Lecture One Hundred and Fifth

We said yesterday, that as the Prophet saw that there was great insensibility in the Jews, so that they disregarded all God’s promises, he added terror to the hope of mercy. Hence he said, “Ye shall perish, thou and thy people.” He was, no doubt, constrained by necessity to speak in this severe way; for the kind exhortation which he had used availed nothing; and yet God shewed at the same time by his threatening how much he loved the people; for he had a sympathy for them, and as it is said elsewhere, he willed not the death of the sinner, but sought to induce those who were not wholly irreclaimable to repent that they might live. The same thing we now from these words of the Prophet; for God assumes the character of a man ready to give help, and sympathizes with the miseries of a people whom he saw rushing headlong into destruction. It now follows, —