The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 261

Vers. 23, 24.-The cltief good. The people had little reason to glory in their wisdom, or power, or wealth. These natural resources had utterly failed them as a safeguard against the avenger and destroyer. The prophet directs them to an infinitely surer ground of trust, 11, higher cause of rejoicing. These words are a striking appeal to faith, all the more remarkable because of the despern.te circumstances of the time. In spite of all the desolation of the land, the wreck and ruin of all their pride as a nation, let them hold fast to their faith in the Jiving God, and especially in those attributes of his being and principles of his government-loving-kindness, judgment, righteousness -which such circumstances tend to obscure and seem even to disprove. We fix our minds now simply on this thought-the lcnowledge of God and personal fellowship wit11 liim are immeasurably more worth our seeldng and i·ejoicing in than all those endowments u•hich to the carnal eye are so full of cliarm. There is a natural tendency in men to rejoice unduly in the good that they derive by birth, or education, or the favour of providence, forgetting that the chief good is something of a different kind, something that must come to them in a different way. Nothing that tends to enrich and arlorn and gladden our life in this world is to be despised; but if we measure things by 11, true standard, and esteem them according to their real and relative value, we shall place everything else that men call good or great beneath that which connects us directly with God and heaven and immortality. Note respecting this higher good- I. IT 18 MORE TRULY OUR OWN THAN ANYTHING ELBE OAN EVER DE. 'l'his is seen if we consider: 1. The way in which it becomes ours. 'fhe surface acquirements and adornments of life-wealth, social position, favourable circumstances, etc., cannot be called "ours " in the sense in which that which is an inherent element of our individuality is ours. And even as regards personal qualities, there are important differences. Whatever natural gifts belong to us, our own will has had nothing to do with our possession of them. 'l'heir development may be dependent on it, but in their origin they are not BO. Whereas the affections that connect us with God tell how the deepest depths of our being were stirred at their birth within us. Nothing so truly ours as that which has thus become ours. 2. The absolute satisfaction it brings, All the " springs of our being " are in God. He is the true Home and blissful Centre of rest for every human spirit. "'fhe_good man is satisfied from himseU" (Prov. xiv.14), not because of anything in the resources of his own finite being, but because he has learnt by the utter renunciation of all trust in these to find his true "self" in God. 3. lts perpetuity. ,ve mn.y soon be bereft of all other endowments; this we can never lose. There is no possession over which a man can rejoice in this world which is not precarious and uncertain. And though the sense of this need not check our free use cH. ix. 1-26.] TIIE BOOK OF 'l'.l:lE PROPHET JEREM!All. 2Gl