SERMON IV.

Jeremiah, xxxviii. 10-13.

Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon before he die. So Ebed-melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence old cast clouts, and old rotten rags, and let them down by cords into the dungeon, to Jeremiah. And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, said unto Jeremiah, Put now these old cast clouts and old rotten rags under thine arm-holes, under the cords. And Jeremiah did So they drew up Jeremiah with cords, and took him up out of the dungeon, and Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison.

so.

ALTHOUGH We cannot vouch for the accuracy of our ScriptureChronologers, yet according to the margin of our common Bibles, Jeremiah continued to deliver his prophecies occasionally for twenty-four years before we have any record of his suffering persecution on that account, and sixteen years longer before the circumstances took place which are recorded in our text. During that period of forty years there is no doubt but the prophet underwent a variety of sufferings, notwithstanding they are not here particularly specified; because we find that in his prayer to the Lord at a much earlier period, he complains thereof: "O Lord (he exclaims) Thou knowest, remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in Thy long-suffering. Know that for Thy sake I have suffered rebuke: Thy words were found and I did eat them, and Thy Word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by Thy name, O Lord God of Hosts. I sat not in the assembly of the mockers nor rejoiced: I sat alone, because of Thy hand; for Thou hast filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? Wilt Thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?" We should not

have noticed these circumstances, apparently of no moment, but as they tend to shew the exact correspondence which exists in all parts of the Word of God, though too little attended to by the generality of readers. For the number forty (which thus appears to be about the term of the prophet's sufferings) signifies a full state of temptation, and thus confirms the observations before made, respecting the prophet's own as well as his representative state: That the number forty has such a signification is manifest from various parts of the Word: Thus respecting the Deluge, it is said that the rain continued forty days and forty nights; by which is signified the duration or continuance of temptation. It is said also of Moses, that he was on mount Sinai "forty days and forty nights, during which he did neither eat bread nor drink water, praying for the people, lest they should be destroyed." The Israelites, likewise, were forty years in the wilderness; and that their continuance there signified a full state of temptation, appears from the allusion of Moses thereto, where he tells them, "Thou shalt remember all the ways which Jehovah thy God led thee this forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, to try thee, and to know what was in thy heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no." The ground and reason why by the number forty is signified the duration of temptation, is because the Lord suffered Himself to be tempted of the devil forty days; wherefore we are told, that "since all things were representative of the Lord, when an idea of temptation was present with the angels, that idea was represented in the world of spirits by such things as are in the world; consequently it was represented by forty, because the Lord was tempted forty days: For what is to come and what is present, are the same thing with the Lord, and thereby the same in the angelic heaven; what is to come to pass is present, or what will come to pass, that is come to pass: Hence came the representation of temptations, and also of vastations by the number forty in the representative church."

Thus it was that Jeremiah, during forty years, continued to prophecy, and by his sufferings to represent the state of the church. But in all his sufferings, both as to his individual state, as well as in his representative character, he had the Lord's promise of "strength equal to his day," though we frequently find him making grievous complaints! Thus in

reply to the complaint which we have just now mentioned, the Lord answered him, "If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before Me: And if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth: And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible." And respecting his official character, to the appointment of which he appears to have made great objections, the Lord says, "Thou, therefore, gird up thy loins, and speak unto them all that I command thee: Be not afraid of their faces, lest I confound thee before them: For behold I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee." And, if we fully understood the history of Jeremiah, we should find this was literally true-that the Lord does not permit any one to undergo sufferings more than are necessary for their own individual state, and even in those sufferings, as soon as they have produced the desired effect, He causes them to cease. Hence, though we cannot judge what the prophet's state was when he was let down into the dungeon, we find that when, in a state of humility, he there called upon the name of the Lord," the Lord raised up Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, to go and intercede with king Zedekiah for the prophet's release; who "commanded him, saying, Take from hence thirty men in thy hand, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon, before he die. So (continues our text) Ebed-melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence old cast clouts and old rotten rags, and let them down by cords to Jeremiah into the dungeon. And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah, Put now these old cast clouts and old rotten rags under thine arm-holes under the cords. And Jeremiah did so. So they drew up Jeremiah with cords, and took him up out of the dungeon, and Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison."

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From the various circumstances related in this account, we have already shewn the state of the church to be signified: That from the first to the third verse, where the Lord declares

that those who remain in the city shall perish, but that those who go forth to the Chaldeans, shall live, is signified that those who have not been vastated shall be so: By the princes making application for the death of Jeremiah, and casting him into the dungeon, was shewn that those of the church would still make themselves obstinate in perverting the doctrine from the Word and defiling it. And from the seventh to the twenty-first verses, which include our text, is signified, that the remaining truths, which were not wholly falsified, would nevertheless be mingled with falses: And that if they should pervert them any longer, they will perish; but that they will not perish if the remaining truths should not be so perverted. Thus, with respect to our text, a house, we know, as mentioned in the Scriptures, signifies the church as well as the mind of man; the house of the king under the treasury, therefore, signifies the church principally as to truth, and the mind as to the knowledges of good and truth. Linen, when mentioned in the Word, signifies Divine Truth, and the truth of spiritual love; and as linen clean and shining, signifies what is bright by virtue of good, and what is pure by virtue of truth; so old cast clouts and old rotten rags, being linen defiled and marred, it is presumed may signify what is cast off and defiled by reason of falses, and what is rotten by reason of adulterations, of the literal sense of the Word. By arms are denoted power, and by the shoulders, under which are the arm-holes, the power of truth from good: The cords also, by which the prophet was to be drawn up, and under which he was to place these rags, signify, as before observed, conjunction, and also things spiritual from a celestial origin; and the thirty men remains. From all which we conclude that by application of doctrines drawn from the literal sense of the Word, united with remains stored up in the internal man, or by the doctrine of faith united with charity, conjunction might still be formed with the Lord, whereby the church, even when in the state represented by the prophet, might be restored.

In every state of the church, therefore, we see the Lord's Providence and mercy operating for the salvation of mankind, so far as is consistent with Divine Order and man's free-will. And notwithstanding it is foreseen that the church must inevitably perish, yet those individuals who observe the Lord's warnings, and who are principled in truths drawn from

the literal sense of the Word, if they unite charity with their faith, or practice with their profession, shall, as the prophet observes, "have their lives for a prey." Thus Jeremiah, by obeying the directions of Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, and putting these old cast clouts and old rotten rags under his arm-holes, that is spiritually, by applying the doctrine of charity to the truths drawn from the literal sense of the Word, was raised out of the dungeon, or elevated above the sensual and corporeal principle, and abode in the court of the prison, or in a state of external truth, until the day that Jerusalem was taken, that is, till the church was fully vastated.

We see, then, that notwithstanding all these circumstances literally took place, yet in the transactions themselves something spiritual was represented; and in the account thereof we find something which may be usefully applied to ourselves and our own individual states. For as the church is now sunk into a state similar to that represented by the prophet; so man, by birth, or before regeneration, is immersed in that sensual and corporeal principle signified by the dungeon into which he

was cast.

The external sufferings of Jeremiah are all representative likewise of the trials which we must encounter in our spiritual warfare, before we can arrive at that state in which the Lord can "give us power over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, to pull down, and to destroy; to thrown down, to build and to plant." And as in every stage of the prophet's vastation, the Lord ordained means for his relief; so in all our difficulties and temptations, whether of an internal or external, a spiritual or temporal kind, we shall always experience that the Lord will never leave nor forsake those that trust in Him. My brethren, cannot many of us confirm this from our own experience? Though we have not been tried exactly in the same manner, yet have we not passed through states in which, like him, we have lamented "the hour in which we were born, and the day which gave us birth ?" Have we not complained, "Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame ?" Yet have we not, even when plunged in the dungeon of despair, and there sinking in the mire, have we not been delivered as it were by a miracle, and drawn forth thence "with the cords of a man, with the bands of love?" Yet what