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X.

phet's confolatory address to her, DISC.
upon that occafion: after which we
fhall be prepared, in the

Second place, To take a view of those
parallel circumstances, which offer
themselves in the lamentation made
by the Bethlehemitish mothers, and
the cause thereof, with the confide-
ration which was to adminifter com-
fort to them, in the day of their
great and bitter affliction.

The mournful fcene is laid by Jeremiah in Ramah, a city belonging to the tribe of Benjamin, of which tribe, it may be obferved, the prophet himself was a member, as we learn from the first verse in his book; "The words of Jeremiah the fon "of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin." The perfon introduced by him, as making lamentation, is Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob, and the mother of that tribe. She had before borne Jofeph, at which

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VOL. I.

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time

DISC. time by divine instinct, with allusion to

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the name just imposed, she said—“ The "LORD fhall add to me another fon." In childbirth, however, through the prevalence of her pains, fhe was induced to give up her former hopes of a second son, for loft. Her attendant endeavoured to comfort her with her own prediction; "Fear "not, for thou fhalt have this fon alfo." Yet, "when her foul was in departing (for fhe died!)”—never surely was there a more affecting parenthesis-" when her "foul was in departing (for fhe died!) fhe "called his name Benoni," that is, the fon of my forrow. "His father," feeking to avert the omen with speed, "called him

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Benjamin," or, the fon of the right hand, that is, of power and glory.

Heu nunquam vana parentum auguriathe obfervation of an heathen poet, is found more particularly verified in the history of the patriarchs, because among them there was often a forefight more than human, and the profpect into futurity was opened

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opened to them by a light from above. DISC. The different fates of the tribe of Benjamin feem to have answered the different names impofed at the birth of it's founder, by father and mother. No tribe more valorous than that; none more afflicted with difafters and calamities. At one time flaughtered by it's fellow tribes, almoft to excifion, a true Benoni to Rachel, who, had the been alive, must have "wept for her "children, with an exceeding bitter weep

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ing;" at another, reftored to populoufnefs and profperity, placed, as it were, at the head of the reft, furnishing the first king, who ruled God's people Israel, and realizing the name and character of Benjamin, the son of the right hand.

Upon the revolt of the ten tribes, Benjamin adhered to Judah, then the royal tribe, the tribe that gave birth to David, the tribe from which, in the fulness of time, a greater than David was to descend. When Jeremiah uttered the words now under our confideration, Judah was closely befieged

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DIS C. befieged in Jerufalem by the Chaldean X. army, in whose way thither the land of Benjamin lay. It experienced, therefore, of course, all the horrors of invafion. It was miferably wafted, and it's inhabitants were carried away into captivity. This is the reason why old Rachel still renews her former complaint, and will not be persuaded, but that Benjamin must ftill be Benoni. She and her daughters (for under the name of Rachel we must comprehend all the woful mothers of that tribe) fill the heavens with their outcries, whilft their children are forced from their embraces into miferable bondage in Babylon. And though mention be only made of Ramah, a city of Benjamin, yet must we imagine the wailings to have been as loud and bitter about Bethlehem, which, though in the tribe of Judah, was upon the borders of Benjamin, and near unto the place where Rachel died; as we read in Genefis ; "Rachel died, and "was buried in the way to Ephrath, which “is Bethlehem, and Jacob fet a pillar upon "her grave; that is the pillar of Rachel's

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"grave unto this day "." Such was "the DISC. "voice heard" in the days of Jeremiah, the lamentation, and the bitter weep

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ing;" when "Rachel," as the general mother, and reprefentative of all the mothers in the tribe, " weeping for her chil"dren, refused to be comforted, because "they were not." As a people, they had no civil existence. They were, in that fense, loft; they were dead; they were gone into captivity.

It was under these circumftances, that the prophet addreffed the difconfolate mother confidering him as a Benjamite, we may fay, his difconfolate mother" Thus "faith the LORD, Refrain thy voice from "weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for

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thy work fhall be rewarded, faith the "LORD, and they fhall come again from "the land of the enemy; and there is

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hope in thine end, faith the LORD, that

thy children fhall come again to their "own border.” As if he had faid in

other words

a Gen. xxxv. 20.

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-Remem

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