The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 348

find the darkness growing more and more deep and dense around them. It is often something like this when men are unfaithful to their real convictions and negligent of the acknowledged claims of God. Trifle with truth and conscience, and you cannot wonder that truth should become to you a mere mocking shadow, and conscience a per- petual foe to your peace. Despise the sacred privileges and obligations of life, and you make them to be sources of heavy condemnation. Let the light be scorned or abused, and it turns into "the shadow of death." "Walk while ye have the light, lest dark- ness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth " (John xii. 35).-W. Ver. 23.-.A moral impossibility. This passage expresses the hopelessness of tl1c prophet as regards the success of any human effort to persuade the people to forsake their evil ways, or by any efforts of their own to save themselves. It suggests- !. THE mVETERACY OF BIN, 1. Arising from the depravity of natwe. The dark spots and the ebon skin have a hidden cause. Sins are the natural outcome of sin. All forms of wrong-doing are but symptoms on the surface of a secret moral disease. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts," etc. (Matt. xv. 19). 2. The force of habit. "Use is second nature." Cnstom_ has a power over men that rivals that of native propensity. As good habit is a most effective educator of every form of virtue, so, on the other hand, when habit has been allowed to foster the evil tendencies of a man's nature, he becomes hopelessly " tied and bound with the chain of his sins." II. '£HE MORAL IMPOTENCE IT ENGENDERS. Sin not only corrupts the springs of a man's moral life, but :i,aralyzes all his nobler powers, robs him of the ability to act out the better instincts of his nature. The voice of natural conscience may not be wholly silenced, the natural heart may not be utterly destitute of good impulses; but there is no redeeming power in these. .As well expect the darkness to give birth to light, and life to spring spontaneously out of death, as suppose that a sin-loving, sin-hardened man will of himself forsake his evil ways. He will never be able by his own hand " to pluck the vicious quitch of blood and custom wholly out of him." The complete moral helplessness of humanity was made abundantly evident before the full revelation of gospel grace. It was when we were "without strength" that Christ "died for the ungodly." III. 'l'HE WONDROUS EFFICACY OF THE REGENERATING POWER OF Goo. The most defiled and degraded nature may be transformed ,by the touch of him who made it.. Even th13 skin of the Ethiopian and the lecpard's spots must yield to the sovereignty of the Divine energy. Deep-rooted and habitual as the evil in a man's heart and life may be, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth him from it, a!lu when the Spirit of Christ moulds the substance of his being he becomes" a new creature: old things are passed o.way; behold, all things o.rc become new" (2 Cor. v. l7).-W. Vers.1-11.-The marred girdle. I. 'l'HE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GIUDLE. This is set before us clearly in ver. 11. God chose something which should illustrate the close connection between Israel and himself, and yet which should illustrate at the same time how easily that connection could be severed. The girdle was, of course, a familiar part of an Israelite's apparel. Not exactly a necessity, fora man could perhaps do without it; and yet a necessity in this sense, that habit had made it so. 'l'he very function ef the girdle was to bind; otherwise it was, as a girdle, of no use. 'l'hns, by likening the people to a girdle, God indicated that, in a certain sense, he had made them necessary to himself. He had placed them in a conspicuous position, where the service they could render was very important. He meant that he and his people should be viewed together; he always in relation to them, they always in relation to him. Hence the variety of terms in which he indicates his purpose in making the children of Israel to be as his girdle. "That they might be unto me for a people." Jehovah was to look on them with a feeling of ownership and mastery which he was not able to feel with regard to other nations; and they, in turn, were to look up to Jehovah, feeling that all their purposes and net.ions were to be determined by his will. Jehovah meant that one of the most suggestive and comforting name_s by which he could be known should be that of tbe God of his people Israel, and that m turn Israel should be known as the people Qf Jehovah. ln tbem Jehovah was to bE) r,raised; in them he waa to be glorified. 350 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. [cu. XIII, 1-27.