monarchy (viz. "kings sitting upon the throne of David") if they would but resolve to execute judgment and righteousness;" to "deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor;" and to do no wrong, no violence, "to the stranger," &c. But the prophet also added much more advice to the king and his court, though he was not li made of the king's council (See 2 Chron. xxv- 16 to 24.);" for he boldly warned the monarch by the tremendous examples of God's judgments upon three of his immediate predecessors in the kingdom; two of whom were his own brothers, the sons of king Josiah; and the third his own nephew, whom he immediately succeeded. They were all particularly mentioned by him in the proper order of their respective reigns, as we find by the copy of his message or remonstrance, preserved in the collections of his prophecies; and, throughout the said remonstrance, frequent allusions are made to the principal causes of the failure and destruction of each of them which afford a most striking and interesting lesson to kings and governors in general; but it must have been more particularly affecting to Zedekiah, if we consider his critical situation at the time the message was delivered to him, and that the examples of vengeance, to which the prophet referred him, were actually accomplished in the persons of his nearest relations and predecessors, who were successively deprived of their royal dignity, and carried away in chains into a slavish captivity; the very fate which, the prophet assured him, was to be his own!
But before I recite the remainder of God's message to the court of Zedekiah, it will be necessary for me to give some general account of that monarch and of his immediate predecessors, in order that the remonstrance, in which they are all distinctly mentioned, may be more easily understood by the generality of readers. It will likewise be necessary for me to prove, that the whole 22d chapter of Jeremiah is included in that message, or remonstrance, which the prophet was then to deliver in the presence of the whole court of Zedekiah. And I propose to insert also some remarks, as they occur, concerning the prophet himself, and
