some remission of his sentence, and instead of being a close prisoner, was admitted into the court of the prison, and a daily allowance of provision made to him.

According to his prophecy, the next year the king of Babylon again besieged the city; and Jeremiah, desirous of saving the lives of his countrymen, earnestly entreated Zedekiah to give up the city, and thereby spare the lives of the inhabitants. "Where," says he, are now your prophets that prophesied unto you, saying, The king of Babylon shall not come against you nor against this land? Thus saith the Lord, This city shall surely be given into the hands of the king of Babylon's army, which shall take it." Wherefore, "thus saith the Lord, He that remaineth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live; for he shall have his life for a prey and shall live."

This bold invitation to revolt, as might be expected, gave great offence to the princes of the court, and to those who were of opinion that the Chaldeans would again be repulsed; and notwithstanding they acknowledged Jeremiah to be a prophet of the Lord, yet they considered him as an enemy to the state, and consequently they required his destruction. "Therefore the princes said unto the king, We beseech thee, let this man be put to death: for thus he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words unto them: for this man seeketh not the welfare of the people, but the hurt. Then Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he is in your hand; for the king is not he that can do anything against you. Then (according to the text) took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah, the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison; and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire. So Jeremiah sunk in the mire."

Thus, if we attend to the natural life of the prophet Jeremiah, from his entrance into the prophetic mission, until the conclusion of his history, as recorded in the book bearing his name, we shall not find that any of the prophets underwent such dreadful external sufferings as he did. Although, when "the Word of the Lord first came to him, the Lord said unto him, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the

kingdoms, to root out, to pull down, and to destroy, to throw down, to build, and to plant;" yet none of these things literally came to pass; but he might truly say of himself personally, what he did of the Lord and of the church representatively, "I am the man who hath seen affliction by the rod of His wrath. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is He turned; He turneth His hand against me all the day." And it may be observed, that all his sufferings appear to have been occasioned by his zeal for the Lord's cause for protesting against and prophesying the destruction of a rebellious nation; and for "speaking the Word of the Lord faithfully." So that it is not by a profession of religion-it is not by being appointed to see visions, or being "ordained a prophet unto the nations," that we are exempt from external troubles, or the persecution of our spiritual enemies! Jeremiah, however, as just observed, was a representative character,-in the internal sense, of the Lord's church, and in the supreme sense, of the Lord Himself. By the peculiar manner in which he was appointed to the prophetic mission, was signified, that the Lord would Himself be born in this world, in order that He might teach all men divine truth; -that from His Divine principle He would teach the truths and goods of the church, and that He would destroy the evils and falses; that the truths of every good were given them through the Word; but that they perverted them, whence arose evils and falses of every kind against the truths of the church, and hence arose a contrary worship;-that the Lord would admit them to fight against Him, by which they would be subdued, because the Divine principle itself is in the Lord. In the chapter whence the text is taken, in the internal sense, is shewn, that the church, or those of the church who have not been already vastated, shall be so ;-that they of the perverted church would still remain obstinate in perverting the doctrine from the Word, and in defiling it;-that the remaining truths which were not wholly falsified would nevertheless be mingled with falses; and that if it shall pervert them any longer they will inevitably perish; but that if the remaining truths should not be so perverted, they will not perish.

Such is the general internal meaning of this chapter. In the particular passage selected, by Jeremiah being let down

with cords into the dungeon, is signified the state from which the church was fallen,-cords and curtains signifying spiritual things from a celestial origin; and by the dungeon into which he was cast, is signified the state into which the church was fallen, and consequently those who are immersed in the corporeal sensual principle, thus in mere thick darkness concerning truths and goods, because not in the faculty of perceiving. Such was the Jewish church at that time; being fallen into all kinds of evil and false; and they who are in evils of life cannot be in illustration as to the truths of faith: they may, indeed, be in a state of confirmation; that is, they may be able to confirm the doctrinals of their church, which is that of faith separate from charity, even with skill and ingenuity; but they cannot see whether what they confirm be true or not. Hence we are

taught, that " He who is in evil as to life, is in the false of his evil, and does not believe the truth howsoever he knows it; indeed, he supposes that he believes, but he is deceived; and that he does not believe will be given him to know in the other life, when his perceptive principle is reduced to agreement with his will principle, in which case he will deny, hold in aversion, and reject the truth, and will acknowledge for truth what is contrary, which is the false."-A. C. 7950.

Such was the state represented by Jeremiah being cast into the dungeon. There being no water in it, but mire, into which the prophet sunk, signifies that at that time there was no good in the church, and hence that truths were dissipated; for mire signifies scientifics inapplicable and impure, also a life defiled with evils and falses; and water, of which there was none in the dungeon, signifies truth purifying and restoring.

Jeremiah being thus plunged by his enemies into what they thought inevitable destruction, was not, however, forsaken of the Lord. As the prophet himself acknowledges, "I called upon Thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon. Thou hast heard my voice; Thou drewest near in the day I called upon Thee; Thou saidst, Fear not. O Lord, Thou hast pleaded the cause of my soul, Thou hast redeemed my life." Therefore we read, that "when Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs which was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon," he was moved with compassion at the punishment so unjustly inflicted on this faithful prophet, and went boldly to the king, then sitting in public, "in the

gate of Benjamin," and applied for his release, saying, "My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon, and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is, for there is no more bread in the city. Then the king commanded Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah out of the dungeon, before he die." Thus it will be seen that the Lord raised up an unexpected friend, a stranger, of a different country and complexion.

From the literal account, then, of Jeremiah's sufferings, we learn that the faithful servants of the Lord-those who, in the midst of a faithless and perverse generation, dare attack the vices and corruptions of the age, and "speak the Word of the Lord faithfully," are not to expect a life free from anxiety, trouble, and persecutions. Yet, however great the troubles and persecutions may be which they have to endure from such cause, if, like Abimelech, they act from "the integrity of their hearts," we shall still find the declaration of the Psalmist literally verified, "Never yet saw I the righteous forsaken;" in for all our trials and temptations, the Lord will most assuredly send relief, and that at the most seasonable time, and He will never leave nor forsake those that trust in Him. In the example of Jeremiah we see that although even the princes of the court and the heads of the Jewish nation conspired against the prophet, and besought the king Zedekiah that he might be put to death, on the pretence that he discouraged the army and disheartened the inhabitants of Jerusalem; yet the Lord always raised up some friend in behalf of the prophet, or pointed out some means by which he escaped the machinations of his enemies. Thus in the chapter preceding that whence our text is taken, we find that when Jeremiah endeavoured to escape out of the city whose destruction he foresaw and had foretold; though he was seized by the captain of the ward, and cast by the princes into a dungeon, where, from the famine which prevailed, and the confusion of the city, he might probably have been neglected or forgotten, and thereby have perished with hunger, yet the Lord raised him up a friend even in the king against whom he prophesied; who released him from his close confinement, "and commanded that they should commit Jeremiah to the court of the prison (where he would not be in such danger of being neglected), and that they should give him daily

a piece of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the city was spent."

But we must not draw so erroneous a conclusion as to suppose that Jeremiah underwent all these sufferings merely because he was a prophet of the Lord; for notwithstanding his religion (if we may so speak), or his zeal for the Lord's Church, was the apparent cause of his external sufferings, yet we may rest assured that he would not have been so afflicted had not his own personal state required such trials, in order to effect his regeneration; for it is a certain truth, which the prophet himself owns, that the Lord "doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men ;" and whatever external events or circumstances may prove the apparent cause of trouble to any or each of us-whether of a private nature, or by a zeal for religion, our country, or our sovereign-these are only the means or instruments appointed or permitted by the Lord to bring upon us those troubles which are necessary for our purification and consequent regeneration. If we consider our sufferings, of whatever kind they may be, in any other view, we claim merit for them, and thus deceive ourselves, besides being disappointed in the end proposed.

Considering, therefore, every trouble and affliction which we endure as the necessary chastisement of that God, who "scourgeth every son whom He receiveth," let us bow ourselves in humble submission at his fatherly correction, pray to Him out of the deep dungeon into which our iniquities have plunged us, and turn from every evil as being a sin against Him; and then, "though He cause grief, He will yet have compassion;" though our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven;" though "they pursue us in the mountains, and lay wait for us in the wilderness;" yet "our Redeemer is strong, the Lord of Hosts is His name; He shall thoroughly plead our cause," that He may "uphold us with His free spirit, and restore unto us the joy of His salvation."