ing waves of the sea, is mentioned in particular, because that wickedness of theirs, described in the foregoing part of the chapter, might fitly be compared to the raging waves of the sea in a a storm. We are told, Isai. Ivii. 20, that the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. God puts a stop to the waves of the tempestuous sea; let them toss themselves never so proudly, and rage never so violently, as though they would carry all before them, and scorned any restraint. So the mighty God was able to put a stop to that rage -and violence of theirs in wickedness, spoken of in verses 3. 5. 7, 8. 12. However headstrong, obstinate, and violent they were in it, God could curb and tame them by his almighty hand. He that looks on every one that is proud, and abases him, could bring down their pride, whereby they toss themselves up against the heavens like the waves of the sea. He could break their power, and subdue their spirits; he could bring them down with a strong hand, however set they were in their way. He could do it very easily by weak and despicable means; he could crush them before the moth; he could show them that his weakness was stronger than they, and could say concerning their wickedness, "Hitherto shalt thou come and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed," as the highest and most raging waves of the sea were brought down and broken, and brought to nothing by such contemptible means as the sand. Thus God often pours contempt on wicked men, even on the greatest princes.

Such was the obstinacy and violence of the men of Judah and Jerusalem, that men and means could do nothing with them; no human power could stop them; the prophets had tried, and used their utmost endeavours to counsel them; it was like preaching to the raging waves of the sea, as verse 3, 4, 5. 12, 13. Therefore, God would take the work in hand himself. God's subduing the rage of the sea, and the rage of men's spirits, and the wickedness of his enemies, are spoken of as parallel works of God: Ps. lxv. 7. "Who stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people;" and Ps. lxxxix. 9, 10. "Thou rulest the raging of the sea; when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm." However for a while, and sometimes wicked men may seem to carry all before them, and their wickedness rages without restraint; yet there are certain limits set to it, that are unalterable as the sands on the sea shore, which here are said to be placed for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree.

[174] Jer. vii. 33. "And the carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth, and

none shall fray them away." As this Tophet here spoken of represents hell, so those fowls and wild beasts that feed upon the carcasses of those men, represent the devils who shall feed upon the souls of the wicked. The devils, we know, are compared to fowls of the air, in the parable of the Sower and the Seed, as Christ himself explains it. These fowls of the air that devoured these carcasses, were ravens and eagles, and other unclean and ravenous birds that do fitly represent the impure spirits of the air, and those ravenous beasts do well represent him who is a roaring lion, going about seeking whom he may devour.

[176] Jer. x. 16. "Israel is the rod of his inheritance." Deut. xxxii. 9, called the cord of inheritance, which in our translation is rendered the lot of his inheritance, that is, he is the inheritance as it were measured by a cord, or by a rod. Sometimes they were wont to lay out, and measure land by a cord, sometimes by a rod or pole.

[38] Jer. xi. 20. "Let me see thy vengeance on them, for unto thee have I revealed my cause." Also Jer. xviii. 21. "Therefore deliver up their children to the famine," &c. We hence learn that these imprecations that are to be found in scripture, are not to be understood as expressions of a private desire of ill to their enemies contrary to the precepts of the gospel, for it is evident that Jeremiah did not hate his country, or desire, or rejoice in its overthrow.

[177] Jer. xii. 3. "But thou, O Lord, knowest me; thou hast seen me, and tried mine heart toward thee; pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter." The prophets pray for evil to their enemies. When we find passages of this kind in the Psalms, or the prophets, we are to look upon them as prophetical curses; they curse them in the name of the Lord, as Elisha did the children that mocked bim, as Noah cursed Canaan. We have instances of this kind, even in the apostles, and the disciples of the Lamb of God: as Paul curses Alexander the copper-smith, 2 Tim. iv. 14, and Peter says to Simon Magus, "Thy money perish with thee;" as also they wish them ill, not as personal, but as public enemies, enemies to the church. Sometimes what they say is in the name of the church. Jer. li. 34, 35.

[19] Jer. xiii. 11. "For as a girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah." As the body of a man is incomplete and defective without his garment, so does Christ look on himself as incomplete without his church.

[178] Jer. xiii. 12. "Therefore thou shalt speak unto them this word, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, every bottle shall be filled with wine; and they shall say unto thee, Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine?" which denotes, bottles were made, prepared to be filled with wine; they are fitted for it; you tell us no news in saying so: but so are wicked men vessels fitted to be filled with the wine of God's wrath, as bottles are fitted to be filled with wine: they are vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.

[37] Jer. xvi. 15. "But, the Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them; and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers." This has not merely nor principally a respect unto the return of the captivity of the Israelites from Babylon, but unto the gathering of the gospel church, the gathering together the elect (the spiritual Israel) from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, into the church their own land, from whence they were captivated by Satan. Math. xxiv. 31. This is one sense of all those prophesies of the Old Testament, that speak of the recalling of the Jews.

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[236] Jer. xxx. 21. "Their nobles shall be of themselves, and their Governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw hear, and he shall approach unto me; for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me?" This, as Dr. Ridgley, in his Body of Divinity, vol. i. p. 366, 367, observes, seems to be a prophecy of Christ. The chapter is evidently a prophecy of the gospel times of the church, the times when the spiritual David was to be their Noble and Governor, as appears by verse 9, They shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them." And what is in this verse translated nobles, is in the Hebrew in the singular number, their noble; it is the more probable that this is to be understood of Christ, and not of Zerubbabel, or any other governor after the Babylonish captivity, because the Supreme Governor of Israel was very rarely of themselves after the captivity, even till after their destruction by the Romans." They scarcely ever had this privilege in this sense to so great a degree as before their captivity. But when we look on this chapter, we cannot think it is a prophecy of less prosperity to God's people than what they now enjoyed; and then what is said here of this governor or noble, agrees peculiarly with Christ, and particularly that clause, "For who is this that hath engaged his heart to approach unto me!" The word translated engaged is to become, or act, the surety for

any one; to mingle himself with another, or unite himself to another, as a surety; and so the word is commonly used in scripture, as Gen. xliii. 9, and xliv. 32. Prov. xi. 15. Job xvii. 3. 2 Kings xviii. 23, and elsewhere. See Buxtorf. So that the words might well have been translated, "Who is this that hath mingled or united his heart as a surety to approach unto me!" It is here inquired with a note of admiration, Who is this that hath engaged his heart in suretyship to approach unto me! probably for two reasons, viz. because of the wonderfulness of his person, and because of the greatness of the undertaking; and whether we understand by the Israel, whose prosperity is here prophesied of, the Israelitish nation, or God's spiritual Israel, yet Christ, their Governor, is of themselves; he has taken on him the human nature; he is of the human race, and is our brother, and he is a child of the church; he has sucked the breasts of our mother; he is one of the holy nation, the spiritual seed of Abraham, and he is also of the Israelitish nation, and he took on him the seed of Abraham in a literal sense. In the following verse is mentioned the consequence of Christ's approaching to God as his people's surety, viz. their covenant interest in God, "And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God."

[179] Jer. xxxi. 33. "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people." I think the difference here pointed out between these two covenants, lies plainly here, that in the old covenant God promised to be their God upon condition of hearty obedience; obedience was stipulated as a condition, but not promised. But in the new covenant, this hearty obedience is promised if a man be but of the house of Israel, as by faith he becomes so. God promises expressly in this new dispensation that he shall perform a hearty obedience, and so have God for his God. That old covenant they broke, as it is said in the foregoing verse. The house of Israel, these were called so under the Old Testament, could break that; but the new covenant is such as cannot be broken by the spiritual house of Israel, because obedience is one thing that God engages and promises; and therefore this is called an everlasting covenant upon this account, as is plain from chap. xxxii. 40. It is true the true saints, in the Old Testament, could not fall away any more than they can now, but they were not the Old Testament Israel; and, though God had engaged in bis covenant with Christ that they should not fall away, yet he had not expressly

revealed that to them. God had not in those days so plainly revealed the primary and fundamental condition of the covenant of grace, viz. faith; but insisted more upon the secondary condition, universal and persevering obedience, the genuine and certain fruit of faith.

[389] Ezekiel, chapter i. Concerning Ezekiel's WHEELS. Divine Providence is most aptly represented by the revolution and course of these wheels: things in their series and course in providence do as it were go round like a wheel in its motion on the earth. That which goes round like a wheel, goes from a certain point or direction, until it gradually returns to it again; so is the course of things in Providence.

God's Providence over the world consists partly in his governing the natural world according to the course and laws of nature. This consists wholly as it were in the revolution of wheels. So the annual changes that appear in the natural world are as it were by the revolution of a wheel, or the course of the sun through that great circle the Ecliptic, or the ring of that great wheel the Zodiac. And so the monthly changes are by the revolution of another lesser wheel within that greater annual wheel; which, being a lesser wheel, must go round oftener, to make the same progress. Ezekiel's vision was of wheels within wheels, of lesser wheels within greater, which all went round, as though running upon several parallel plains, each touching the circumference of its respective wheel, and all making the same progress, keeping pace one with another; and therefore the lesser wheels must go round so much oftener, according as their circumference was less.

So again the diurnal changes in the natural world are by the revolution of a wheel still within the monthly wheel, and going round about thirty times in one revolution of the other. The system of the universe may exactly answer what is here said of these wheels, and livelily represents God's providence in the government of the moral world. There is as it were a wheel within a wheel; the whole system is nothing else but wheels within wheels, lesser wheels within greater, revolving oftener. There is the sphere of the fixed stars, which is the greatest wheel, includes all the others, and is many thousand years in performing its revolution. This includes the circle of Saturn's course, which is a lesser wheel within the other, finishing its revolution in about thirty years. That includes the circle of Jupiter, a lesser wheel, revolving in about twelve years: that includes the circle of Mars, that the circle of the Earth, that of Venus, that of Mercury, that of the Sun, which revolves about its own axis. And some of the greater wheels include