their youth; and Cap. vii. 18. had shewn how young and old partook in common of the abominations.committed in their city: "Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem? the children gather wood and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drinkofferings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger." It was not therefore a complaint of unequal treatment, which the prophet utters in his description of the lamentable condition, to which Judah and Jerusalem were reduced: "Our fathers have sinned and are not; and we have borne their iniquities1:" but a mournful confession that they and their fathers had, by their continued provocations, brought these evils upon themselves. We are worse than our fathers, for death hath ended their sufferings, and we still survive*.

Of the proverb, mentioned Ezek. xviii. 2. "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge;" which God forbids the unbelieving Jews to use; he by no means allows the justice, but considers it only as a presumptuous excuse in those, who were unwilling to acknowledge their own guilt, and observe the righteous dealings of Providence, by which they might transfer the cause of their

14 Lam. v. 7. Jer. xvi. 12.

See Note 44.

sufferings from themselves to him. He insists, all through the chapter, that, even in those judgments which he was then inflicting upon that nation, he preserved the righteous and left the wicked to perish; and in winding it up at the 30th verse, he tells them, their sins are the only cause of their destruction. Agreeably to the emblem of the baskets of good and bad figs, by which he shewed (Jeremiah xxiv.) his determination to make a difference in their fate, according to their doings, and to "search Jerusalem with candles," as the prophet Zephaniah (i. 12.) expresses it," and punish (visit) the men that are settled on their lees, that say in their heart, the Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil."

Isaiah xiv. 21. vengeance is denounced against the King of Babylon in these words: "Prepare slaughter for his children; for the iniquity of their father, that they do not rise nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities." But to what does this amount? Does it say that He punished the Babylonian infants, because their fathers were cruel and ambitious? He, who respited the city of Niniveh from destruction, from a tender regard to the sixscore thousand 16 babes who had as yet done nothing against him? No-He had decreed to suffer the conquests of that ambitious monarch to go no farther, and therefore he destroyed his city. As

15 Jer. xxxi. 29, 30.

16 Jonah iv. 11.

Lord of all, those, who had not sinned, were safe in his hand; those, who cherished the same ambitious and unjust projects, he checked, by what he chose, as the most effectual means of ending them and bringing about the wise purposes of his providence in the restoration of the Jews to their own land. The same is the solution of every great judgment, which appears to us indiscriminate in its operations: the time appears to him fit to sweep with the besom of destruction, in proof that he is a God that judgeth the earth: in furtherance, not in disproof of his solemn assurance, "There is no peace saith the Lord to the wicked." Isaiah xlviii. 22. "And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever." Isaiah xxxii. 17.

There were, apparently, but three ways in which God could deal with his people, when they fell away from him: either to let them alone altogether--to cut them off immediatelyor to send his judgments by degrees, (in hopes the evil consequences attending the crime of the former generation might deter the next from committing the same,) and bear with them in succession, till they were either reformed, or had made it evident nothing would reform them, short of almost utter destruction. The first would have been to depart entirely from his character as immediate king of the nation; the other would have been contrary to the character of long-suffering by which

he always describes himself; and the third is agreeable to that method, by which he has always acted in his government of the world. When our first father had sinned, he was punished; but not immediately cut off: the earth was cursed, that the signs of the divine displeasure might appear; but the race of men preserved" (by virtue of the all-sufficient sacrifice in due time to be offered) for the sake of those, who should in future times turn to God. At the flood, the same merciful dispensation was pursued. No doubt the best effects followed in each instance; that of deterring men from impiety, and that of encouraging them to return to God. The like treatment the nations of Canaan experienced; the invader was withheld from them till their iniquity was full. And the history of the Israelites themselves, during the times both of their judges and kings, till their obstinacy ended in their ruin, is throughout an exemplification of the same gracious plan.

Four generations appear by the second commandment to be the utmost limit, to which the divine forbearance confined itself: and accordingly we find the reign of Jehu's house promised no farther than that; which the historian notes was punctually fulfilled 18: while the families of the other idolatrous kings of Israel were not continued so long.

"See Paley's Evidences, Vol. II. Cap. ii. p. 24. note. Edit. 6th. Lond. 1797.

18 2 Kings x. 30. and xv. 12.

CHAPTER III

Matthew xxiii. 35, 36.

say

IN conformity with the observations made in the last chapter, we must understand the following solemn warning of our Saviour, as well as all similar ones, in a figurative sense: "So that upon you may (or will) come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation." He evidently did not mean to charge these men with the crimes of their ancestors, for none of their ancestors were at all concerned in the death of Abel; all the descendants of Cain having perished in the flood. But he meant to warn them, that, as they despised the vengeance, so often denounced and partially inflicted upon those, who had committed such crimes before, that vengeance, which had in mercy been long suspended, was now ready to fall on their heads. They had united themselves with their ancestors in impiety and cruelty, by resisting every call to repentance, and murdering those whom God sent on that gracious errand he would therefore unite them in punishment. He would no longer bear with a nation becoming from father to son more hardened in rebellion against him; but put an end