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Scripture. JEREMIAH was called to the prophetic office in the

Jeremiah.

13th year of the reign of Josiah the son of Amon, 55 A. M. 3376, A. C. 628, and continued to prophecy upwards of 40 years, during the reigns of the degenerate princes of Judah, to whom he boldly threatened those marks of the divine vengeance which their rebellious conduct drew on themselves and their country. After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, he was suffered by Nebuchadnezzar to remain in the desolate land of Judea to lament the calamities of his infatuated countrymen. He was afterwards, as he himself informs us, carried with his disciple Baruch into Egypt, by Johanan the son of Kareah.

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Chronolc

It appears from several passages that Jeremiah committed his prophecies to writing. In the 36th chapter we are informed, that the prophet was commanded to write upon a roll all the prophecies which he had uttered; and when the roll was destroyed by Jehoiakim the king, Jeremiah dictated the same prophecies to Baruch, who wrote them together with many additional circumstances. The works of Jeremiah extend to the last verse of the 51st-chapter; in which we have these words, "Thus far the words of Jeremiah." The 52d chapter was therefore added by some other writer. It is, however, a very important supplement, as it illustrates the accomplishment of Jeremiah's prophecies respecting the fate of Zedekiah.

The prophecies of Jeremiah are not arranged in the gical ar. chronological order in which they were delivered. rangement What has occasioned this transposition cannot now be of his wri- determined. It is generally maintained, that if we consult their dates, they ought to be thus placed : In the reign of Josiah the first 12 chapters.

tings.

In the reign of Jehoiakim, chapters xiii. xx. xxi. v. 11, 14.; xxii. xxiii. xxv. xxvi. xxxv. xxxvi. xlv.-xlix. I-33.

In the reign of Zedekiah, chap. xxi. 1-10. xxiv. xxvii. xxxiv. xxxvii. xxxix. xlix. 34-39. 1. and li. Under the government of Gedaliah, chapters xl. xliv. The prophecies which related to the Gentiles were con

tained in the 46th and five following chapters, being Scriptures placed at the end, as in some measure unconnected with the rest. But in some copies of the Septuagint these six chapters follow immediately after the 13th verse of the 25th chapter.

Jeremiah, though deficient neither in elegance nor sublimity, must give place in both to Isaiah. Jerome seems to object against him a sort of rusticity of language, no vestige of which Dr Lowth was able to discover. His sentiments, it is true, are not always the most elevated, nor are his periods always neat and compact; but these are faults common to those writers whose principal aim is to excite the gentler affections, and to call forth the tear of sympathy or sorrow. This observation is very strongly exemplified in the Lamentations, where these are the prevailing passions; it is, however, frequently instanced in the prophecies of this author, and most of all in the beginning of the book (L), which is chiefly poetical. The middle of it is almost entirely historical. The latter part, again, consisting of the last six chapters, is altogether poetical (M); it contains several different predictions, which are distinctly marked; and in these the prophet approaches very near the sublimity of Isaiah. On the whole, however, not above half the book of Jeremiah is poetical.

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The book of Lamentations, as we are informed in The book the title, was composed by Jeremiah. We shall present of Lamento our reader an account of this elegiac poem from the tations. elegant pen of Dr Lowth.

The Lamentations of Jeremiah (for the title is properly and significantly plural) consist of a number of plaintive effusions, composed on the plan of the funeral dirges, all on the same subject, and uttered without connection as they rose in the mind, in a long course of separate stanzas. These have afterwards been put together, and formed into a collection or correspondent whole. If any reader, however, should expect to find in them an artificial and methodical arrangement of the general subject, a regular disposition of the parts, a perfect connection and orderly succession in the matter, and

VOL. XIX. Part I.

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