chapter and the first eight verses of the twenty-third consists mainly of a strain of reproof and exhortation, in the first part of which it is implied that the fate of the nation is undetermined, and will depend on the just or unjust administration of its rulers. The author with great particularity announces the Divine vengeance against the Kings Shallum and Jehoiakim, sons of Josiah, and against Jeconiah his grandson,† and finally declares that the national humiliation and distress will be but temporary; that the exiles shall at length return to their ancient home, and a descendant of David reign over them there in safety and peace.

The remainder of the twenty-third chapter, headed with the inscription "concerning the prophets," is simply a diatribe against false teachers. The writer complains that the wicked people are emboldened by the precept and example of still more wicked guides.‡ The men of Jerusalem are as much betrayed and depraved as the men of Samaria had been by those who should give wholesome instruction, but who, instead of doing so, "strengthen the hands of evil-doers," and send "profaneness into all the land."§ To follow them, unprofitable and treacherous as they are, is to rush upon ruin.|| From the omnipresent and omniscient Jehovah, no evil-doer can hide himself. Therefore let those who pretend to speak his efficacious

* Jer. xxii. 1-5.

No King Shallum, son of Josiah, is mentioned in the Books of Kings or of Chronicles. But Josiah's son Jehoahaz was his immediate successor (comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 30). It is taken for granted, accordingly, that Jeremiah knew him to be also called by the other name, which, according to 1 Chron. iii. 15, belonged to Josiah's fourth son. - With Jer. xxiii. 7, 8, comp. xvi. 14, 15, of which passage the other is merely a repetition. — The passages xxii. 10-12, xxii. 18, 19, xxii. 24-30, and xxiii. 5-8, will have further notice in the Fiftieth Lecture.

xxiii. 9-12. xxiii. 16-22.

§ xxiii. 13-15.

Txxiii. 23-25.

word take care that they speak it truly,* and let none speak of his true word as "a burden," if they would not tempt his heavy displeasure, and learn that Jehovah can crush them under a weight of woes.†

The twenty-fourth chapter, though printed as prose by some translators who arrange other portions as poetry, is in my view as clearly a poetical passage as any so disposed. In the use of a common (but, in this instance, tame enough) form of figurative language, Jeremiah, representing his compatriots of different characters under the images respectively of a basket of very good figs, and another of figs too bad to be eaten, goes on to say that Jehovah in due time will restore to favor his penitent outcasts, and settle them permanently and prosperously in the land of their fathers, while the party represented by the fruit unfit to eat, "Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, those that are left in this land, and those that dwell in the land of Egypt," shall be abandoned to "vexation and affliction in all the kingdoms of the earth," to reproaches, taunts, and curses in all places of their exile, and be utterly consumed by famine, pestilence, and the sword.‡

With the next chapter begins the different arrangement, referred to at the beginning of this Lecture,

* Jer. xxiii. 26-29.

† xxiii. 33-40. The Hebrew word means both a saying, or oracle, and a burden, or load; and the idea seems to be that, in the use of an equivocal expression, the persons referred to spoke derisively of the warnings of Jeremiah and others honestly and piously disposed. But who can believe that, in simple, prosaic truth, Jeremiah meant to say that for such a mere levity in expression (39, 40) the people and their city were to be cast out of God's presence, and brought to endless contempt and shame ?

The principal part of the first verse, "This was after Nebuchadnezzar,” &c. (comp. 2 Kings xxiv. 11, &c.), I take to have been originally a marginal note from a later hand. It was an easy inference from Jeremiah's own language in the ninth verse.

of the Hebrew and Septuagint texts. In that chapter also we begin to read of what is called the Seventy Years' Captivity, supposed to have been supernaturally predicted by Jeremiah, and, if so, justly claiming to be regarded as the principal topic of interest in the book. In view of both these facts, it is proper that we should pause here, to reconsider our principles of interpretation.

LECTURE XLIX.

JEREMIAH XXV. 1.— XXXV. 19.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE FUTURE, PROOF OF A DIVINE COMMUNICATION. NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE REQUISITE TO PROVE SUPERNATURAL FOREKNOWLEDGE. - MOST PLAUSIBLE ARGUMENT FOR THE SUPERNATURAL FOREKNOWLEDGE OF THE PROPHETS, DERIVED FROM THE WRITINGS OF JEREMIAH.-UNCERTAINTY OF THE TEXT OF HIS WRITINGS. — PREDICTION OF A SEVENTY YEARS' CAPTIVITY. - EXPLANATIONS OF JEREMIAH'S DESIGNATION OF THAT LENGTH OF TIME. INQUIRY WHETHER THE HISTORICAL FACTS SUSTAIN THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF THE SUPPOSED PREDICTION. - PECULIAR UNCERTAINTY OF THE TEXT IN THE PASSAGE RELATING TO THE Length of THE CAPTIVITY. - OTHER NATIONS THREATENED WITH A CAPTIVITY OF THE SAME DURATION. PRESENTATION OF A CUP AND OF YOKES TO NUMEROUS KINGS. REPETITION OF COUNSELS, THREATS, AND PROMISES TO THE JEWS. - PROCLAMATION BY JEREMIAH IN THE TEMPLE, AND DANGER INCURRED THEREBY.- - HIS WARNINGS TO ZEDEKIAH AND SEVERAL NEIGHBOURING KINGS. HIS CONFERENCE WITH HANANIAH. HIS LETTER TO HIS COUNTRYMEN IN CAPTIVITY. HIS ASSURANCES TO THE EXILED PEOPLE OF BOTH KINGDOMS OF A HAPPY REESTABLISHMENT IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY. HIS PURCHASE OF A PARCEL OF LAND. RENEWED PROMISES OF A RESTORATION OF THE KINGDOMS, OF THE ROYALTY OF DAVID'S FAMILY, AND OF THE LEVITICAL PRIESTHOOD AND RITUAL.— HIS CONVERSATION WITH THE KING. THREATS OF DESTRUCTION TO THE JEWS, FOR REFUSING TO MANUMIT THEIR SLAVES. HIS HOSPITALITY TO CERTAIN RECHABITES, AND MORAL DRAWN BY HIM FROM THEIR ACCOUNT OF THE HABITS OF THEIR FAMILY.

THE great question in respect to the class of books to which that of Jeremiah belongs is, whether they indicate supernatural knowledge of future events on the part of their authors. Man may form judgments respecting the future. He may calculate tendencies and chances, and calculate them wisely. But to know the future belongs only to God. If any man should be

found to have possessed an acquaintance with future events clearly beyond what is attainable by human judgment and calculation, we should have to conclude that he had received that knowledge directly and su pernaturally from God; and such a man would be accredited to us as a Divine messenger just as much as the doer of any other miracle.

The subject is so important, that I must be pardoned for recurring to the principles necessary to be applied when a case of supposed supernatural prescience is presented.

In order to hold reasonably the opinion, that a given writing affords evidence of miraculous foreknowledge on the part of its author, we must first have obtained satisfaction on the following points:

1. That we have the words in which the assumed

prediction was recorded. Here arise questions respecting the genuineness of a writing, and the purity of its text as it exists in our hands.

2. That we give to the words a correct interpreta tion. If they are so obscure, or if they admit of such a diversity of explanation, that we cannot confidently say what was the meaning in their writer's mind, they furnish no basis for further argument.

3. That an event like what they described has taken place. If we should have a premonition of a coming event, we could not thence alone assume that it ever befell as foretold. To say that we know it took place because it was supernaturally predicted, and that it must have been supernaturally foreknown because it came to pass as predicted, would plainly be reasoning in a vicious circle.

4. That the words were delivered at a time previ ous to the occurrence of what they are believed to describe. If the reverse is true, then clearly they are