Church bishop addressing a ritualistic audience. For the hearts of these hearers were not steeled by the consciousness of any formal schism. Baruch and the great prophet whom he represented did not stand outside the recognised limits of Divine inspiration. While the priests and prophets and their adherents repudiated his teaching as heretical, they were still haunted by the fear that, at any rate, his threats might have some Divine authority. Apart from all theology, the prophet of evil always finds an ally in the nervous fears and guilty conscience of his hearer. The feelings of the people would be similar to those with which they had heard the same threats against Judah, the city and the Temple, from Jeremiah himself. But the excitement aroused by the defeat of Pharaoh and the hasty return of Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon had died away. The imminence of a new invasion made it evident that this had not been the Divine deliverance of Judah. The people were cowed by what must have seemed to many the approaching fulfilments of former threatenings; the ritual of a fast was in itself depressing; so that they had little spirit to resent the message of doom. Perhaps too there was less to resent: the prophecies were the same, but Baruch may have been less unpopular than Jeremiah, and his reading would be tame and ineffective compared to the fiery eloquence of his master. Moreover the powerful protection which shielded him was indicated not only by the place he occupied, but also by the presence of Gemariah’s son, Micaiah. The reading passed off without any hostile demonstration on the part of the people, and Micaiah went in search of his father to describe to him the scene he had just witnessed. He found him in the palace, in the chamber of the secretary of state, Elishama, attending a council of the princes. There were present, amongst others, Elnathan ben Achbor, who brought Uriah back from Egypt, Delaiah ben Shemaiah, and Zedekiah ben Hananiah. Micaiah told them what he had heard. They at once sent for Baruch and the roll. Their messenger, Jehudi ben Nethaniah, seems to have been a kind of court usher. His name signifies "the Jew," and as his great-grandfather was Cushi, "the Ethiopian," it has been suggested that he came of a family of Ethiopian descent, which had only attained in his generation to Jewish citizenship. When Baruch arrived, the princes greeted him with the courtesy and even deference due to the favourite disciple of a distinguished prophet. They invited him to sit down and read them the roll. Baruch obeyed; the method of reading suited the enclosed room and the quiet, interested audience of responsible men, better than the swaying crowd gathered round the door of Gemariah’s chamber. Baruch now had before him ministers of state who knew from their official information and experience how extremely probable it was that the words to which they were listening would find a speedy and complete fulfilment. Baruch must almost have seemed to them like a doomster who announces to a condemned criminal the ghastly details of his coming execution. They exchanged looks of dismay and horror, and when the reading was over, they said to one another, "We must tell the king of all these words." First, however, they inquired concerning the exact circumstances under which the roll had been written, that they might know how far responsibility in this matter was to be divided between the prophet and his disciple, and also whether all the contents rested upon the full authority of Jeremiah. Baruch assured them that it was simply a case of dictation: Jeremiah had uttered every word with his own mouth, and he had faithfully written it down; everything was Jeremiah’s own. The princes were well aware that the prophet’s action would probably be resented and punished by Jehoiakim. They said to Baruch: "Do you and Jeremiah go and hide yourselves, and let no one know where you are." They kept the roll and laid it up in Elishama’s room; then they went to the king. They found him in his winter room, in the inner court of the palace, sitting in front of a brasier of burning charcoal. On this fast day the king’s mind might well be careful and troubled, as he meditated on the kind of treatment that he, the nominee of Pharaoh Necho, was likely to receive from Nebuchadnezzar. We cannot tell whether he contemplated resistance or had already resolved to submit to the conqueror. In either case he would wish to act on his own initiative, and might be anxious lest a Chaldean party should get the upper hand in Jerusalem and surrender him and the city to the invader. When the princes entered, their number and their manner would at once indicate to him that their errand was both serious and disagreeable. He seems to have listened in silence while they made their report of the incident at the door of Gemariah’s chamber and their own interview with Baruch. The king sent for the roll by Jehudi, who had accompanied the princes into the presence chamber; and on his return the same serviceable official read its contents before Jehoiakim and the princes, whose number was now augmented by the nobles in attendance upon the king. Jehudi had had the advantage of hearing Baruch read the roll, but ancient Hebrew manuscripts were not easy to decipher, and probably Jehudi stumbled somewhat; altogether the reading of prophecies by a court usher would not be a very edifying performance, or very gratifying to Jeremiah’s friends. Jehoiakim treated the matter with deliberate and ostentatious contempt. At the end of every three or four columns, he put out his hand for the roll, cut away the portion that had been read, and threw it on the fire; then he handed the remainder back to Jehudi, and the reading was resumed till the king thought fit to repeat the process. It at once appeared that the audience was divided into two parties. When Gemariah’s father, Shaphan, had read Deuteronomy to Josiah, the king rent his clothes; but now the writer tells us, half aghast, that neither Jehoiakim nor any of his servants were afraid or rent their clothes, but the audience, including doubtless both court officials and some of the princes, looked on with calm indifference. Not so the princes who had been present at Baruch’s reading: they had probably induced him to leave the roll with them, by promising that it should be kept safely; they had tried to keep it out of the king’s hands by leaving it in Elishama’s room, and now they made another attempt to save it from destruction. They entreated Jehoiakim to refrain from open and insolent defiance of a prophet who might after all be speaking in the name of Jehovah. But the king persevered. The alternate reading and burning went on; the unfortunate usher’s fluency and clearness would not be improved by the extraordinary conditions under which he had to read; and we may well suppose that the concluding columns were hurried over in a somewhat perfunctory fashion, if they were read at all. As soon as the last shred of parchment was shrivelling on the charcoal, Jehoiakim commanded three of his officers to arrest Jeremiah and Baruch. But they had taken the advice of the princes and were not to be found: "Jehovah hid them." Thus the career of Baruch’s roll was summarily cut short. But it had done its work; it had been read on three separate occasions, first before the people, then before the princes, and last of all before the king and his court. If Jeremiah had appeared in person, he might have been at once arrested, and put to death like Uriah. No doubt this threefold recital was, on the whole, a failure; Jeremiah’s party among the princes had listened with anxious deference, but the appeal had been received by the people with indifference and by the king with contempt. Nevertheless it must have strengthened individuals in the true faith, and it had proclaimed afresh that the religion of Jehovah gave no sanction to the policy of Jehoiakim: the ruin of Judah would be a proof of the sovereignty of Jehovah and not of His impotence. But probably this incident had more immediate influence over the king than we might at first sight suppose. When Nebuchadnezzar arrived in Palestine, Jehoiakim submitted to him a policy entirely in accordance with the views of Jeremiah. We may well believe that the experiences of this fast day had strengthened the hands of the prophet’s friends, and cooled the enthusiasm of the court for more desperate and adventurous courses. Every year’s respite for Judah fostered the growth of the true religion of Jehovah. The sequel showed how much more prudent it was to risk the existence of a roll rather than the life of a prophet. Jeremiah was only encouraged to persevere. By the Divine command, he dictated his prophecies afresh to Baruch, adding besides unto them many like words. Possibly other copies were made of the whole or parts of this roll, and were secretly circulated, read, and talked about. We are not told whether Jehoiakim ever heard this new roll; but, as one of the many like things added to the older prophecies was a terrible personal condemnation of the king, we may be sure that he was not allowed to remain in ignorance, at any rate, of this portion of it. The second roll was, doubtless, one of the main sources of our present Book of Jeremiah, and the narrative of this chapter is of considerable importance for Old Testament criticism. It shows that a prophetic book may not go back to any prophetic autograph at all; its most original sources may be manuscripts written at the prophet’s dictation, and liable to all the errors which are apt to creep into the most faithful work of an amanuensis. It shows further that, even when a prophet’s utterances were written down during his lifetime, the manuscript may contain only his recollections of what he said years before, and that these might be either expanded or abbreviated, sometimes even unconsciously modified, in the light of subsequent events. Jeremiah 36:32 shows that Jeremiah did not hesitate to add to the record of his former prophecies "many like words": there is no reason to suppose that these were all contained in an appendix; they would often take the form of annotations. The important part played by Baruch as Jeremiah’s secretary and representative must have invested him with full authority to speak for his master and expound his views; such authority points to Baruch as the natural editor of our present book, which is virtually the "Life and Writings" of the prophet. The last words of our chapter are ambiguous, perhaps intentionally. They simply state that many like words were added, and do not say by whom; they might even include additions made later on by Baruch from his own reminiscences. In conclusion, we may notice that both the first and second copies of the roll were written by the direct Divine command, just as in the Hexateuch and the Book of Samuel we read of Moses, Joshua, and Samuel committing certain matters to writing at the bidding of Jehovah. We have here the recognition of the inspiration of the scribe, as ancillary to that of the prophet. Jehovah not only gives His word to His servants, but watches over its preservation and transmission. But there is no inspiration to write any new revelation: the spoken word, the consecrated life, are inspired; the book is only a record of inspired speech and action. Jeremiah 36:30 Therefore thus saith the LORD of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. CHAPTER VI THE JUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM Jeremiah 22:13-19 ; Jeremiah 36:30-31 "Jehoiakim slew him (Uriah) with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people."- Jeremiah 26:23 "Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning Jehoiakim, He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem."- Jeremiah 22:18-19 "Jehoiakim did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his fathers had done."- 2 Kings 23:36-37 OUR last four chapters have been occupied with the history of Jeremiah during the reign of Jehoiakim, and therefore necessarily with the relations of the prophet to the king and his government. Before we pass on to the reigns of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, we must consider certain utterances which deal with the personal character and career of Jehoiakim. We are helped to appreciate these passages by what we here read, and by the brief paragraph concerning this reign in the Second Book of Kings. In Jeremiah the king’s policy and conduct are especially illustrated by two incidents, the murder of the prophet Uriah and the destruction of the roll. The historian states his judgment of the reign, but his brief record { 2 Kings 23:34-37 ; 2 Kings 24:1-7 } adds little to our knowledge of the sovereign. Jehoiakim was placed upon the throne as the nominee and tributary of Pharaoh Necho; but he had the address or good fortune to retain his authority under Nebuchadnezzar, by transferring his allegiance to the new suzerain of Western Asia. When a suitable opportunity offered, the unwilling and discontented vassal naturally "turned and rebelled against" his lord. Even then his good fortune did not forsake him; although in his latter days Judah was harried by predatory bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites. and Ammonites, yet Jehoiakim "slept with his fathers" before Nebuchadnezzar had set to work in earnest to chastise his refractory subject. He was not reserved, like Zedekiah, to endure agonies of mental and physical torture, and to rot in a Babylonian dungeon. Jeremiah’s judgment upon Jehoiakim and his doings is contained in the two passages which form the subject of this chapter. The utterance in Jeremiah 36:30-31 , was evoked by the destruction of the roll, and we may fairly assume that Jeremiah 22:13-19 was also delivered after that incident. The immediate context of the latter paragraph throws no light on the date of its origin. Chapter 22 is a series of judgments on the successors of Josiah, and was certainly composed after the deposition of Jehoiachin, Probably during the reign of Zedekiah; but the section on Jehoiakim must have been uttered at an earlier period. Renan indeed imagines (3:274) that Jeremiah delivered this discourse at the gate of the royal palace at the very beginning of the new reign. The nominee of Egypt was scarcely seated on the throne, his "new name" Jehoiakim-"He whom Jehovah establisheth" - still sounded strange in his ears, when the prophet of Jehovah publicly menaced the king with condign punishment. Renan is naturally surprised that Jehoiakim tolerated Jeremiah even for a moment. But, here as often elsewhere, the French critic’s dramatic instinct has warped his estimate of evidence. We need not accept the somewhat unkind saying that picturesque anecdotes are never true, but, at the same time, we have always to guard against the temptation to accept the most dramatic interpretation of history as the most accurate. The contents of this passage, the references to robbery, oppression, and violence, clearly imply that Jehoiakim had reigned long enough for his government to reveal itself as hopelessly corrupt. The final breach between the king and the prophet was marked by the destruction of the roll, and Jeremiah 22:13-19 , like Jeremiah 36:30-31 , may be considered a consequence of this breach. Let us now consider these utterances: In Jeremiah 36:30 we read, "Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David." Later on, { Jeremiah 22:30 } a like judgment was pronounced upon Jehoiakim’s son and successor Jehoiachin. The absence of this threat from Jeremiah 22:13-19 is doubtless due to the fact that the chapter was compiled when the letter of the prediction seemed to have been proved to be false by the accession of Jehoiachin. Its spirit and substance were amply satisfied by the latter’s deposition and captivity after a brief reign of a hundred days. The next clause in the sentence on Jehoiakim runs: "His dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost." The same doom is repeated in the later prophecy:- "They shall not lament for him, Alas my brother! Alas my brother! They shall not lament for him, Alas lord! Alas lord! He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, Dragged forth and cast away without the gates of Jerusalem." Jeremiah did not need to draw upon his imagination for this vision of judgment. When the words were uttered, his memory called up the murder of Uriah ben Shemaiah and the dishonour done to his corpse. Uriah’s only guilt had been his zeal for the truth that Jeremiah had proclaimed. Though Jehoiakim and his party had not dared to touch Jeremiah or had not been able to reach him, they had struck his influence by killing Uriah. But for their hatred of the master, the disciple might have been spared. And Jeremiah had neither been able to protect him, nor allowed to share his fate. Any generous spirit will understand how Jeremiah’s whole nature was possessed and agitated by a tempest of righteous indignation, how utterly humiliated he felt to be compelled to stand by in helpless impotence. And now, when the tyrant had filled up the measure of his iniquity, when the imperious impulse of the Divine Spirit bade the prophet speak the doom of his king, there breaks forth at last the long pent up cry for vengeance: "Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saint"-let the persecutor suffer the agony and shame which he inflicted on God’s martyr, fling out the murderer’s corpse unburied, let it lie and rot upon the dishonoured grave of his victim. Can we say, Amen? Not perhaps without some hesitation. Yet surely, if our veins run blood and not water, our feelings, had we been in Jeremiah’s place, would have been as bitter and our words as fierce. Jehoiakim was more guilty than our Queen Mary, but the memory of the grimmest of the Tudors still stinks in English nostrils. In our own days, we have not had time to forget how men received the news of Hannington’s murder at Uganda, and we can imagine what European Christians would say and feel if their missionaries were massacred in China. And yet, when we read such a treatise as Lactantius wrote "Concerning the Deaths of Persecutors," we cannot but recoil. We are shocked at the stern satisfaction he evinces in the miserable ends of Maximin and Galerius, and other enemies of the true faith. Discreet historians have made large use of this work, without thinking it desirable to give an explicit account of its character and spirit. Biographers of Lactantius feel constrained to offer a half-hearted apology for the " De Morte Persecutorum. " Similarly we find ourselves of one mind with Gibbon, (chapter 13) in refusing to derive edification from a sermon in which Constantine the Great, or the bishop who composed it for him, affected to relate the miserable end of all the persecutors of the Church. Nor can we share the exultation of the Covenanters in the Divine judgment which they saw in the death of Claverhouse; and we are not moved to any hearty sympathy with more recent writers, who have tried to illustrate from history the danger of touching the rights and privileges of the Church. Doubtless God will avenge His own elect; nevertheless Nemo me impune lacessit is no seemly motto for the Kingdom of God. Even Greek mythologists taught that it was perilous for men to wield the thunderbolts of Zeus. Still less is the Divine wrath a weapon for men to grasp in their differences and dissensions, even about the things of God. Michael the Archangel, even when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, "durst not bring against him a railing judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke thee." { Judges 1:9 } How far Jeremiah would have shared such modern sentiment, it is hard to say. At any rate his personal feeling is kept in the background; it is postponed to the

It may be. Jeremiah 36:3 It may be W. Forsyth, M. A. I. THIS WORD SHOWS US THE HEART OF GOD. Displeased because of sin, but longing to show mercy to the sinner. All His counsels and warnings, promises and threatenings, are for good ( Deuteronomy 5:29-33 ; Deuteronomy 32:44-47 ; Isaiah 1:18-20 ; Jeremiah 8:7-11 ; Ezekiel 12:3 ; Ezekiel 18:31 ; Hosea 11:1-8 ; John 3:16, 17 ; Luke 19:10, 41, 42 ). II. THIS WORD REVEALS THE GRAND POSSIBILITIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 1. Earnest attention (ver. 3). 2. Penitential prayer (ver. 7). 3. Moral reconciliation. The hindrances to peace are not with God, but with us. III. THIS WORD HOLDS OUT ENCOURAGEMENT TO ALL TRUE WORKERS FOR CHRIST. 1. Prayer. 2. Holy endeavour. 3. Missionary enterprise. ( W. Forsyth, M. A. ) I am shut up. Jeremiah 36:4-7 Jeremiah in prison Homilist. 1. Jeremiah's age was one of great political troubles. 2. It was also an age of signal religious privileges. 3. It was an age of great moral corruption. I. HIS IMPRISONMENT SUGGESTS THE SAD MORAL CHARACTER OF HIS AGE. The prisons of an age are often criteria by which to determine its character. When prisons are filled with men of signal excellence of character, force of conscience, and self-denying philanthropy, you have sad moral proofs of the deep moral corruption of the age that could tolerate such enormity. II. HIS IMPRISONMENT SUGGESTS GOD'S METHOD OF RAISING HUMANITY. Heaven's plan embraces the agency of good men. The agency is twofold, primary and secondary. There are spiritual seers and spiritual mechanics. 1. Jeremiah may be regarded as a type of the primary human agents whom God employs. They are frequently in the lowest secular condition; yet in that condition God communes with them, and gives them a message for the world. 2. Baruch may be regarded as a type of the secondary agents. In this age the Baruchs are numerous. Men abound who will take down the thoughts of great thinkers; but the Jeremiahs are rare. Thought power, rather than tongue power, is wanted now. III. HIS IMPRISONMENT SUGGESTS THE INABILITY OF THE EXTERNAL TO CRUSH A HOLY SOUL. 1. He is free in his communion with heaven. From the dungeon he cried, and God heard him ( Lamentations 3:56, 57 ). 2. He was free in his sympathies with the race. He could not go out in body to the house of the Lord, but he went out in soul. Walls of granite, massive iron bars, chains of adamant, cannot confine the soul; nor can the densest darkness throw on it a single shadow. ( Homilist. ) God's servant imprisoned E. Davies, D. D. When Henry Burton, two centuries ago, was persecuted for the name of Christ and put in prison, "I found," he said, "the comforts of my God in the Fleet Prison exceedingly, it being the first time of my being a prisoner." Go thou, and read in the roll. — The prophet and the roll: — I. THE SOLICITUDE OF JEREMIAH — (vers. 4, 5). II. THE COMMAND OF JEREMIAH (ver. 6). III. THE HOPE OF JEREMIAH (Ver. 7).If Divine mercy could not woo them back to righteousness, he hoped that Divine justice might drive them. Alas! he was disappointed. The national heart, with a few rare exceptions, hardened into granite. And then they were overwhelmed with calamities. ( E. Davies, D. D. ) The utility of Holy Scripture John Trapp. See here the utility of the Holy Scriptures and the excellent use that may be made of reading them. A man maybe thereby doubtless converted, where preaching is wanting, as divers were in Queen Mary's days, when the Word of God was precious; as was, by reading Romans 13 .; , by the prophet Jonah; Franciscus Junius , by John 1 ., &c. ( John Trapp. ) The fasting-day. Jeremiah 36:6 Symbolism of a fast N. L. Frothingham. I. It exhibits the duty of a wise self-restraint or self-denial, in receiving the good gifts of heaven. What could more exactly typify this than the temporary withdrawing from innocent pleasure, and even from the proper nourishment of the frame? It is temporary, and not absolute; an occasion, and not a permanency; a suspension, and not a renunciation. It admonishes us by an example, and does not crush us by a law. It reminds us of the obligation of sobriety in the use of the world s offerings. It bids us reflect that it is good for us to break away at times from what is plentiful, contenting ourselves with what is scanty; and to interrupt the course of the enjoyments that only do not reproach us, in order to make room for higher satisfactions. It exhorts us to be frugal, to be watchful, to be provident. It enjoins to be temperate in all things, and to let our moderation be known to all men; to learn how to lack as well as how to abound; and to show to others and prove to ourselves how well we can resign what we would fain keep, and refrain from what we desire to do, controlling tongue and hand, wish and passion, at the call of any holy commandment. 2. It typifies our weak and subject condition. When we pause in the midst of our blessings, and put them at a distance for a while that we may see them the better, we remember how precarious is our hold upon them, and how easily what we dispense with for a day may be withdrawn from us for ever. Fulness may shrink. Strength and activity may be crippled. heaped up ever so high may be scattered to the winds. Opportunity and desire may perish together. It is good to be impressed with this at intervals, though it would not be good to dwell upon it perpetually; for you make a man none the better by making him habitually sad. 3. It presents an image of the sorrows of the world. These are a part of our subjection, and a peculiar part. While it is foolish and ungrateful to anticipate trouble, every day having enough to do with its own; and it is one of the worst occupations we can engage in, to torment ourselves with unarrived calamities, and paint the white blank of the future with woe; yet it becomes thoughtful persons, and has no tendency to make them less thankful, to consider She evils of humanity. They may be thus preserved from presumption, thus guarded against surprises, thus furnished with a fellow-feeling for the sufferings of others, and thus better prepared for their own trial when God shall send it. 4. Fasting represents penitence. It does so on the principle already mentioned, since penitence is one kind of grief. It does so on another ground. When a man is thoroughly stricken with the sense of sin, and seeks to express that consciousness, he describes his unworthiness to receive the bounties of heaven by declining to partake of them. ( N. L. Frothingham. ) He cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth until an the ton was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth Jeremiah 36:20-26 The burnt roll T. Grantham. I. THE INCIDENTS CONNECTED WITH THE TEXT. II. A FEW OBSERVATIONS UPON THEM. 1. The piety of the parent is no assured guarantee for the religion of the son. The life of the Spirit can alone come from God, and it is given and withheld in a way to us past finding out. There are many instances in which we should not be justified in attributing any neglect to the parent, though the child may not by any means have walked in his steps; and, where this does occur, men not unfrequently become monsters of iniquity; for it has been well remarked that none are more abandoned than those who become wicked after a religions education: they cannot have quietness in vice till they have stupefied their consciences; and the greater the obstacles before men can fully indulge their lusts, the more depraved they are afterwards. The testimony of the Spirit, respecting Josiah, the father of Jehoiakim, is this, "that he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of his father David." 2. However men may slight and pour contempt upon the threatenings of God, they can in no way prevent their fulfilment. Jehoiakim and his princes mocked at the message of God, despised His gracious warnings, and purposed the infliction of punishment upon the prophet and scribe concerned in their delivery; but by so doing they did but provoke the wrath of the Lord till there was no remedy: God at length brought upon them the King of Babylon. And all this, we are told, took place, that "the Word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled." The destruction of the world in the time of Noah was long delayed; but it came at length, and that when men were little expecting it. And, if men will not be prevailed upon to flee to the refuge which God hath in infinite mercy provided, this warning must be fulfilled in their destruction. 3. Those who slight God's warnings increase their condemnation. It was declared by the Lord through Huldah, the prophetess, to Josiah, the father of Jehoiakim, Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God when thou heardest His words against this place and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before Me, and didst rend thy clothes and weep before Me, I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord: behold I will gather thee to thy fathers; and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace" ( 2 Chronicles 34:27 ). III. THE APPLICABILITY OF THIS SUBJECT TO PRESENT TIMES. Are there not those in this our land who endeavour, by the keen knife of wit and sarcasm, to cut the Bible in pieces, and thus bring it into contempt, and cause it to be neglected? And why do they act thus? They hate the Bible because they perceive that its threatenings are pointed at them and their sins; they are against the Bible because they see that the Bible is against them; they Know very well that, if the Bible be true, if it be indeed the Word of the living God, they are in a very awful case — in danger of feeling the wrath of God for ever in another world: this they cannot bear to think of, and therefore they first begin to wish that it may not be true; next, indulge a faint hope that it is not; and, lastly, are led on by. Satan to believe that it is nothing else but a cunningly-devised fable, fitted to frighten and alarm the minds of the weak; forgetting that the very circumstance which makes it so distasteful to themselves, namely, that it forbids the indulgence of every sinful desire and the practice of every wicked act, is of itself one of the very strongest proofs that it is not the Word of man, but of God. IV. SOME LESSONS OF INSTRUCTION. 1. The duty of reverencing God's Word. 2. The duty of making it known according to our ability among others. 3. The duty of dealing ,faithfully with those who live in disobedience to God's commands. ( T. Grantham. ) The burnt roll and the Scriptures Homiletic Magazine. I. THE WORDS IN THE ROLL WERE INSPIRED BY GOD; SO ARE THE SCRIPTURES. 1. Christ appealed to and taught out of them ( Matthew 4:4 ; Mark 12:10 ; John 7:42 ; Acts 1:16 ; Hebrews 3:7 ; 2 Peter 1:19, 21 ; 2 Timothy 3:16 ). 2. Further proof — (1) Their harmony and agreement. (2) The perfect moral scheme they unfold. (3) Their power over men's hearts. (4) Their wonderful preservation. II. THE WORDS IN THE ROLL CONTAINED DIVINE THREATENINGS AGAINST SIN. So throughout the Scriptures. III. THE WORDS IN THE ROLL WERE INTENDED TO PRODUCE PENITENCE AND RESULT IN FORGIVENESS (ver. 3). "To the Lord our God belong — mercies," &c. IV. THE WORDS IN THE ROLL ARE DESPISED BY THE HARDENED AND REBELLIOUS (vers. 22-24). Burning was merely the outward and visible sign of contempt, neglect, and disdain. V. THE WORDS IN THE ROLL ARE, NEVERTHELESS, REVERENCED BY SOME (ver. 25). ( Homiletic Magazine. ) Rejection of God's message H. C. G. Moule, D. D. I. DEEP AND VARIED INTEREST OF THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH. 1. Divine truth of doctrine and promise ( Jeremiah 17 ; Jeremiah 30 ; Jeremiah 31 , &c.). 2. Views of a prophet's inner life of anguish and faith (chaps. 1, 9, 10, 12). 3. Passages of vivid narrative (this chapter). II. A STRANGE SCENE. III. A SEARCHING LESSON FOR THE SOUL. The possibility of complete indifference to the most urgent warnings from God, even without open rejection of religion. Let us take the case of Zedekiah thus in some few respects. 1. His act as a specimen of the soul's acts now. 2. His excuses. 3. His doom. IV. ZEDEKIAH HEARS A MESSAGE FROM ONE WHOM, ON THE WHOLE, HE OWNS AS GOD'S MESSENGER, AND, BY WAY OF REPLY, HE BURNS IT. Countless souls own the Bible, as, on the whole, God's Word. Perhaps in a time of distress, like Zedekiah (chap. Jeremiah 38.), they will anxiously turn to it. But in their hour of security, when grief or conscience is silent, the Bible may warn mere, but in vain. Church lessons, sermon texts, family portions, private reading, all bring them God's warnings. The soul, while it dares not say it is false, can yet cast the unfelt truth aside. V. ZEDEKIAH, PERHAPS, EXPLAINED HIS ACT IN SOME VAGUE WAY TO HIMSELF. "Jeremiah is a prophet; but cannot a prophet be prejudiced and exaggerate?" So Bible readers will let sceptical depreciation off the Bible so far warp them as just to take the edge off the reality of its warnings. "Ye shall not surely die." VI. BUT MUCH MORE THAN THIS: ZEDEKIAH POSITIVELY REJECTED THE MESSAGE FROM WOUNDED PRIDE. He did not want it: he was well enough as he was. This blinded him in great measure to the question whether it were from God or not. So self will rise against the very words of Jesus, till it has seen its need and misery as it is ( Revelation 3:17 ). VII. ZEDEKIAH, FOR ALL THIS SECURITY AND INDIFFERENCE, WAS ON THE VERGE OF A REAL AND DREADFUL DOOM. Ruin, captivity, blindness, bereavement (chap. Jeremiah 39.). So now, indifference to Divine warnings is no disproof of their truth. The Judge of all the earth will act, not on our view of things, but on His own. VIII. HE WHO THREATENS IS HE WHO ATONES, SAVES, AND LOVES. He sends His real threatenings to drive us to His real mercy ( Revelation 3:19 ). ( H. C. G. Moule, D. D. ) Jeremiah's roll burnt C. Clayton, M. A. The history with which our text is connected is soon told. It appears that Jeremiah the prophet, at the command of the Lord, had instructed Baruch the scribe to write, in a roll of a book, an abstract or an abridgment of all the sermons which during the last three-and-twenty years he had preached, as well as an account of the various judgments which the Lord had denounced against Judah by reason of their sins. This was done that the king and his people might be put in remembrance of what they had heard, and that they might the better understand it, when they had it all before them at one view. I. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE WRITTEN WORD. Our Lord and His apostles speak to us by their written words in the New Testament; and they attest the inspiration of the written Old Testament by the numberless quotations from its various hooks. These Scriptures we are commanded to "talk of, when we walk by the way, and when we sit in the house." We are also especially to heed them when they are read or explained to us in the sanctuary of public worship. II. THE VALUE OF DIVINE ORDINANCES. We should come up to the house of God, my brethren, "to ask those things that be necessary as well for the body as the soul." We should come up "to set forth God's most worthy praise." We should also come up to hear "His most holy Word." III. THE LORD'S OBJECT IN THE SCRIPTURES. The object which God has in view in giving us His Word, is to save our souls. He therein tells us, first, of our danger, and then of our refuge. The Scriptures, therefore, when rightly received, issue in our salvation. This was the Lord's object in reference to Judah. Judah had sinned; and the Lord had threatened, by Jeremiah, to punish those sins. Mean-while, however, he tried once more to bring them to repentance. He therefore commanded Jeremiah to commit to writing all the evils he had pronounced against that nation, in the hope that, when they read what was written, they might be alarmed at their danger, and seek pardon from their God before their destruction came. IV. THE REBELLION OF THE CARNAL MIND. "The carnal mind," we are told, "is enmity against God." It on this account opposes God's Word, and hates and persecutes God's faithful servants. V. THE FOLLY OF DESTROYING GOD'S WORD. Those men destroy God's Word who will not receive its sayings. It matters not, however, my brethren, whether you receive the whole Word of God, or not. By it you must be one day judged. The judgment will be set, and the books will be opened. If you could get together and burn all the Bibles in the universe, that flame would never destroy God's truth. Hell would be the same: eternity would be the same: death and judgment would be unaltered. Reject not, then, the inspired Word. Receive it most thankfully. Pray, over it most earnestly. ( C. Clayton, M. A. ) The rash penknife J. T. Davidson, D. D. Jehoiakim s last opportunity was now to come. The Spirit of God comes upon the prophet Jeremiah, and inspires him with a message from Heaven. Baruch, the scribe, is summoned to take it down in writing from his lips. I see him coming to the prophet's chamber with ink and pen and sheets of parchment. The people are awed and amazed. One of them, named Michaiah, instantly hastens off to the palace, and, finding a number of the princes gathered together, acquaints them with what has taken place, and gives them the substance of the prophecy. Presently one of these is commissioned to go into the monarch's presence and inform him. Jehoiakim, professing great indifference, has yet his curiosity aroused, and wishes the document itself to be brought to him. So Jehudi runs and fetches the roll, telling of the awful judgments that are about to descend upon the throne and upon the land, and proceeds to read it aloud to the king. The tragic sequel you already know, So Jehoiakim's day of grace closed. In that moment the door of mercy was shut against him for ever! His doom was sealed. The Spirit of God was quenched. The man was given up. Not, observe, that his life was ended; he lived at least four years after this; but he had sinned away his day of grace, and never more was God to ply him with the offers of mercy. His soul's ruin was now complete. I. THOSE WHO, IN THEIR EARLY DAYS, HAVE RESISTED HOLY INFLUENCES, GENERALLY TURN OUT THE MOST WICKED OF MEN. I hardly know an exception to this rule. Nor can you much wonder that it is so. It is just what we might expect. When a man deliberately tramples on conviction, and resists the dealings of God's Spirit, he uses the most effectual means to sear his conscience and harden his heart. If, in early days, you have been hedged round with Christian influences, and loving counsels, and bright examples, and fervent prayers: and you have withstood all these things, you are just the person most likely to make a rebound to the other extreme, and plunge headlong into gross iniquity. II. IF A MAN'S RELIGION IS NOT GENUINE AND HEART-DEEP, IT OFTEN HAPPENS THAT TROUBLES AND CALAMITIES ONLY DRIVE HIM FARTHER AWAY FROM GOD. Do you remember what is written of King Ahaz? It might be written of many a one besides him. "In the time of stress did he trespass yet more against the Lord." Yes, with some men the more they suffer the more they sin. Adversity angers them against God. It is well known that times of pestilence, whilst they have brought out an unwonted religious earnestness on the one side, have brought out an unusual amount of wickedness on the other. The plague of London developed the vices of the metropolis to a frightful extent. Men patrolled the streets singing ribald songs beside the dead cart. When a ship is wrecked, and about to go to the bottom, if some fall on their knees and pray, others fly to drink and cursing. Nothing is a truer touchstone of character than the way in which a man treats the chastenings of God. III. AS THE HEART GETS HARDENED IN SIN, THERE IS A GROWING UNWILLINGNESS TO LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF GOD. As soon as a young man begins an evil course, and resolves to take his fill of sinful pleasure, he acquires a hatred of his Bible, and a disinclination to attend the house of God. If he cannot silence God's ministers, he will keep as far as possible from them, and shut his ears against all good counsel I know a man to whom the sound of the church bells is so hateful, that in the warmest day in summer he will close all his windows, if possible, to keep it out. He was once a very different man, but now the devil has got such possession of him, that he abhors every vestige of religion; and I verily believe that were you to put a Bible into his hand, he would cut it in pieces with his penknife, and pitch it into the fire. If I want to know something of your state of heart, I ask, what value do you put on, and what use do you make of the law of God? ( J. T. Davidson, D. D. ) The Bible disposed of, what then? D. J. Burrell, D. D. Were the Bible proved to be quite unworthy of confidence, were it shown to be dotted everywhere with error as thick as a leper with his loathsome scales, what advantage would it be to godless men? I. GOD WOULD STILL REMAIN. The Bible does not make God; it does not even demonstrate the being of God. It assumes Him. Its opening words are, "In the beginning God created." The simplest argument in all the world is that which phrases itself thus: Design supposes a designer. Were I to say that John Milton made Paradise Lost by jumbling letters in a bag and tossing them forth, all reasonable men would laugh at me; but this would be no more preposterous than is the allegation that our universe is a fortuitous concourse of atoms. All men know that back of law is the Lawgiver, back of order the Arranger, back of design an Infinite Contriver. But while the world would retain its belief in God, it would, in the absence of the Scriptures, know nothing of His Providence or of His Fatherhood. II. THE SENSE OF SIN WOULD REMAIN. The Bible is not responsible for the sense of sin. If there were no Bible, our consciences would still speak to us. When Prof. Webster was lying in prison awaiting his doom he made formal complaint that he was affronted by his keepers, who shouted at him, "Oh, you bloody man!" and by his fellow-prisoners, who pounded on the walls of his cell, shouting, "Oh, you bloody man!" A watch was set, but no voice was heard; it was his guilty conscience that was crying out against him. It is not the Bible that gives us Ixion on the wheel, or Sisyphus vainly rolling the stone up the mountain-side, or Tantalus up to his lips in the ever-receding waters. No, in any case conscience would remain; but in the absence of revelation we should know no remedy for its sting. III. WERE THE BIBLE DESTROYED, OUR SENSE OF DUTY WOULD STILL REMAIN. The moral law is set forth in the Scriptures in the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount. The Decalogue, however, was written in the human constitution long before it found expression in Scripture. It is interwoven with the nerves and sinews of the race. The Sermon on the Mount is simply a broad and glorious exposition of the Decalogue. There is nothing new or original here. We are reminded that the Golden Rule itself did not originate with Christ. The ethical system of the Bible is merely an authoritative statement of certain laws which are written in the soul of man. God here places His imprimatur on those otherwise anonymous precepts which the whole world recognises as right. So, were the Bible to vanish, the moral distinctions would remain, and a man would know his duty while, alas! ever sensible of not doing it. IV. THE BIBLE GONE, DEATH WOULD STILL REMAIN; DEATH-AND JUDGMENT FOLLOWING AFTER. It needs no revelation from on high to tell us that, as Abd-el-Kader says, "the black camel kneels at our gate." That admonition is written on the grave-stones that line the journey of our life. "The air is full of farewells to the dying And mournings for the dead."But without the Scriptures we should have no hope of triumph over death. V. THE DREAM OF IMMORTALITY WOULD STILL REMAIN. This is quite independent of Scripture. The Greeks put an obolus upon the tongue of the dead to pay their ferriage across the Styx because there might be a happy land beyond. The Indian chic was buried with his bows and arrows at his side, because, if there should by chance be a happy hunting-ground, he would need them there. Thus immortality has always been a fond dream — a dream only. When Cicero lighted the lamp in the grave of his daughter it was with the thought that possibly her life, though extinguished for a time, might be rekindled. When Socrates put the cup of hemlock to his lips, he said, "I go; whether to perish or to live again I know not." The old fable of the Phoenix expressed the fondest of pagan hopes. No, no, we should not lose the dream but we should lose the certainty, for in the Gospel life and immortality are brought to light. The twilight vanishes, the dream becomes a splendid reality. The Bible is our noonday sun. Its glories are far away from the multitude who will not receive it. There are mysteries, vast and incomprehensible here; but burn the Book, or what is the same, let the world lose its confidence in it, and all that makes life worth living goes from us. But the Bible is in no danger; it has come to stay; it will glorify life and illuminate the valley of death until the last penitent sinner has gone through heaven's gate. Voltaire said that he would pass through the forest of the Scriptures and girdle all its trees so that in a hundred years Christianity would be only a vanishing memory. The hundred years have expired; Voltaire is gone, and "none so poor to do him reverence," but Christianity is still here, and the trees of the Lord are full of sap. The brazier of Jehoiakim is a golden altar, the fumes of which, like frankincense, have gone through all the earth. ( D. J. Burrell, D. D. ) The mutilated Bible J. Parker, D. D. 1. Consider the object which God has in view in writing His Word and sending His written messages to mankind. This object is most pathetically set forth (ver. 3). That is why God has given us the Bible! Not to bewilder us, not to start us on courses of intellectual speculation, not to tempt our curiosity, not to found rival sects, but to bring us to Himself to obtain forgiveness of iniquity and sin. 2. Man is so unwilling to hear anything unpleasant or disagreeable about himself that lie gets into a wrong temper before he actually knows what God s object is. Jehoiakim did not hear the whole roll. Did any man ever destroy the Bible who knew it wholly? The difficulty is in the "three or four leaves." There are men to-day who having heard three or four leaves of Genesis have cut it with the penknife. They cannot get over the six days and the talking serpent, so they cut the roll with the penknife. Or if they begin another book, they are offended by the extraordinary numbers of people killed in war, and the romantic ages of the patriarchs; so they cut the roll with the penknife. Or if they begin elsewhere, they are offended by the descriptions of human nature, its depravity, its helplessness, its horrible sin; and having heard three or four leaves, they cut the roll with the penknife. Now the Bible must be read in its entirety, that all its parts may assume their just proportions and their appropriate colour. 3. Though Jehoiakim cut the roll and cast it into the fire, the words were all rewritten, and the impious king fell under the severe and fatal judgment of God (ver. 30). Men have not destroyed revelation when they have destroyed the Bible. "The Word of the Lord abideth for ever." The penknife, cannot reach its spirit, the fire cannot touch its life. The history of the Bible is one of the proofs of its inspiration. 4. The desire to cut the Bible with the penknife and to cast it into the fire, is quite intelligible because in a sense profoundly natural. The Bible never lures human attention by flattering compliments. What wonder if the leper should break the mirror which shows him his loathsomeness? 5. This desire to mutilate the holy Word shows itself in various ways, some of them apparently innocent, others of them dignified with fine names and claiming attention as the last developments of human progress.(1) Look, for example, at the use made of the sectarian penknife.(2) Look at the use of the philosophical penknife. The letter is cut down to nothing, and revelation becomes a question of consciousness, so that the inquiry is not so much, What is written? as, What do you feel? From these reflections we may well learn to hold the roll as inviolable, holy, sufficient, final. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) The indestructible Book T. De Witt Talmage. There are thousands of Jehoiakims yet alive who cut the Word of God with their penknives; and my object is to designate a few of them. The first man I shall mention as thus treating the Word of God is the one who receives a part of the Bible, but cuts out portions of it with his penknife, and rejects them. Jehoiakim showed as much indignity toward the scroll when he cut one way as when he cut the other. You might as well behead Moses as to behead Jonah. Yes, I shall take all the Bible or none. No; you shall not rob me of a single word of a single verse of a single chapter of a single book of my Bible. When life, like an ocean, billows up with Rouble, and death comes, and our barque is sea-smitten, with halyards cracked, and white sails flying in shreds, like a maniac's grey locks in the wind — then we will want God's Word to steer us off the rocks, and shine like lighthouses through the dark channels of death, and with hands of light beckon our storm-tossed souls into the harbour. In that last hour take from me my pillow, take away all soothing draughts, take away the faces of family and kindred, take away every helping hand and every consoling voice — alone let me die, on the mountain, on a bed of rock, covered only by a sheet of embroidered frost, under the slap of the night-wind, and breathing out my life on the bosom of the wild, wintry blast, rather than in that last hour take from me my Bible. Stand off, then, ye carping, clipping, meddling critics, with your penknives! I can think of only one right way in which the Bible may be divided. A minister went into a house, and saw a Bible on the stand and said, "What a pity that this Bible should be so torn! You do not seem to take much care of it. Half the leaves are gone." Said the man: "This was my mother's Bible; and my brother John wanted it, and I wanted it; and we could not agree about the matter, and so each took a half. My half has been blessed to my soul, and his half has been blessed to his soul." That is the only way that I can think of in which the Word of God may be rightfully cut with a penknife. The next man that I shall mention as following Jehoiakim's example is the infidel who runs his knife through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and rejects everything. Men strike their knife through this Book, because they say that the light of nature is sufficient. Indeed! Have the fire-worshippers of India, cutting themselves with lancets, until the blood spurts at every pore, found the light of nature sufficient? Has the Bornesian cannibal, gnawing the roasted flesh from human bones, found the light of nature sufficient? No! I call upon the pagodas of superstition, the Brahminic tortures, the infanticide of the Ganges, the bloody wheels of the Juggernaut, to prove the light of nature is not sufficient. A star is beautiful, but it pours no light into the midnight of a sinful soul. The flower is sweet, but it exudes no balm for the heart's wound. All the odours that ever floated from royal conservatory, or princely hanging gardens, give not so much sweetness as is found in one waft from this scriptural mountain of myrrh and frankincense. All the waters that ever leaped in torrent, or foamed in cascade, or fell in summer shower, or hung in morning dew, gave no such coolness to the fevered soul as the smallest drop that ever flashed out from the showering fountains of this Divine Book. The light of nature is not sufficient. Infidels strike their penknife through this Book because they say that it is cruel and indecent. There are things in Ezekiel and Solomon's Song that they don't want read in the families. Ah! if the Bible is so pernicious just show me somebody that has been spoiled by it. Again, they strike their penknife through the Bible because it is full of unexplained mysteries. What, will you not believe anything you cannot explain? Have you finger-nails? You say, "Yes." Explain why, on the tip of your finger, there comes a nail. You cannot tell me. You believe in the law of gravitation; explain it, if you can. I can ask you a hundred questions about your eyes, about your ears, about your face, about yo

36:1-8 The writing of the Scriptures was by Divine appointment. The Divine wisdom directed to this as a proper means; if it failed, the house of Judah would be the more without excuse. The Lord declares to sinners the evil he purposes to do against them, that they may hear, and fear, and return from their evil ways; and whenever any one makes this use of God's warnings, in dependence on his promised mercy, he will find the Lord ready to forgive his sins. All others will be left without excuse; and the consideration that great is the anger God has pronounced against us for sin, should quicken both our prayers and our endeavours. 36:9-19 Shows of piety and devotion may be found even among those, who, though they keep up forms of godliness, are strangers and enemies to the power of it. The princes patiently attended the reading of the whole book. They were in great fear. But even those who are convinced to the truth and importance of what they hear, and are disposed to favour those who preach it, often have difficulties and reserves about their safety, interest, or preferment, so that they do not act according to their convictions, and try to get rid of what they find troublesome. 36:20-32 Those who despise the word of God, will soon show, as this king did, that they hate it; and, like him, they would wish it destroyed. See what enmity there is against God in the carnal mind, and wonder at his patience. The princes showed some concern, till they saw how light the king made of it. Beware of making light of God's word!