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he hear the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of my heart to add drunkenness to thirst." That is, though I practise the abominations of idol-worship, of which one is specified as an example of all.

This cause operated at various times, and called down partial punishments. But just before the Babylonish captivity, it pervaded and ruined the whole nation.

Another cause of unbelief was the influence of false prophets. When many in the nation were corrupted, and had formed a strong party of infidels, false prophets arose to confront the true, and to turn against them the tide of popular odium for their fidelity in declaring the impending judgments of God. There were among these false prophets many who were deemed men of high attainments. The ranks of infidelity often enrolled those who, in a worldly point of view, were the most conspicuous men in the nation. They claimed a superior knowledge of the Bible, also great discoveries, and progress: "We are wise; the law of the Lord is with us." They stigmatized the advocates of punishment as bigots. They derided Jeremiah's prophecies by a scoffing play on the word "burden." They tried to destroy his character and influence by slander. Because he took God's side against a guilty people, they assailed him as a traitor. The power of false prophets, sustained by such a party, was immense. And as the time of the ruin of the nation drew near, the situation of the true prophets of God was hazardous and trying in the extreme. Their feelings seem at times to have been excruciated, as they saw that the influence of those false prophets emboldened the infatuated nation in unbelief; and rendered abortive all efforts to convince them that a storm of unmingled wrath was impending; and, if they persisted in their mad career, would soon burst upon their devoted heads.

Jeremiah says: "I am in derision daily; every one mocketh me; for since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in my heart, as a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. For I heard the defaming of many; fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All

my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him."

We can hardly conceive of the power of the false prophets among such a people; or of the strength of that tide of calumny and abuse which the true prophets of God were called to encounter. The book of Jeremiah is full of illustrations of this part of the subject. At one time he exclaims: "Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake." At another: "Wo is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me." Concerning these false prophets, God says: "They say still unto them that despise me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh in the imagination of his heart, No evil shall come upon you."

Thus did those false prophets concentrate and embody the unbelief of the nation; and in the name of God authorize the people to trample on his laws, and yet hope for impunity. Thus did they turn the torrent of popular odium upon all who endeav ored to arouse the people to a sense of their guilt and danger, and to urge them by timely repentance to escape the wrath of God.

We proceed to notice the consequences of this unbelief. These are too well known to need a long description. They are on record as matters of historical fact. As restraints were removed, the degeneracy of the nation became excessive. Idolatry and its attendant vices became more and more prevalent. And the Jewish nation not only equalled, but as God himself testified, exceeded the heathen in their abominations. All efforts to produce a reformation of morals proved ineffectual, and God began to execute his fierce vengeance. At first he sent famine and other judgments, but in vain. Then he smote and destroyed ten tribes. But the remnant continued incorrigible, and became more and more corrupt; until his fiercest wrath arose, and there was no remedy. God himself says: "All the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem; and the Lord God of their fathers sent to

them by his messengers, rising up betimes and sending; because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling-place. But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, and there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword, in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age; he gave them all into his hand." He fully executed upon them all the curses written in the law of Moses, according to the confession of Daniel in behalf of the people when in captivity: "All Israel have transgressed thy law; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses, the servant of God. And he hath confirmed his words which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil; for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us."

Then had the nations occasion to say, as Moses foretold: "Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?" And then, also, was there occasion to reply in the words of the same prophet: "Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; for they went and served other gods, and worshipped them. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book; and the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day." Thus God, as a temporal ruler, executed all his threatenings, and every transgression and disobedience received a just retribution.

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Thus we see that the human heart is adequate to any amount of unbelief. We see, too, that the cause of the increase of modern infidelity, as it regards future punishment, lies not in the obscurity of the revelation. A hatred of the holy requisitions

and restraints of the gospel, and a desire to lead a worldly or an immoral life unmolested, are sufficient causes. No other is needed. The pride of intellect, and love of the indulgences of fashionable life, foster infidelity in one class; the love of gain in

another, and the love of vicious and sensual indulgence in another. Thus an infidel party is formed in the heart of the community. And to organize and embody it, public teachers, claiming the name of ministers of Christ, are raised up; and the tide of obloquy is made to set against those who exhibit with unabated rigor the penalty of the law of God.

We need not suppose that the inspired record is obscure, in order to account for the infidelity of the age. To an honest reader, God's denunciations of the wrath to come seem plain, and they are plain. They need not be misunderstood. We need no solution but the depravity of the human heart. If the threatenings of the law of Moses were not proof against this, need we wonder that those which relate to a future state are not? If temporal, tangible; sensible judgments, denounced in language that could not be misunderstood, were regarded with incredulity, can we think it strange that the judgments relative to a future unseen state are thus treated also? In each case, the principle, and its operation are the same. In one case, it sets at naught the threatenings of temporal, in the other, of eternal, vengeance. The guilt and folly of such infidelity will appear in eternity, as the guilt and folly of the infidelity of the Jews now appears. We have seen the results of that. It is an exhibition of the effects of infidelity on a smaller scale. It brought temporal ruin on a nation. Soon its effects will be exhibited on the scale of eternity. It will bring eternal ruin on millions of immortal souls. And when its votaries are involved in eternal woe, how guilty, how inexcusable, will their unbelief appear. How guilty those who, like the false prophets of old, employed all their influence to foster and promote it. Temporal calamities may be dreadful. The ruin of a nation is cause of lamentation. What, then, should be said of the eternal ruin of millions of immortal beings?

But efforts are now making to poison the minds of the whole community, and to release the nation from the fear of the wrath of God. As these efforts will seem in eternity, so are they now. Their authors are roots that bear gall and wormwood. They are enemies of God and of the human race. Let all who are yet exposed to endless punishment avoid unbelief as the certain cause of ruin. God is in earnest. They are exposed to endless woe. And if they disbelieve, his wrath will smoke against them. There is but one way of escape; repentance and faith in Christ.

GOG AND MAGOG.

THE Rabbi Carillon has recently delivered, in the Reformed Synagogue in Spanishtown, Jamaica, a discourse wherein he applies the term Gog and Magog to Russia and the Autocrat. A Jew of the nineteenth century, explaining the prophecies of Isaiah or Ezekiel, awakens many interesting thoughts. But we must lament to see the power of his unbelief, which denies the claims of Jesus of Nazareth and the New Testament, and which must disqualify him for interpreting the prophecies that embrace in their field of vision, the present dispensation. Our readers may be interested in the display of learning and ingenuity here made by the Rabbi. We do not endorse for the soundness of his views.

He says: "It cannot be questioned that the prophecy of Ezekiel is against the last enemies of the Jews. But the present state of public sentiment, as well as the constitutions of all the other European powers, forbid the belief that they will ever again persecute the Jews. Gog-Magog is represented to us as a man whose ambition aims at the conquest of the entire world. Russia alone, of all the nations of the earth, has the disposition to attempt this, or the means of undertaking it with any prospect of success. And it is remarkable that a prophecy is quite current in Russia, the origin of which is unknown, assigning to that empire the ultimate dominion of the earth." This prophecy is probably in part, both the cause and the effect of an ambitious. desire, which betrays itself in all the political and military movements of that huge empire.

"In the tenth chapter of Genesis," says this Rabbi, "we find the sons of Japhet to be Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meschech and Tiras; and the sons of Gomer are Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah. From them come the Japhetic nations: namely, the Chinese, the Tartars, the Greeks, the Persians, the Northern Germans, the Muscovites, and the other Sclavonic tribes; and these very nations Ezekiel mentions as being incorporated with the empire of Gog, or tributary to it. In chapter xxxviii., he says: Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, (chief prince, in the English version,) Meshech and Tubal.' The general name of the country, employed by the Scriptures, is Magog, and that of its princes,

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