TJ If we are to get at the heart of Jeremiah's meaning we had ' better change this word " covenant " into the word " religion," and • the full significance of the prophet's startling teaching will begin to dawn upon us. That is a fair enough equivalent. The word " religion " does not occur in the Old Testament, but the word
132 THE NEW COVENANT
" covenant " is found some three hundred times ; and when it is used to describe the relation of the people to God it really means religion. The core of the covenant is, " I will be their God, and they shall be my people," but if you wanted to describe a true and living religion, could you come across better words than these to mark the relation to God in which it consists ? x
2. The words were uttered at a time of national disaster. Jerusalem was captured by the Assyrians, and Jeremiah was taken prisoner to Kamah. During the time of his imprisonment he looked forward to the day when Israel should again be free. Before that could happen, however, he saw that a great change must come over the people. The Old Covenant had proved a failure, not by reason of its own defects, but by reason of the
. conception of it as an external and legal code, imposing its laws upon a people whose inward spiritual life it had long ceased to reflect. Now the glory of Jeremiah is that in that dark night his heart was filled with hope. " The old order changeth, yield- ing place to new." Eeligion is not to die, although the forms in which of old it found expression are antiquated and ready to perish. A better religion is to rise out of the ashes. He is the prophet of a new religion. He cannot mourn. He cannot sorrow and be in continual heaviness. If he sees Simeon in the Temple tottering and on the brink of the grave, he sees that he holds the infant Christ in his arms. The new and the better age is about
» to be ; the light of the morning is on his face ; it is the shadows of the night that flee away. Here indeed is an inspiring optimism. The political order changes; the ecclesiastical order changes ; the theological order changes ; and through all, not only does religion not die, but it passes forward to a nobler, worthier life ; it becomes purer, more spiritual, more personal.
TJ Archdeacon Boutflower, who was Bishop Westcott's domestic chaplain throughout his episcopate, refers as follows to his Diocesan's hopefulness and faith in the future of Christianity : — " Parallel to that freshness of powers and interest which the Bishop brought to his last day of work, and still more wonderful, was the freshness of hope and sympathy which he carried to the end. This, no doubt, was cultivated in contemplation, but it was a singular grace of temperament to start with. In mind he never grew old. Occasionally he would say, 'I am too old for such
1 A. Ramsay, Studies in Jeremiah, 263.
JEREMIAH xxxi. 31-34 133
things now'; but it was not really true, and only half-serious. To most men there comes a time when they grow tired of readapt- ation and of looking forward. They speak of the past with a touch of regret, and the young feel that they are out of sympathy. There were no signs of this about our dear Bishop to the last. He was more hopeful than the youngest of us. He welcomed every new development, if only he was persuaded it was true development, and he waited for more. The Divine Spirit he believed in was a living Spirit, speaking and moving in the Church to-day, and he trusted every fresh age to add to the glory of God's revelation. And he expected God still to send messages through Samuel to Eli. ' You must see visions,' he said to one of his younger clergy — ' I despair of you if you don't. Visions belong to youth ; when you are older you will only dream dreams.' " 1
I.
The Need of a New Covenant.
1. There had been many covenants — all of them ineffectual. God is said to have made a covenant with Noah, when He promised that a judgment like the flood should not be repeated ; and with Abraham, when He promised Canaan to his descendants for an everlasting possession, and imposed the condition of circumcision. But by the phrase, " the Old Covenant," is meant especially the covenant which God made with Israel as a people on Mount Sinai. The writing called the " Book of the Covenant " comprised the Ten Commandments, and the body of laws which are recorded in the twenty-first and two following chapters of Exodus. These were the conditions imposed by God when He entered into covenant relations with Israel ; and the solemn act by which this covenant was inaugurated is described in the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus. Gathered at the base of the holy mountain, before an altar resting on twelve pillars, in honour of the twelve tribes, the people waited silent and awestruck, while twelve delegates (as yet there was no priesthood) offered such sacrifices as yet were possible, and while the lawgiver sprinkled the blood of the victims upon the assembled multitude. That ceremony had a latent meaning, unperceived at the time, which