LECTURE VII.

PART I.

THE SUSPENSION OF THE PROMISES TO DAVID PRODUCED BY THE SINS OF HIS SUCCESSORS.

BY THE REV. T. S. GRIMSHAWE, M.A.

VICAR OF BIDDENHAM, BEDFORDSHIRE.

PSALM lxxxix. 30-34.

his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.

THE call of Abraham, and the promise that in him, as the great channel of God's mercy to mankind, in the advent of a Redeemer, all the families of the earth should be blessed; the gradual unfolding of this promise, and the covenant made

with David, "that his seed should be established for ever, and his throne built up to all generations," (Ps. lxxxix. 30-34) have now been fully detailed and enforced in the preceding discourses. But in that covenant there was a remarkable clause and reservation recorded in the words of the text. "If his children forsake my land, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes: nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." (Psalm lxxxix. 30-34.) The period for the execution of this solemn denunciation at length arrived, though accompanied by the assurance of final mercy. There are various passages in the Scriptures, shewing many of God's promises to be conditional, and liable to forfeiture. It is otherwise with respect to a covenant. Its privileges may be suspended for a season, but its final execution is certain. It is the suspension of God's promises to the seed of Abraham, and the causes that prepared the way for so solemn and judicial an act of his displeasure, that we are now called upon to consider. They were once a people distinguished by

the most exalted privileges; we have now to contemplate them in their decline and degradation. The history of the Jewish nation, after the time of David, furnishes a mournful catalogue of national guilt, followed by national chastisement and humiliation. The reign of Solomon, in its earlier stages, was distinguished by a splendour and glory typical of Messiah's kingdom; but it was a glory that was ere long obscured by gross idolatry, and which set in darkness. It is an extraordinary and solemn spectacle to contemplate such early piety, such devotional zeal, and eminent wisdom, terminating, with advancing years, in apostacy from God. The rending of the ten tribes, under Rehoboam, attested Judah's crime and Jehovah's chastisement. But whether the scene of probation was in the city of David, or transferred to the mountains of Samaria, the same proneness is discoverable to besetting sins; though idolatry was formally proclaimed by Jeroboam, emphatically described as the prince "that made Israel to sin.” Why should we enumerate the names of Ahab, Ahaziah, Jehoram, Manasses, and others, and God's judgments for their manifold provocations? The mind, indeed, is relieved by occasional intervals of reviving piety, under a Jehu, an Amaziah, Hezekiah, and Josiah, in the same manner as the eye of the traveller is refreshed, amidst barren