" be sure that your sin will find you out." " Fear not man, therefore, who can only kill the body; but fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell: yea, I say unto you, Fear Him."
Jer. xlv. 5. Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek
them not.
WORLDLINESS is a great and common evil : and it is often manifested in those from whom we should least expect it. The sons of Zebedee solicited the highest posts of honour in their Master's kingdom, immediately after he had been foretelling his cru- cifixion : and all the disciples disputed about pre- eminence even at the last supper, just after they had been warned, that one of them would betray his Lord. Thus Baruch, when he had been writing in a book all the prophecies of Jeremiah, wherein God's deter- mination to destroy the Jewish nation had been repeatedly declared, was promising himself years of ease and affluence ; and was afraid to write another copy of the prophecies, lest the king, who had de- stroyed the former copy, should put him to death. Jeremiah therefore was ordered by God to reprove him ; to tell him what had been the secret thoughts of his heart3, and to warn him against indulging such an unbecoming spirit b.
The prohibition in the text being applicable to all in every age, we shall shew,
I. When we may be said to seek great things for ourselves —
In direct reference to the text itself we observe, that this may be said of us,
1. When the objects of our pursuit are great —
a ver. 3.
b To see this connexion, read the thirty-sixth chapter, and then the forty-fifth, which, in the series of Jeremiah's prophecies, ought to follow it.