“Then,” adds _Jeremiah_, whilst he was in the way of duty――then――whilst he was mentally crying, LORD what wouldst thou have me to do? “Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, O house of _Israel_, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the hands of the potter (marred, and unfit for the first designed purpose) so are ye in mine hand, O house of _Israel_.” At length, then, _Jeremiah_ hath his sermon given to him: short, but popular. It was to be delivered to the whole house of _Israel_, princes, priests, and people: short, but pungent, even sharper than a two-edged sword. What! says the sovereign LORD of heaven and earth, must I be denied the privilege of a common potter? May I not do what I will with my own? “Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hands, so are ye in mine hands, O house of _Israel_. I made and formed you into a people, and blessed you above any other nation under heaven: but, O _Israel_, thou by thy backslidings hast destroyed thyself. As the potter therefore might justly have thrown aside his marred clay, so may I justly unchurch and unpeople you. But what if I should come over the mountains of your guilt, heal your backslidings, revive my work in the midst of the years, and cause your latter end greatly to increase? Behold, as the clay is in the hands of the potter, lying at his disposal, either to be destroyed or formed into another vessel, so are ye in my hands, O house of _Israel_: I may either reject, and thereby ruin you, or I may revisit and revive you according to my own sovereign good will and pleasure, and who shall say unto me, what dost thou?”
This seems to be the genuine interpretation, and primary intention of this beautiful part of holy writ. But waving all further enquiries about its primary design or meaning, I shall now proceed to shew, that what the glorious Jehovah here says of the house of _Israel_ in general, is applicable to every individual of mankind in particular. And as I presume this may be done, without either wire-drawing scripture on the one hand, or wresting it from its original meaning on the other, not to detain you any longer, I shall, from the passage thus explained and paraphrased, deduce, and endeavour to enlarge on these two general heads.
_First_, I shall undertake to prove, that every man naturally engendered of the offspring of _Adam_, is in the sight of the all-seeing, heart-searching GOD, only as a “piece of marred clay.”
_Secondly_, That being thus marred, he must necessarily be renewed: and under this head, we shall likewise point out by whose agency this mighty change is to be brought about.
These particulars being discussed, way will naturally be made for a short word of application.
_First_, To prove that every man naturally engendered of the offspring of _Adam_, is in the sight of an all-seeing, heart-searching GOD, only as a piece of marred clay.
Be pleased to observe, that we say every man _naturally_ engendered of the offspring of _Adam_, or every man since the fall: for if we consider man as he first came out of the hands of his Maker, he was far from being in such melancholy circumstances. No: he was originally made upright; or as _Moses_, that sacred penman, declares, “GOD made him after his own image.” Surely never was so much expressed in so few words; which hath often made me wonder how that great critic _Longinus_, who so justly admires the dignity and grandeur of _Moses_’s account of the creation, and “GOD said, Let there be light, and there was light;” I say I have often wondered why he did not read a little further, and bestow as just an encomium upon this short, but withal inexpressibly august and comprehensive description of the formation of man, “so GOD created man in his own image.” Struck with a deep sense of such amazing goodness, and that he might impress yet a deeper sense of it upon our minds too, he immediately adds, “in the image of GOD made he him.” A council of the most adorable Trinity was called on this important occasion: GOD did not say, Let there be a man, and there was a man, but GOD said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” This is the account which the lively oracles of GOD do give us of man in his first estate: but it is very remarkable, that the transition from the account of his creation to that of his misery, is very quick, and why? For a very good reason, because he soon fell from his primeval dignity; and by that fall, the divine image is so defaced, that he is now to be valued only as antiquarians value an ancient medal, merely for the sake of the image and superscription once stamped upon it; or of a second divine impress, which, through grace, it may yet receive.