love of country, and might well be commended to loudmouthed 'patriots'
in modern lands.

Look at the piled-up clauses of the long indictment of Judah in verses
12 to 16. Slow, passionless, unsparing, the catalogue enumerates the
whole black list. It is like the long-drawn blast of the angel of
judgment's trumpet. Any trace of heated emotion would have weakened
the impression. The nation's sin was so crimson as to need no
heightening of colour. With like judicial calmness, with like
completeness, omitting nothing, does 'the book,' which will one day be
opened, set down every man's deeds, and he will be 'judged according
to the things that are written in this book.' Some of us will find our
page sad reading.

But the points brought out in this indictment are instructive. Judah's
idolatry and 'trespass after all the abominations of the heathen' is,
of course, prominent, but the spirit which led to their idolatry,
rather than the idolatry itself, is dwelt on. Zedekiah's doing 'evil
in the sight of the Lord' is regarded as aggravated by his not
humbling himself before Jeremiah, and the head and front of his
offending is that 'he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from
turning unto the Lord.' Similarly, the people's sin reaches its climax
in their 'mocking' and 'scoffing' at the prophets and 'despising'
God's words by them. So then, an evil life has its roots in an
alienated heart, and the source of all sin is an obstinate self-will.
That is the sulphur-spring from which nothing but unwholesome streams
can flow, and the greatest of all sins is refusing to hear God's voice
when He speaks to us.

Further, this indictment brings out the patient love of God seeking,