REFLECTIONS. Jeremiah in this last elegy continues the subject in more minute details; and having no hope for the present, he consoles himself with hope in the latter day. Psalms 85; Hosea 3. The insults to women and to virgins are named among the first of the final calamities; and the general who allows of this must expect mutiny and revolt from the men who violate laws with impunity.
The cruelty to the elders nailed up by their hands, was inflicted also upon Tyre, where eight thousand were nailed up and crucified in various ways. The elders ceased from the gates, for wrongs have no redress in war.
Woe to Jerusalem! Woe unto us, for we have sinned. Our ruin is owing to ourselves; sin is the source of all our calamities. Every painful effect should still be traced up to this cause; and it becomes us seriously to lay it to heart.
When men have departed from God, his renewing grace is necessary to bring them back. Turn thou us, and we shall be turned. Men are bent to backslide, but loth to return, and unable of themselves to do it. How necessary then is it, that those who are convinced of sin should offer up earnest supplications to God, that he would convert them: and if he exert his mighty power, how long and how deeply soever they have revolted, their souls will be restored, and led in the paths of righteousness.
The unchangeableness of God is the comfort of his afflicted people. It is their duty to imitate the prophet in pouring out their complaints before the Lord: and, to encourage their hopes, to fix their thoughts on God's eternity, his perpetual dominion, and unchangeable glories. The changes of the world affect not him; he sees, directs and overrules them all. He is the same when the world is in confusion and the church in danger, as when all things are easy and happy. Let this preserve our peace, and animate our hope in every distressing case, that the Lord shall reign for ever, and thy God, oh Zion, throughout all generations. Well, though the glory thus depart from the earthly Zion, the Lord God and the Lamb are the light of Zion above.