The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 367

118 cannot be escaped, of the licks that bind us to the lower creation. We cannot, at present at all events, get above some of the wants of the brute, although certainly it cannot rise to some of ours; but it is just the wants of the brute that seem to be the only wants many feel. They have enough if they can eat, drink, and be merry.-Y. Vers, 1-9,-An appeal out of the depths of separation from God. I. THE APPEAL OF TIIOSE WHO ADMIT THAT IN THEMSELVES THEY HAVE NO CLAIM UPON Goo. They have no record of faithful service to present; no array of good deeds goes before them to plead for acceptance and approval. It is all the other way. Their iniquities testify against them; they have backslidden; they have sinned against Jehovah; at least, so they say. There is the appearance of having come to themselves. It might seem as if the prodigal nation, so long spending its substance in riotous living, had been brought to a full stop and a place for repentance amid the privations of a waterless land. Wby, indeed, should there be any suspicion as to a genuine confession of great iniquities, a genuine and swift submission to Jehovah? Notice that the confession is correct enough as far as the mere words are concerned. But after all, these words were not unlike the statements extorted by the pains of the Inquisition. Confessions and pro- fessions have been :made by tortUied men in their agonies which had no value as genuine utterances of the heart. It is needless to say that, as far as purpose is con- cerned, no resemblance is to be found between Jehovah depriving Judah of its water and Rome torturing heretics to make them recant. There may be different purposes where there are similar results. This cry of the people showed the severity with which they had been smitten; it did not of necessity show the state of their hearts. All that they said was true; their iniquities di«i testify against them; they were apostates ; they had sinned against Jehovah. Only when we look at past confessions of the like sort, we see how little they meant (Numb. xiv. 40; xxi. 7; Judg. x. 10; 1 Sam. vii. 6). It was the parched tongue and not the broken heart that made them speak. And therefore it is that their appeal has to be met with a refusal. Earnestly as they cried, the cessation of chastisement would not have been followed by the renewal of a true obedience. !I. 'l'JIE APPEAL OF THOSE WHO HAVE BECOME CONSCIOUS OF THEm OWN HELPLESSNESS APART FBOlll JEHOVAH, They want water, and there is no way of getting it a.pa.rt from the mercy of an all-powerful God. The very way in which they speak shows how vain they feel all resoUices to be save one. But if other resources had been possible, assuredly they would have tried them. They come to God's door, not because it is the right one, but because it is the only one left to try. So passengers begin to think of God and eternity when the captain says the tempest-beaten ship can!lot be saved. So sick people send for a minister of religion when the doctor says the disease is mortal. So the doomed criminal makes a fashion of giving all his attention to the chaplain when the plea for mitigation is rejected. What a humiliating position men take in making an appearance of coming to God only when they can get nowhere else I What wonder is it that, under such circumstances, they fail to get a right relation established between God and themselves I Prayers in such circumstances, whatever the language employed, may prove no more than the incoherent shriek of despair, a cry without any real tUin- ing to God, without any real trust in him. III. THE APPEAL OF THOSE WHO CAN CALL TO MIND Goo's 0HARAOTEB AS ALREADY REVEALED. The description of God in his deeds and disposition had ample warrant from the history of his past dealings. He had been in the midst of his people," the Ilope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble," as a mighty man showing himselC able to save in the greatest danger. He who now fastened up the clouds and the springs had given waters in the wilderness. He who now made the earth fruitless had given manna which needed neither sowing nor reaping. Jehovah had been ~ehind all the visible agents towards deliverance, victory, and possession of the promised inheritance. His ta.barnacle had been in the midst of his people, and his glory in the midst of his tabernacle. Howeasy it is to remember, when necessary, that which, when convenient, it seems just a.s easy to forget I The clouds of heaven and the mountains in whose secret depths he had wrought at the water-springs had been suffered to hide God ; but now that his gracious works are vanished for a while, men suddenly and painfully miss the worker. '!'hey can flatter him wholll they have not even despised, but r:ither JEREMlAII, 2 ll 370 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, [ou. xrv. 1-22,