The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 466

Have we not known seasons when the impulse was strong on us to say something for God? It has come when we have been preaching or teaching, and we have broken away from the calm, not to say cold, tone in which we have been going on, and have spoken to those before us words which have come up from the very depths of our soul, and we have seen in the countenances of our children or our congregation that they, t-00, were conscious that they were being spoken to in a manner other than -usual, and that portion of the day's lesson or the sermon has been remembered when all the rest. ha.s been forgotten. And sometimes this impossibility of keeping silence for God has come to us on the railway journey, in the quiet walk with a friend or child, or in social converse, or in the casual talk with a stranger into whose society we may have been for a while thrown; and then we have felt we must say something for God, and it has been said feebly, weakly perhaps, but nevertheless the testimony has been borne, the endeavour has been made. God would not let, us be silent; we could not stay from speaking; necessity was la.id upon us. These are in their measure instances of the sa.ma Spirit as that which moved the prophets and apostles of old, though in a far less degree. But it is evident how well it would be for us all who bear Christ's name to possess in far larger measure than we do this holy aud irresistible impulse. The spur is what we too often need ; how rarely the bridle! not the holding back, but the urging on. Whence, then, comes this sacred and mighty Spirit, under whose influence so many of the saints of God, even as the Son of God, have laboured on in spite of all discouragement and suffering and wrong? It is evident, from the history of Jeremiah and of all other faithful servants of God, that the method by which God impelled them to their work was by bestowing on them such gifts as these- L THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIN. For he who has this knows how appalling is the evil under which men live. To him this present world and its inhabitants present but one aspect, that of being under a yoke which no man can bear. He has seen the vision of sin, and it was a sight so terrible that he can never forget it. It haunts him, for he knew it was no dream of the night, but a dreadful reality of the day and of every day. It was no chimera, no fiction of his own imagination, but a real and awful power that h~ ruled men and still is ruling over men. What scenes of beauty it has destroyed I What fearful misery it evermore produces. There was the garden, of Eden in all its love- liness, with every fair flower and noble tree, with luscious fruit and every herb fit for 1J1e food of man or beast; it was all beautiful, so beautiful that even God pronounced it "very good." .And as chief over this fair inheritance there were the first created of our race, in form and mind and soul harmonizing with the beauty and goodness that was all around them. How blest their condition I But the scene changes. We see no longer the garden of Eden, but a weary land bearing thorns and briars; we see, too, haggard and careworn people bending in sore agony over the murdered corpse of their child, murdered by his own brother, their eldest born. What hath wrought this change? An enemy, without doubt, but what enemy? It is sin-the heart of man in rebellion against God. The Bible is full of scenes like these--:-misery, shame, ruin, death, all, all the work of sin. And sin reigns yet, as he to whom God has given to see the vision of sin knows full well. Who can recount its doings? Who can describe the woes it causes? What ocean would be vast enough to receive the tears it has made to flow? What colours dark enough to depict the moral and spiritual evil it has engendered? .And then the sorrows of the souls that arc lost, the doom of the accursed of God-the antitype of that which Jesus describes as the" fire that is never quenched, and the worm that never dies." It is the vision of this,-the appalling evil, past, present, and most of all to come,-that has risen up before the soul of him who, beholding those around nim under its dominion, finds himself utterly unable to forbear telling them of the Word of the Lord to the end that they may be saved. No wonder that, in view of these dread calamities, "the Word of the Lord was in his heart," etc. II. But a further knowledge has been given to him to contribute to this same result. :fv' ere the vision of sin all, utter and dreadful despair would be alone left to him; but it is not all. Along with the knowledge of sin there is given to him THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GOSPEL in the Word of the Lord. It is brought home to his soul, by evidence he caonot ~uestion, that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the sure remedy for all human 1lL He has a deep conviction that trust in the Redeemer, reliance on his Oil, xx. 1-18.) THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH,