For Homiletics on verse 14 see on chaps. xii. 15, and xiv. 16, pages 271 and 365.

MAIN HOMIletics of tHE PARAGRAPH.-Verses 15-17.

VICE AND VIRTUE IN HIGH PLACES.

I. A cruel ruler is on a level with the most cruel of the brute creation. The more power a man holds in his hand over the destinies of his fellow-creatures the greater is his responsibility, and the blacker is his crime if he abuses his opportunities of blessing them. In proportion to the unlimited character of his authority ought to be his care not to overstep the limits of the strictest justice, and he is bound to lean rather to the side of mercy than to severity. The less reason he has to fear any retaliation from those whom he rules, the more is he bound to mingle much gentleness and forbearance with his government, for it is the act of a coward to act towards the weak and defenceless as we should fear to act towards one who is our equal in strength. The man who can be capable of such cowardice no longer deserves the name of a man, but puts himself on a

level with those beasts of prey from whom we shrink in terror, knowing that in them there is no reason, or conscience, or pity to which we can appeal.

II. Incapacity in a ruler may work almost as much misery as cruelty. A mother may not be guilty of positive acts of cruelty towards her children, and yet they may suffer very keenly and very seriously from her unfitness to train their souls and her ignorance as to how to take care of their bodies. Her neglect may in the end bring consequences as fatal as the greatest severity would have done. This rule holds good wherever one human creature has others dependent upon him, and the more entire the dependence the more miserable will be the results of his or her incapacity. In countries where rulers do not bear absolute sway, a "prince who wanteth understanding" is not so great a curse as where his will is the only or the supreme law, but the history of our own country contains instances of monarchs who, although they would have been harmless in private life, were, from lack of capacity to rule, very great oppressors of the people.

III. The curse which rests upon all such oppressors of their kind. Like Jehoram of old, they depart undesired. (2 Chron. xxi. 20). The blood of their brothers crieth out for vengeance upon their heads, and no man puts forth a hand to arrest their doom. Even those who pity as well as blame, if they wish well to the body politic, feel it is a blessing when such tyrants are removed from the earth-when their power of doing violence to the rights of their fellowcreatures is at an end. "Let no man stay him" for the sake of those whom he leaves behind, and let no man hinder his departure for his own sake, for his continuance in his place upon the earth would but give him opportunity to add to his crimes, and thus increase the weight of his punishment. (For illustrations of this subject and additional Homiletics see on chap. xi. 17, page 220—also page 208.)

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS

Verse 15. But these emblems were insufficient to represent the monstrous barbarities that have been often exercised by those that were at the head of the Roman empire in its pagan or antichristian state; and, therefore, Daniel and John represent them under the figure of monsters more dreadful than any that were ever beheld by the eyes of man. (Jer. xxxi. 18, Daniel vii. 10, Rev. xiii.) The language of inspiration could not furnish out more terrible images for the devil himself, than those which have been used to represent the wickedness of tyrannical and persecuting powers. We ought to be thankful for the wounds that have been given to the beast with seven heads and ten horns, and for the civil and religious liberties which we enjoy.-Lawson.

Verse 16. As want funderstanding maketh a man an oppressor, so to be

an oppressor sheweth a want of understanding in him. But the special want at which the verse seems to aim is the greedy want of covetousness. For as a covetous man wanteth understanding, because he seeketh that so eagerly which he cannot keep, so a covetous prince wanteth understanding, because he seeketh that so earnestly which he hath already.—Jermin.

Verse 17. God's jealous regard for the life of man was strongly expressed at the second outset of our world's history; and expressed in terms of evident allusion to the early and awful violation of its sacredness in the antediluvian period:-" And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his

blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man" (Gen. ix. 5, 6). For my own part, having examined the various principles of interpretation by which those who are for doing away all capital punishments have explained these words, I have not been able to satisfy myself with any one of them. They seem to be all forced and unnatural, and, on different critical grounds, inadmissible. I cannot but regard the language as bearing no fair and natural interpretation, but that which makes it a Divine requisition, on the part of man, of blood for blood -that is, of life for life; and as thus affording more than a sanction, as laying down a requirement. Though I am far from conceiving that we are bound by Jewish criminal law, yet in the law regarding murder there is so evident an allusion to this original and universal injunction, and the language withal is so very pointed and emphatically reiterated, that I cannot go the length of those who would include

murder among crimes to be punished with infliction short of death. When set beside the original and universal law it serves, by its very emphasis and peremptoriness, to confirm the ordinary interpretation of that charge to the second progenitors of our race as the just one, and to show, therefore, the universality of its obligation.-Wardlaw.

Even the heathen judged this awful transgressor to be under the Divine vengeance. (Acts xxviii. 4.) The death therefore of the murderer is an imperative obligation. It is miscalled philanthropy that protests against all capital punishments. Shall man pretend to be more merciful than God? Pity is misplaced here. The murderer therefore of his brother is his own murderer.-Bridges.

This is not directly an admonition against that which is immoral; it may also be a declaration of that which is impossible.-Delitzsch.

The subjects of the next six verses have all been treated before. For Homiletics on verse 18, see on chaps. x. 9 and xi. 3, pages 153 and 195. Verse 19 is almost a verbal repetition of chap. xii. 11, see page 266. On the main subject of verses 20 and 22, see on chaps. xiii. 11 and xxi. 5, pages 306 and 609. On verse 21 see on chap. xvii. 23, page 524, and on verse 23 chap. xxvii. 5 and 6, page 728.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 24.

ROBBING PARENTS.

I. A parent's sacred rights. A father and mother, if they are worthy of the name, have a very strong claim upon their children's consideration. Their children owe them obedience in their childhood, and reverent and loving regard when they have reached manhood. If their parents are rich, their possessions are to be held as peculiarly sacred. "A feeling," says Wardlaw, "should attach to it somewhat like that which attaches to holy things-things pertaining to God and His service. The violation of their property should be felt to be a description of sacrilege." On the other hand, if the parents are poor, their children are certainly bound to help to support them, and so in some measure to repay to them the expenses of their own bringing up. Christ puts this duty to parents before that of giving even to the support of Church ordinances, and severely condemns the Pharisees and Scribes for inculcating opposite teaching (Mark vii. 11).

II The character of the child who violates these rights. There are, alas, many sons and daughters who, instead of rendering more honour to their parents than to other people give them less, and instead of showing more regard

to their parents' rights than to those of a stranger, seem to ignore the fact that they owe anything to them. In the matter of money, those who would not touch the possession of any other person will sometimes appropriate what belongs to their parents, and say, "It is no transgression; or if they do not go quite so far as this, do not hesitate to live upon them when they ought to be earning their own living, or to incur debts which they know their parents will discharge. He who is guilty of any of these negative or positive transgressions "robs," his father and mother, and his character is given here. Although he may not be openly a vicious man-although he may seem to be much less blameworthy than the man who openly violates the law of the land, he is here put on a level with him. The sin in the sight of God is as great, and there is in such a man the capability of developing into an open transgressor, for he who can violate such holy demands of duty, and trample upon the rights of such a sacred relationship, only wants the motive and opportunity to commit actions which would at once class him among the criminals of society.

OUTLINES And suggesTIVE COMMENTS.

"But if any widow have children or nephews, let them first learn to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents." (1 Tim. v. 4.) It is observable, children's kindness to their parents is termed piety or godliness, because it is a part thereof, and very acceptable to God. Besides, it is called a requiting them, intimating that it is not an act

of grace, but of justice.-Swinnock. То say that we did not look upon a thing to be a transgression will be no just excuse for any piece of conduct that we might have known to be criminal. It will only shew us to be so depraved that even our minds and our consciences are defiled.-Lawson,

For Homiletics on the first clause of verse 25, see on chap. xiii. 10,

page 305. MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 26, AND LAst clause of verse 25.

SELF-CONFIDENCE.

I. He that trusts in his own heart is a fool, because he refuses to profit by the experience of others. If a man who has made a perilous voyage declares at the end of it that he has found his compass utterly untrustworthy, we should count him a madman who would set out upon a similar expedition with the same faulty guide; and if he went down in mid-ocean to rise no more, we should certainly say that it was his own fault. To trust to a guide which another man had proved to be unworthy of confidence when so much was at stake, would be universally condemned as obstinate foolhardiness. Yet this is what men do in the voyage of life. The testimony of most men who, rejecting the guidance of a higher wisdom, have shaped their lives according to their own ideas and inclinations, has been at the end that they have trusted a guide that had misled them. Solomon himself steered a good deal of his life by this deceiving compasss, and at the end confessed that he had acted foolishly in so doing (Eccles. i. 2). It may be that the words of our text were the expression of his own bitter experience on the subject, and that he is here counselling others to avoid the error into which he had fallen.

II. He is a wise man who seeks guidance from God because he trusts in One who has proved Himself worthy of confidence. He who has declared that the human heart "is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" (Jer. xvii. 9) has offered Himself as the object of man's trust and as His infallible guide. Millions of the human family have assented to the truth of

the Divine statement, and have testified to the blessedness of submission to Divine guidance, and have been manifestly delivered by their submission from the bondage of evil, and elevated into a region of moral purity and freedom to which other men are strangers. They are living proofs that He who exhorts men to trust in Him is not a deceiver, but can justify the demands He makes upon our confidence and submission. Human experience has set its seal to the inspired word :-" Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit" (Jer. xvii. 8). Surely, then, he is a wise man who makes the trial for himself.

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.

The heart, indeed, has instrumentality to save us. We must trust everything to that. But it is the heart dwelt in by Christ. He that takes his heart and confides it to the Son of Man, receives for it an altered life, and will be able to trust that heart thus trusted to Christ as the instrument in the battle of deliverance.-Miller.

Though the mariner sees not the pole-star, yet the needle of his compass, which points to it, tells him which way he sails. Thus the heart that is touched with the loadstone of Divine love, trembling with godly fear, and yet still looking towards God with fixed believing, interprets the fear by the love in the fear, and tells the soul that its course is heavenward towards the haven of eternal rest.-Leighton.

far is it at the mercy of our actions, which are at the command of the heart, as the motion of the wheels follows the disposition of the spring. God is never disobeyed but He is also dishonoured. II. Man trusts his heart with his happiness in this world, and this is twofold-spiritual and temporal. III. He entrusts his heart with the eternal concernment of his soul hereafter.

The heart of man will also be found to have eminently these two ill qualities utterly unfitted for such a trust. I. It is weak, and so cannot make good a trust. Its weakness is twofold. 1. In point of apprehension it cannot perceive and understand certainly what is good. 2. In point of election, it cannot choose and embrace it. II. The heart is deceitful, and so will not make good Whoever trusts another for his guide its trust. The delusions of must do it upon account of two quali- the heart may be reduced to three fications to be found in him:-1. sorts. 1. Such as relate to the comThat he is able to direct and lead him. mission of sin. 2. Such as relate to 2. That he also faithfully will give the performance of duty. 3. Such as the best directions. There are relate to a man's conversion, or change two things which may make a trust of his spiritual estate. The foolish:-1. The value of the thing heart if it does not find sins small, has which we commit to a trust. 2. The this notable faculty, that it can make undue qualifications of the person them so. and in duty is to whose trust we commit it. In willing to take up with the outside and both respects the confidence reposed superficies of things, and . . . it will by men in their own hearts is exceeding persuade him that he is converted from foolish. 1. The honour of God is a state of sin, when perhaps he is only entrusted. So far as the manifestation converted from one sin to another; and of God's honour depends upon the that he has changed his heart when homage of His obedient creatures, so he has only changed his vice.-South. On the subject of verse 27, see on chap. xi. 24-26, page 234, and chap. xiv. 31, page 389. The subject of verse 28 has been treated in chap. xi. 10, page 20