The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 53

wealth that man should let his whole heart rest upon it; should come to let the com- forts, occupations, and hopes of life depend upon external possessions. There is failure also when men put confidence in self, confidence in present views of life, present feelings, present vigour of body and mind, in natural qnalities, such as shrewdness, seH- control, presence of minrl, and in habits of attention, industry, and promptitude, that have been cultivated. What manifest failure also often comes from too much confi- dence in the judgment of man I '!'he counsels of the wisest, most experienced, most successful of men, must be listened to with discretion. III. THE BEASON WHY SUCH CONFIDENCES DO NOT BRING PROSPERITY IS MADE PLAIN. They are not confidences after God's own heart. They are an ungodly waste of affections and energies given for higher purposes and more durable occupations. The practical lesson is that we should reject all confidences if we are not made quite certain that God approves them. Blessed is that man who has found his way, it may be through many losses and agonizing pains, to the truth that the unseen is more trust- worthy than the seen, the eternal than the temporal. One who has thus risen into the sphere of Di vino realities may have his confidences rejected and despised of men. What do these rejections matter? He who has firm hold of God himself need not to care for contemptuous words. The hard words of worldly men cannot destroy spiritual prosperity.-Y. Ver. 13.-The people's si11. This is the sum and substance of the charge the prophet was called to. bring against Israel. Idolatry was their destroying sin, the root of all their discords and miseries. It involved the renunciation of their allegiance to the God of their fathers, and in this their conduct was without a parallel. No instance of such apostasy could be found elsewhere. Those whom God had chosen to be witnesses for him before all the world were put to shame in this respect by the very heathen whom it was their mission to enlighten and bless. But we may regard this as the condemna- tion of the whole human race, "'l'hey have forsaken,'' elc. Note the view we get here- I. OF TilE DEING OF Goo AND TFIE RELATION HE SUSTAINS TOWARDS us. "Tbo Fountain of living waters" (see also eh. xvii. 13; Ps. xxxvi. 9). 1. He is emphatically the Living One. The grand distinction of the Bible is that it reveals " the living God." The Name Jehovah, the myste1ious and incommunicablo Name, was expressive of this. "And God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM," etc. (Exod. iii. 14). Abso- lute existence-essential, independent, necessary being-is the idea it conveys. The knowledge of such a spiritual Being, of a personality kindred with our own but abso- lutely exempt from its limitations, is our supreme need. David did but utter forth the insatiable longing of our nature for its true home, its only possible resting-place, when be cried, " My soul thirsteth for God, yea, for the living God." We want, not mere vague impressions of infinitude and eternity, but an Infinite and Eternal One in whom we may trust. Not mere abstract ideas of truth, and beauty, and righteousness, anrl love, but Oue of whom these are the unchanging attributes, and to whom, in the frailty of our nature, we can fly for refuge. " Our heart and our flesh cry out for the living God." 2. He is the Giver and Sustainer of all other forms of spirit-life. The" Foun- tain" of life; all other existences are dependent upon him, "The Father of spirits; " "we also are his offspring;" "in him we live and move and have our being." Whether our spirit-\ife once given can eyer become ext,iuct again may be u. matter or doubt and controversy, but certainly it cannot be regarded as absolute and necessary existence. Though God may have endowed our nature with bis own immortality, we do not possess immortality in the sense in which he does. "He only bath immortality." Ours is.not self-existent being; it is dependent on him from whom it came-an out- flow of the "Fountain" of life. 3. He is the Source of all that nourishes, enriches, and gladdens this dependent creature•life-" the Fountain of living waters." "L,ving waters" are the Divine satisfactions of the· human soul. 'fhe Scriptures abound with similar figurative representations (Gen. iL 10; Zech. xiv. 8; John iv. H; Rev. xxii. 1,17). Every age has had its witness to the truth that man's real satisfactions are only to be found in God. In Christ that witness is perfected, that truth verified. " This is the record," etc. (1 John v. 11, 12). Here are the conditions of infinite blessedness for every one of us, To be separn,ted from God in Christ, to turn away from him, is to  48 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREl\llAH. [en. m.1-2/i.