ENTREATY AND WARNING. (Jer. 2:to 3:5.)
Jeremiah's first expostulation with his people at least, the first recorded-is certainly a most remarkable address for one who said, " I cannot speak, I am but a child." It would be difficult to find any portion of Scripture that would surpass it in genuine pathos and tenderness, not to speak of eloquence. The earnest pleading of the insulted and forgotten Lord, His grace and compassion towards the guilty nation, blended with solemn warnings of dreadful days to come if the heart is not turned back to Him-all together make up a discourse that might have moved the very stones; but alas we read of no response on the part of hardened, wilful Judah.
The opening words are remarkably beautiful. " I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness in a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the first-fruits of His increase. All that devour him shall offend:evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord" (vers. 1-3). How He delights to recall the first love of His people, when their hearts beat true to Himself and joy welled up in their souls at the thought of His dwelling among them (Ex. 16:)!
Do we. not well remember that it was so with us when first we knew Him to be really our Saviour-God and ourselves to be His forever, when the confidence of our hearts was established on His grace? How much He was to us then! What a poor thing this world seemed, with all its glittering baubles! How gladly we turned from everything we had once delighted in to go out after Himself revealed in Jesus! He was outside this scene, the rejected One; we too, then, must be separated from it. That which had before been as the well-watered plains of Egypt to us now became as a desert-parched and dry, in which was nothing for our hearts. With deepest joy we exclaimed, "All my springs are in Thee," and sang exultingly of the " treasure found in His love," which had indeed "made us pilgrims below." Those were truly bright and happy days when first Christ dwelt in our hearts by faith :days when He joyed in us and we in Him. But, may we not ask ourselves, is it so now? Must He look back and say, "I remember," or does He find us still occupied with Himself, still gladly and cheerfully counting all below as dross and dung for Him, still exclaiming, "One thing I do"? Alas that it should be ever otherwise! but the first com-plaint He had to make against the newly-founded Church, when all else was going on well and orderly, was this :"Thou hast left thy first love" (Rev. 2:).
"Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart" (Cant. 3:n). If our joy was great, how deep was His when first our hearts were won for Himself! Beloved, do we give Him joy now as to our practical ways, and our heart's affections from which our ways spring? or is His Spirit grieved on account of our cold-hearted indifference-our heartlessness? for is
it not worse than coldness? Let us turn, then, to His further gracious words in the portion before us. An extract from the now publishing No. of the '' treasury of Truth.'')