Lam. iii. 54 — 57. Waters flowed over mine head ; then I said, I am cut off. I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the loiv dungeon. Thou hast heard my voice : hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry. Thou dreivest near in the day that I called upon thee : thou saidst, Fear not.
THE Prophet Jeremiah was inferior to none in a compassionate regard for his country, whose cala- mities he bitterly deplored : yet was there no one more injuriously treated than he. He might well say of himself, " I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath3." Of his grief, on account of his country's sufferings, and of the sad returns which his enemies made to him, he speaks in the preceding context, and in terms peculiarly tender and pathetic : 'f Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people. Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission, till the Lord look down from heaven. Mine eye afflicteth mine heart, because of all the daughters of my city. [Yet] mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause. They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me." The working of his mind, in this afflictive situation, he delineates in the words of our text : from which we may notice,
I. To what a state God's most favoured servants may be reduced —
[Jeremiah, for his fidelity in declaring God's purposes respecting that rebellious people, was cast into a dungeon, where he sunk in the mire, and was left to perish b. And in this situation he altogether despaired of life, and said, " I am cut off," " I am cut off out of the land of the living!" Dis- tressing as this situation was, it may yet be expected to be endured by the faithful ministers of God in every age. Peter, in his day, was laden with chains in an inner prison, without the slightest hope of surviving the day appointed for his execution0. Paul and Silas also, with their backs lacerated
a ver. 1. b Jer. xxxviii. 4 — 6. c Acts xii. 6.