The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 158

Ver. 16. - The old paths. Men are surrounded from their earliest years with various religious systems, the claims of which conflict. 'l'o a. conscientious mind, intellectual disquietude is the first result of this; in those less in earnest it produces and justifies indifference. .All religions tend, under these circumstances, to assume the aspect of speculative questions, and the moral life is increasingly detached from reli!,rious sanctions. Morality must thereby be impaired, if it do not ultimately dis- appear. The prophet, therefore, recalls the people to the consideration of religion as IL practical question. It is with him a question not of pure theory, but of conduct and experience. He urges the settlement of the conflict upon these grounds, and furnishes certain criteria. by which to determine it. I. ANTIQUITY IB A TEST OF TRUE RELIGION, Man is a religious being by nature, and God has never left himself without a. witness in the world. There has bee11 no generation in which some ha.ve not sought and found him. From the very fil'llt, therefore, there must ha.ve been religious conditions observed, which from their nature must be, as they were intended to be, permanent. The argument for the existence of God, for instance, is greatly strengthened by the evidence of the recognition of him by primitive and ancient peoples. Even in their errors a.nd mistakes, when their views and observances are collated and compared, witness is given to fundamental trnths. But the argument is stronger still when the people appealed to are those who, like Israel, have an historical faith. Ages of faith were behind them, illustrated by mighty heroes and saintly men of God. For ages a certain communion bad been observed between the nation and its theocratic Head. What was the secular character of those ages? Were they marked by political strength, social order and purity, and commercial prosperity? Were the leaders of the people men whose ideal of life and actual beha- viour commended themselves to the general conscience of the world? \Vns it to be supposed that any essential truth for the spiritual guidance of men had to be discovered thus late in the day? Were men to be always on tiptoe to learn what the last finding of research might be? There were paths that had been tried by holy men. When the nation was at its best, it acknowledged God in these ways. 'l'he vast majority of those who were holiest and best hod tried them and found them satisfactory. II. BoT DISCRIMINATION IS REQUIRED. 'l'he children of Israel wero to "stand iu the ways," i.e. to examine the different systems of religion and morals that laid claim to their attenlion. Critical and historical judgment had to bo exercised. It is not simply the oldest religion that is to be retained and followed, but th11t in the religious history of the past which has most evidently conduced to noble action, spiritual heallh, and well-being, The heathenisms of the world are solf-comlcmned; immorality has ever tended to destruction. The Englishman, therefore, is not to look to the Druids for infallible teaching; nor Christians to the saints of the Old Testament times. '!'he dictum of Ignatius is sound: Nobis vet·a antiquitas est Jesus O/iristv.s. But the teaching and personality of Jesus were commended by their essential agreement with Mosaicism in its most nncient form; as that in turn was but a confirmation and elabo- ration of patriarchal convictions, experiences, and revelations. Tho truth that has been held in all ages is retained in each new development of revelation nnd history, but it I~ spiritualized and grounded upon deeper and wider ijanctions.  1:.6 THE BOOK OF 'fHE PROPHET JEREMIAH. [oil. v1, 1....30.