The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

ii. 10-17.] THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 153
That is to say, both add to the misery of the Jews
the one class in mockery, the other in hatred. But
what are these men at their worst ? Behind them is
the real Power that is the source of all the misery.
If the enemy rejoices it is only because God has given
him the occasion. The Lord has been carrying out
His own deliberate intentions ; nay, these events are
but the execution of commands He issued in the days
of old.'^ This reads like an anticipation of the Calvin-
istic decrees. But perhaps the poet is referring to the
solemn threatening of Divine Judgment pronounced
by a succession of prophets. Their message had been
unheeded by their contemporaries. Now it has been
verified by history. Remembering what that message
was—how it predicted woes as the punishment of
sins, how it pointed out a way of escape, how it threw
all the responsibility upon those people who were
so infatuated as to reject the warning—we cannot
read into the poet's lines any notion of absolute pre-
destination.
In the midst of this description of the miseries of
Jerusalem the elegist confesses his own inability to
comfort her. He searches for an image large enough
for a just comparison with such huge calamities as he
has in view. His language resembles that of our Lord
when He exclaims, ** Whereunto shall I liken the
kingdom of God ? " " a similarity which may remind us
that if the troubles of man are great beyond earthly
analogy, so also are the mercies of God. Compare
these two, and there can be no question as to which
way the scale will turn. Where sin and misery abound
grace much more abounds. But now the poet is con-
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ii. 17.
- Luke xiii. 20.
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