The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 183

Ver. 16.-The ancient paths to be sought and wal,ked in. I. THE ADDRESS 18 TO THOSB WHO ARE ALREADY WALKING IN A CERTAIN WAY. There is activity of the whole life, a conscious and chosen activity. We are sometimes spoken of as being asleep and needing to be awakened out of sleep, and even as being dead and needing to be renewed to life; but here there is rather an approach to the other extreme in the aspect of sinful man that is presented. One kind of movement in human life lies beyond choice. Man must move on, from birth, through time, into eternity. '!'his is a move- ment which, as he does not produce it, so neither can he in the least retard it, But now we are called to notice another kind of movement, that which man chooses-- emphatically chooses-and into which he throws oftentimes his whole energy. Thus there is no man but what is in a path which he has chosen. However much he may seem to be the sport of circumstances, yet it will be found, in the complete inspection of his heart, that he loves to have circumstances moving him rather than that he should do what he can towards controlling circumstances. Moreover, the address is to those who are walking in a wrong way. Evidently they are persisting in it. And it is not only wrong, but seriously, even fatally, wrong. Yet, though the address is to those in the wrong way, there is every reason why those who happily are in the right way should also consider the appeal. If it is very difficult to turn from the wrong way into the right, it is very easy to make some divergence, at first imperceptible, from the right way, and so become most dangerously entangled in the wrong one. II. THERE IS AN APPEAL TO THOSE ADDRESSED, TO GIVE THE MATTER IN QUESTION :ru:osT EAUNEST CONSIDERATION. There is surely a great deal in these two words, see and aslc. The difference between right and wrong is also the difference between the soul's highest bliss and deepest misery; but it is a difference only to be comprehended when the soul is thoroughly in earnest to get to the bottom of all that is involved in the difference. Hence we are told to look; and we must be sure that we see as we ought to see. It is quite possible to have eyes and to look towards a thing, and yet to be practically bli~d, not discerning the real nature of it. A man's ways may be right iu his own eyes ; he may think the warnings of others, or the differing course that they take, to be mere scrupulosity, ending in nothing. Wherefore a man is to distrust his eyes, and add to what they may tell him the information to be gotten by the hearing of the ear. It is interesting to notice how sometimes the eye confirms the ear, and :sometimes the ear the eye. Here the man is to make tho tongue follow the eye, asking to follow upon seeing; so that he may got information on a matter of the utmost moment from authorities on whom he may depend with the utmost confidence. We must not dare to blame any one but ourselves if we make some gross error in the conduct of our life. God knows how easily the children of men wander ; and so ho expects them to do all they can by way of making suro that they are in the right road. Consider how alert some people are, in travelling by rail, lest perchance 11n omitted inquiry may send them in a wrong direction. A prudent man will never miss his way for want of asking. Yet these very people, who are reckoned prudent in such a small matter as finding their way from one place to another on the surfaca of the earth, are indifferent to an event which it is awful to contemplate, wheu thoy aro told to see and ask if they bo in tho right way for eternity. III. Onsi;nn: TIIE DEl'INITENESS WUICH 18 GIVEN 'l'O ·rHE LOOKING AND TUE ASKING. cu. v1. 1-30.] THE IlOOK OF '!'HE l'RUPHE'l' JEREMIAH. 181