vi. Some Religious Ideas.— The Book of Jer does not so much teach reli<jious truths as present a religious ]iersoiia1ity. I'ropliecy had already taught its truths, its last efi'ort was to reveal itself in a life. But though the trutlis in Jeremiah are old, they all appear in him with an impress of personality whicli gives them novelty. He is not to be read for doctrines in their general form on God and the people, but for the nuances which his mind gives them. Though he might not be aware of it, we can perceive that all his thoughts are coloured by the religious relation to God of which he was himself conscious.
(I) Sin. — In his earliest time it is the sin of the people that occupies his mind, tlieir unfaithfulness to J". They followed Him in the wilderness, but on entering Canaan they went far away from Him. Every class became untrue to the idea of its relation to Him. It is this chnnge that seems inexplicable to the prophet. He sets it in all possible lights : ' What evil did your fathers find in me ? ' ('2°). He contrasts the fidelity of the nations to their gods, which yet are no gods (2"). At a later time he contrasts the fidelity of men even to the injunctions of tlieir ancestor, such as the Rechabites (S,")"). The instinct which guides the migrations of the stork is strangely unerring ; the instinct of man's heart, which should direct it to God, as strangely errs (8', cf. 2»- IS""-)- We understand Jeremiah's wonder at the change only when we hear him say what to his mind Cjod is : ' They have forsaken the fountain of livin" water.' Isaiali crushed himself and crashed created man to the ground with his awful Ifadosh ; his word was true, but Jeremiah's ' the fountain of livin" water ' seems to come nearer the fulness of truth. The words at any rate suggest the immediateness of the relation of man to God in religion. And it ia this that Jeremiah insists upon, as Hosea and Isaiah had done before him. His charge is the unreality of men's religion ; it is not with their real selves that they serve J", and it is not J" in His true being that they serve. Already in Josiah's days Jeremiah perceived how illusory his Reform was. Indeed it was doubtful if it had not made the condition of things worse. Men thought that when they worshipped at Jerusalem, and multi-
Flied oH'erings there, they had done what J " desired, t was a lie which was h.alf a truth, and therefore the harder to tight. It is not certain that Jeremiah thought the lawbook altogether a good. People pridM themselves on it, it was wisdom to have it ;
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thev tliought the possession of it put them ri^'ht witli God (8'- •). Pharisaism and Deuteronomy came into the world the same day. Tlie lawbook little satislied the prophetic idealism. Jeremiah seeks to draw men's minds away from all that was e.\ternal — sacrihtes, temple, arK, and lawbook — to that which was inward and real. People spoke much of reform ; he would have used another word : ' Break up the fallow ground, and sow not among thorns'; 'Circumci.su yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart' (4'') ; ' O Jeru.salcm, wash thine heart from wicked- ness ' (4'''). .Sin is ' the stubbornness of the evil heart ' (7^ 5^). It is the heart that is good or ill. Man is the heart of man. Jeremiah probably has no general doctrine of human nature or its con- dition, though he perhaps e.\i>res.se3 what is technically called hnhit when he says, ' The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is desperately sick ; who can know it 'i ' (17'). If not from nature, by practice men become incapable of good : ' Can the Kthiopian change his skin ? then may ye also do good that are inured to do evil ' ( 13-^, cl. 7^ S*"-). Momentarily awoke by the projihct's appeals, the people become conscious of their iuabilitj', exclaim- ing, 'It is hopeless' (2^ 18'^). And more gener- ally, ' It is not in man that walketh to direct hia stejis' (10'-'^). Sin is individually universal ; a man cannot be found in the streets of Jerusalem (5', cf. go. 10) jjq providences in God's hand can reform them ; the furnace will not purify them ; they have been tried, and they are found reprobate silver (C"-). Only the creative hand of God can change them ; He will give them another heart, and put His law in their inward parts (24' SI""-)- Though Jeremiah, like Hosea, begins by consider- ing the people as a moral personality, and never loses hold of the idea of the nation (31'«-^- "•»•), his thoughts juat referred to are virtually indi- vidualism.
(•J) G'(jd.—Jn his doctrine of God Jeremiah agrees with his predecessors, but with a signilicant nuance of his own. J" is God alone, the gods of the nations are no gods (2" lO'"*-), and the Gentiles shall yet confess it. J" rules among the nations, giving them all to drink of the wine of His cup, and
flutting the world and all that dwell in it into the land of Nebuchadnezzar (25'"'- 27''"'-). Like all later prophets, Jeremiah sees His power and God- head manifested in nature : ' Are there any among the vanities of the heathen that can cause rain ? or can the heavens give showers?' (H*" 5**), par- ticularly in that perpetual wonder the restraint of the raging sea {5'"'). These are external things. It is in that wliicli He is to His people and His servants that J" is truly revealed, e.r/. in His gracious designs with Israel : ' I thought how I shall put thee among the children ! ye shall call me my Father' (3'"), and in the joy which His ser- Tice brings : ' Thy words were found and I did eat them, they were the joy and rejoicing of mine heart ' (15'*). It is in the pa.ssagcs where Jeremiah intercedes for himself or the jieople that he realizes most fully what J" is, W"- '»"• 17™-, or when he gives a definition of what religion is: 'Let him that glorieth glory in this, that ho knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exerci.se loving-kindne.ss, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in tiie.sc things I delight' (O*"). But the conception ot God receives a new shade in Jeremiah. His definition of man as the heart of man leads to a c<)rrc.sp( Hiding definition of (!od : J" is He who trieth the heart and the reins (1 1* 17'" iO'').^ This definition is just the reflexion of .Jeremiah's own exjieiience. He does not infer that J" searches the heart from any general doctrine he holds of the divine omniscience ; ho reason.i the other way : Because J" tries the heart, He is omniscient, ' Can