The place where this message was delivered would add to its offensiveness. The very timbers and stones of the palace would seem to echo, "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong." The contrast, too, which the prophet drew between Josiah the temperate, the just, the beneficent, and his sensual, unjust, tyrannical son, must have stung Jehoiakim to madness. But he seems not to have molested the prophet for his scorching rebuke. Perhaps he still retained some slight respect for one whom he must often, in boyhood, have seen honored at his father's court; or, hardened in sin and puffed up with pride, he may have treated both the prophet and his denunciation with contempt.

How many splendid mansions, since the days of Jehoiakim, have been erected by gains derived from extortion and fraud! How many live in magnificence and luxury, on riches obtained by cheating their creditors, or by withholding from the poor a proper reward for their labor! How many sons of honest, respectable parents, to gratify their love of display, resort to questionable or dishonest modes of acquiring wealth, and ruin both their character and their souls! They may boast of success, and in their affluence look down disdainfully on the honest poor; but the deep disapprobation of the community around, even if suppressed from prudence or policy, unites with the word of God in pro

claiming, "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work."

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In the time of Jeremiah, the profaneness and profligacy of the order of prophets were corrupting the morals of the people. While he predicted the overthrow of the kingdom for its idolatry and dissoluteness, they prophesied that it should be prosperous and safe. They say, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you." Some, perhaps, might advise Jeremiah not to discompose himself about the falsehoods by which the prophets deceived the people. There is no danger, they might say, that error, if left to itself, will not soon fall to the ground. They might urge the prophet to exercise a little more charity towards these men; to treat them as honest and sincere, even if they were misguided. They might endeavor to dissuade Jeremiah from exposing their profligacy and falsehood, lest it should cause divisions among friends and neighbors. They might speak of the beauty of harmony; and suggest how impolitic it is to destroy the peace of families and social circles, and incur the ill-will of the great and fashionable, for the sake of abstract notions.

But the prophet could not be quiet while false teachers were leading the nation to ruin. "My

heart within me is broken, because of the prophets; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of the Lord and because of the words of his holiness." With a vehemence which his enemies might ascribe to the excitement of wine, he poured forth his indignation against their false pretences to be the messengers of heaven, and rebuked their wickedness with a severity which some may think borders on bitterness. He was too earnest a lover of truth to dally or temporize with falsehood-too intent on the welfare of his country to spare those who were sacrificing its glory and safety to their own selfishness. He knew there is an essential difference between truth and error; that God has given the former a work to accomplish which the latter can never perform. He knew, too, that

charity does not consist in treating all sentiments as about equally good; and that liberality does not forbid one to take a decided part with the God of truth.

Jeremiah had repeatedly predicted that evil was arising "out of the north" against the kingdom of Judah.

"Set up a standard in Sion,

Retire in a body, make no stand;

For I am about to bring evil from the north,

Even a great destruction.

A lion is gone up from his thicket,

And a destroyer of nations is on his way.

Behold, like clouds shall he come up,
And as a whirlwind his chariots;
Swifter than eagles are his horses:
Woe unto us! for we are laid waste."

A while later he predicted that Jerusalem should be taken, and all its precious things should be carried to Babylon. The false prophets, on the other hand, insisted that no evil would befall the nation. The time was now approaching to test which of these predictions was true.

In the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim, having defeated the king of Egypt on the Euphrates, Nebuchadnezzar advanced against Judah and besieged its capital. Just before the siege began, Jeremiah was commanded to stand in the court of the Lord's house, and proclaim to all the people of Judah who came thither to worship, that if they refused to obey his law, Jehovah would destroy the temple and make the city a curse to all the nations of the earth." It must have cost the prophet to be the bearer of such a message, bitter and as if the omniscient eye detected a struggle in his heart, he was straitly charged to diminish not a word. He had scarcely done speaking when the priests and the prophets and all the people set upon him furiously, and threatened him with instant death..

a

pang

When the princes of Judah heard of this excitement, they came up hastily from the king's palace

to the house of the Lord. The priests and the prophets demanded of them violently that Jeremiah should be killed. But, undaunted by their threats, instead of softening his words, the prophet fearlessly declared that the Lord sent him to deliver such a message. With an intrepidity which seems more noble in one of his tender spirit, he exhorted them to amend their ways and obey the voice of Jehovah. He told them he was in their power, and they could wreak their vengeance on him, if such was their pleasure; but he assured them in that case they would only incur deeper guilt, and the city meet a severer overthrow. The princes, restrained by their own consciences, or daunted by his bold defence, decided that he had done nothing worthy of death. Certain elders of the land taking his part, reminded the people that Micah, unharmed, uttered a similar prophecy in the days of Hezekiah; and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, a man of some note, also interposing in his behalf, Jeremiah escaped with his life. He seems, however, to have been placed under restraint of some kind, Jer. 36:5, or not to have thought it prudent, for a time, to appear in public.