Matthew has not made a
mistake, but knew the Scriptures better than we do.
But I think Jeremiah having written this prophecy in my text, which I
believe he did, is also very important, because it will show us what
the prophet meant when he spoke it, and how it was fulfilled in his
time; and the better we understand that, the better we shall
understand how our blessed Lord fulfilled it afterwards.
Now, when Jeremiah was a young man, the Jews and their king Amon were
in a state of most abominable wickedness. They were worshipping
every sort of idol and false god. And the Bible, the book of God's
law, was utterly unknown amongst them; so that Josiah the king, who
succeeded Amon, had never seen or heard the book of the law of Moses,
which makes part of our Old Testament, till he had reigned eighteen
years, as you will find if you refer to 2 Kings xxii. 3. But this
Josiah was a gentle and just prince, and finding the book of the law
of God, and seeing the abominable forgetfulness and idolatry into
which his people had fallen, utterly breaking the covenant which God
had made with their forefathers when he brought them up out of Egypt--
when he found the book of the law, I say, and all that he and his
people should have done and had not done, and the awful curses which
God threatened in that book against those who broke His law, "he
humbled himself before God, because his heart was tender, and turned
to the Lord, as no king before him had ever turned," says the
scripture, "with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all
his might; so that there was no such king before him, or either after
him.
Pages:
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384