Here then we have the whole mystery solved, and the whole thing explained. In His sure Word of prophecy our heavenly Father told us what He would do, and the desolate hills of Palestine bear witness that He has done it. We may long to see them clothed once more with the vine and the olive, and we may profoundly pity their lawful proprietors, who look on their lawful home—once so beautiful, but now so desolate! But yet we cannot look even on that desolation without thanksgiving, for it is an evidence to all thinking men of the certain truth of God’s inspired Word. Those who refer to those desolate hills as an argument against the truth forget that the desolation to which they refer is a conclusive proof of the truth of the _prophetic_ Word of God. Thus we are carried by this third proof far beyond either geographical accuracy or historical truth. A book may be geographically accurate, or historically true, and yet not be inspired. But no _man_ can foretell the future. No man can look forward 3,000 years. No man, therefore, could span over all those centuries and tell us ages ago what would be the condition of Palestine in this nineteenth century. But God has done it. We thank God, therefore, for His Word, and we thank Him also for the testimony of the rocks. Nay, more, we may thank Him even for the sneers of such a man as Voltaire, for the very sneers are a proof to the students of the Scriptures that God’s prophecy is being fulfilled, and that God’s Holy Word may be trusted as divine. But we must not leave the subject there, for we are taught a most solemn lesson as to the desolating power of a righteous God. He who has reduced those fertile hills to desolation, cannot He equally desolate the soul, and reduce the poor ruined heart to a similar condition of barren hopelessness? And will He not do it if His great salvation be neglected? I know that it is the fashion to believe that He is too merciful to punish; but for my own part I find it much more easy to believe that he is too true to declare that which he has no intention of performing. If the Word of God be true, “Verily there is a God that judgeth the earth,” and we cannot doubt that to the guilty sinner He must prove “a consuming fire.” But, thanks be to His Holy Name, if the warnings be true, so also are the promises. If the judgment be certain, so also is the salvation. If the minister of wrath be sure to fulfil the Word of judgment, so also is the blessed Saviour perfectly sure to fulfil the promises of life. If the law condemn with infallible certainty, so also does the Gospel proclaim that the claim of the law is satisfied in the great propitiation by the Son of God; so that any one, even the least and most unworthy of His people, may peacefully rest in the certainty of His never-failing Word, and abide in perfect peace, and perfect safety, in the perfect truth, and never-failing covenant of God. SCOFFERS.