3. The effect produced upon the Seer by eating the little roll is also in accord with what has been said. _It shall make thy belly bitter_, it was said to him, _but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey_; and the effect followed. _It was in my mouth_, he says, _sweet as honey: and when I had eaten it, my belly was made bitter_. Such an effect could hardly follow the mere proclamation of judgment on the world. When we look at that judgment in the light in which it ought to be regarded, and in which we have hitherto regarded it--as the vindication of righteousness and of a Divine and righteous order--the thought of it can impart nothing but joy. But to think that the Church of the living God, the bride of Christ, shall be visited with judgment, and to be compelled to acknowledge that the judgment is deserved; to think that those to whom so much has been given should have given so little in return; to think of the selfishness which has prevailed where love ought to have reigned, of worldliness where there ought to have been heavenliness of mind, and of discord where there ought to have been unity--these are the things that make the Christian's reflections "bitter;" they, and they most of all, are his perplexity, his burden, his sorrow, and his cross. The world may disappoint him, but from it he expected little. When the Church disappoints him, the "foundations are overturned," and the honey of life is changed into gall and wormwood. Combining the particulars which have now been noticed, we seem entitled to conclude that the little book-roll of this chapter is a roll of judgment, but of judgment relating less to the world than to the Church. It tells us that that sad experience of hers which is to meet us in the following chapters ought neither to perplex nor overwhelm us. The experience may be strange, very different from what we might have expected and hoped for; but the thread by which the Church is guided has not passed out of the hands of Him who leads His people by ways that they know not into the hands of an unsympathizing and hostile power. As His counsels in reference to the world, and to the Church in her general relation to it, contained in the great book-roll of chap. v., shall stand, so the internal relations of the two parts of His Church to each other, together with the issues depending upon them, are equally under His control. If judgment falls upon the Church, it is not because God has forgotten to be gracious, or has in anger shut up His tender mercies, but because the Church has sinned, because she is in need of chastisement, and because she must be taught that only in direct dependence upon the voice of the Good Shepherd, and not in the closest "fold" that can be built for her, is she safe. Let her "know" Him, and she shall be known of Him even as He is known of the Father.[241] FOOTNOTES: [231] Ezek. ii. 9; iii. 4. [232] Comp. chaps. vi. 11; xx. 3. [233] Rom. ix. 28. [234] Comp. chaps. i. 3; xxii. 7, 10, 18, 19.