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from these terrors, by the temporary departure of the Babylonian forces, than they again forced into servitude and bondage those whom they had set free. "Then the word of the Lord therefore came to Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: You were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbour; but you turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I proclaim liberty for you to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; * and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.”

The sin, for which the Jews were threatened with these grievous calamities was, the renunciation of God's laws in their day of prosperity, to which they had professed obedience in the season of affliction. Have not many of those, who call themselves Christians, incurred the guilt of a similar apostasy?— Indeed, it is to be feared that the resolutions which we form of reformation and amendment, the vows and promises which we make under

* That is - I will deliver you over, or give you up, to the sword, the pestilence, and the famine.

sickness or distress, are but imperfectly remembered when the pressure of the calamity is removed from us. The repentance which is of short duration can profit us nothing; if, with a change of affairs, we relapse into our former vicious habits, and "walk after the imagination of our evil hearts," we shall be "as the cities which the Lord overthrew, and repented not."

3. But with the Lord our God is an infinite treasury of mercy. If we will forsake our sins, and turn to him with all our hearts, he will not reject us. Though, while they continued in impenitence, he had given up his people into the hand of their euemies, and "made the cities of Judah a desolation;" yet, when, in their captivity, they were brought to a sense of their transgressions, he consoles them with a promise that he will punish their enemies, and restore them to his favour and protection. "Behold, I will punish the King of Babylon, and his land, as I have punished the King of Assyria. And I will bring Israel again to his habitation, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied upon Mount Ephraim and Gilead."

If such was the forbearance and loving kindness of our Heavenly Father under the Old Covenant; if he said that "in those days the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah,

and they shall not be found;" we, who live under the Gospel Covenant may surely expect an equal portion of his mercy. Our Saviour has expressly declared that he was sent "to call sinners to repentance;" to heal those who were spiritually as well as bodily sick. If we

listen to his gracious call, and harden not our hearts, "as in the day of provocation;" we have no cause to despair. For, “who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." then "the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."*

* Isaiah lv. 7.

Let

SERMON XXI.

ON THE AUTO-ANATHEMATIZATION OF

SAINT PAUL.

ROMANS IX. 3.

I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

No one, I presume, who reads this sentence, can consider it in any other light than as revolting to his feelings, and hardly reconcileable to a rational notion of Christian Charity. In the margin of our English Version we have the word separated, intended, no doubt, to qualify the offensive word accursed. The original word is anathema; and it is of importance to know in what sense it is used by the apostle in this place, and how far it is reasonable to believe that he should wish himself to be an anathema from Christ.

Examples unquestionably may be found, in which the word anathema means a victim, a creature devoted to death, applicable to irrational as well as rational animals; and in

this sense we find it used by Heathen Authors, when on occasion of a pestilence, or some other public calamity, the anger of the offended deity was to be averted be a sanguinary oblation. If it was in this sense that the word is used by Saint Paul, then it can mean nothing more than that he was ready to devote himself, and suffer death, for his Jewish brethren, so that he might rescue them from that state of obstinate infidelity which must necessarily expose them to divine vengeance. Thus interpreted, there seems to be nothing exceptionable in the wish expressed by the Apostle; nothing but what may be expected from a person of his ardent zeal and affectionate disposition. But notwithstanding he was a citizen of Tarsus, and well acquainted not only with the language, but also with the rites and ceremonies of the Greeks, yet in addressing himself to the Jews as in this Epistle, whatever terms he adopted, he would probably apply them in such a sense as was best understood by them. Now in what sense they understood this term cannot be more satisfactorily explained than by recurring to Deuter. vii. 26.

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Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thy house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it, for it is a cursed thing." Here it evidently signifies a person, or thing,

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