The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 378

in this world we suffer with it and from its action upon us, eveu thou?'h we may be living very near to God. Christ was a man of sorrows; be sighed and wept and "roaned in spirit It is not sinful to grieve. It is not a proof of unbelief. Faith should e~gender patience, resignation, peace, and hope; bnt it cannot destroy natural sorrow. It would not be pious but simply unnatural for the Christian mother not to be wrune; with grief at the death of her child. 2. Consider the solitude. A good man will not t>e wrapped up in himself, for out of the love of God springs naturally the love of man. Godliness rouses human sympathy, and this inclines to sociability. So Christ was remarkable for his social habits. Yet there may be an inevitable solitude, and a solitude which is good both for self and for others. The more a good man sympathizes for his brother men the less can he sympathize with them when their conduct is wicked. If. A PROPHET'S COMM.UNION WITH Goo MAY LEAD 'l'O EARTHLY BADNESS A'.KD SOLITUDE. Jeremiah was sad and solitary because he was filled with Divine indignation. His was no atrabiliar moroseness, no theatrical Byronic self-pity. The prophet's sorrow and solitude were reflections of the grief of God for his people's sin and the aloofness of God prodnced by their wanderings from fidelity. 1. A prophet's communion with God will induce sorrow for the world's sin and wretchedness. Jeremiah was a young man. The scenes of mirth which he shanned may have been pure, innocent, and naturally attractive; but his vision of the thought and heart of God made him look behind this superficial joy to the wretchedness it sought to cover, and then it seemed but a mockery to him. 2. This will lead to a separation from the world. It will cause a perpetual separation from the spirit of the world as far as that is earthly and sensual, and at times a complete withdrawal to solitude. 'l'he Christian is to live in the world as its salt, its light, its leaven of righteousness, and not to flee to the wilderness, selfishly cnltivating his own soul for heaven, while he leaves his task undone and his fellow-men in hopeless sin and ruin. Dut he will meet with occasions for solitude and scenes from which he must withdraw himself, and sometimes feel an inner sense of loneliness as he moves among the gay crowds, since he is a pilgrim and stranger, a citizen of another country, possessed by thoughts and swayed by motives quite outside those of worldly life. Thus Christ, in character and outward habit the most social of men, was in inner life and in secret thought_ the most lonely. The Christian has a life which is" hid with Christ in God" (Col. iii, 3). Ver. 19.-A wide recognition of the good without compromise with the evil. Jeremiah is bidden to return from his solitude to bis mission among his people, when he will be owned and encouraged by God if he will see the goodness that still lingers among them, and yet not enter into any unrighteous compromise with the wicked ways of the mul- titude of them. I. WE SHOULD EXERCISE A WIDE BECOG1'"ITION OF THE GOOD IN ALL THINGS-take out the precioUB from the vile. The gold-washer may find but a grain of gold in a ton of gravel; yet he will search diligently for it, and treasure it when he finds it. Care- lessness and nncharitableness lead to an unjust, wholesale repudiation of what is no doubt largely corrupt. But it is not right to judge of things thus "in the lump." 1. Apply the principle to persons. Because ninety-nine men out of a company of a hundred are guilty, it is grossly iniquitous to condemn the whole hundred-the one innocent man with the rest. Jeremiah was directed to look out for the pious remnant among the mass of the unfaithful people. We are too rc,ady to ignore the existence of the seven ihow,and who have not bowed the knee to Baal. GoodneEs should be recog- nized in bad society, in heathen nations, in corrupt Christian communities, in question- able avocations. We should beware of sweeping condemnations of a whole class; e.g. of actors, of publicans, etc. 2. Apply the principle to religious systems. Few are wholly good; but few are wholly bad. The dross and precious metal are mixed, though in varying degrees, in all of them. The various Chnrch systems of Christendom partake of this mixed character. Most Churches have some peculiarly precious ideas to which it seems to be their mission each severally to testify. It is well if we have the insight to seize on these, and the charity to begrudge none of their value because of the error, the superstition, or the perversion with which they may be associated. 'l'hns, not by an itin<Jrphous eclecticism which can minister to no deep, organic unity of life, but by a i-;· :,,:ine assimilating power, we should learn to gather from a.11 sources the good of au. xv. 1-21.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. 381