The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 448

Ilut he who formed us for himself would not have any of us to be content with an inferior position and a lower aim. He would so mould and fashion us that we shall be '' vessels unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use" (2 Tim. ii; 21). • III. Hrs LONG-SUFFERING PATIENCE. When the potter's work is marred, he presses the clay into a shapeless mass and casts it upon the wheel again. We are reminded of the vnrious methods God employs in moulding us to his will, and how if one·faiJs he will oft.en subject us to another. There are events that sometimes break up the whole form of a man's life ; old ties are severed, old associations pass away; he beo'ins ah altogether new career, with new responsibilities, new moral tests, new possibitities· of good. '!'here are afflictions that change the whole tenor of a man's inward life ; his' spirit is crushed, wounded, softened, that it may the better receive Divine impressions. "God maketh my heart soft," etc. (Job xxiii. 16). "My heart i& like wax" (Ps. xxii. 14). 'l'hus does God "bumble us to prove us, to know "hat is in our heart, whether we will keep his commandments or not" (Deut. viii. 2). '!'here may come a time when a11 these Divine methods fail and the soul is found to be mprobate. ·In eh. xix. 1-11 we have a figurative prophecy of tl,e ultimate abandonment of the Jewish peo:r1e to their fate .. In this case the vessel bas been baked in the fire; it is incapable of taking a new shape, and is broken so "thn.t it cannot be n1ade whole again;" . Such is the doom of the finally impenitent and intractable. But God's patience is very wonderful. In this world at least the door of mercy is always ·open. There is always ihe possibility of a new and nobler life. He "is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. ill. 9).-W. vers. 1-10.-Tlie clay in the potter's hand. I. THE PURPOSE OF THIS PRACTICAI ILLUSTRATION. It is a practical illustration in the most suggestive sense of the word "practical.'' Jeremiah had not to go out of his way to produce a sufficiently impressive figure of what God was about to do. He had to go through a very pec.uliar·and pro- tracted experience to bring out the lesson of the marred girdfo. But her.e he has only to go down to the potter at his wheel, a thing be co.uld do at any time; and there is a Lsson particularly plain and forcible, as coming out of the daily life; the simple and common life, of the people. Notice, then, that Jeremiah was not sent down to len.rn just what bis own unaided obscn•ation might tell him concerning the potter an:d the clay. Re might, indeed, have drawn out many important lessons, yet overk1oked the one that was most important of all. God wished the prophet clearly to understand ancl then distinctly to impress upon the people this truth, that as the potter is to the cln.y, in respect of the control which he has over it as clay and in its pln.stic condition, so Jehovah is to Israel in respect of his control over its temporal destiny as a nation. Hence we have to look at the potter's action upon the clay, positively and negatively. We have to recollect both what he can do and what he cannot do. Within certain limits his power is resist]ess: outside those limits he has no. power at all. Give the putt.er a piece of moist plastic clay; he takes it up, designing to maim from it a vessel of a ccrtnin shape an<l for a certain use. Suddenly he finds it desirable to change the shape, and because the clay is still moist and plastic he can do this with the rapidity, expertness, and success which come from long practice. It is this particular power of the putter which God would have us to understand is his power over us. What tho potter does is limited by the nature of that with which he works. He cannot turn clay into something else than clay. Clay _it is when he first touches it: clay it remains when its shape is finally decided. Let the 'vessel be baked in the furnace and come out hard, itij shape cannot then be altered. If it is thrown to the ground it will be broken, it may even be shivered "so that there shall not be found in the bmsting of it a sherd to take firr, from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit" (Isa. xxx. 14). No cn. xvm. 1-23.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. 455