IV. The Divine life in man beqins with the turning bound of the soul TOWAEDS G-OD. This "convirsion" is the first step. U may not he suddenly dis- cernible. It may not be indicated by any one epoch in our history. But it must take place. We have beeo wandering further and further from God. The most momentous step is the first step back to him. We have to learn the necessity of this ; to under- stand that while we remain in the old way, however pleasant it may be, it is leading ua away from God, our mission, and our home ; to see the importance of a change, a revolution, a reuieneration, a new creation. Religion cannot begin with a sinful man in a mere improvement, much less in a natural development. He must turn round.
V. God only can turn his ohilurbn back to himself. tCphraim prays, "Turn thou me, and I will return." We lack the desire to return until he "from whom all i;oud desires proceed " implants the earnest wish in our hearts. We have not the strength to return. Old habits ol sin are fetters that bind us down to the old life. The will is corrupt, and therefore we cannot will nrijjht. But God does move us to return and give us power to return. The gospel is nut only an invitation ; it is the power of God. By his Spirit God gives us new birth and tlie free life of his children. Yet for this grace we must seek in faith and penitence. Ephraim prays that Gud will turn him. We cannot turn ourselves. God will not turn us against our will. If we seek his grace, he will turn us to himself.
Ver. 25. — Divine satis/action. There are always the weary who need rest, the sorrowful who need consolation. 1. Naturally we all have restless longings, large desires that go out beyond the present and the attainable. The soul has its appetites, its hunger, its thirst. 2. Sin and sorrow have deepened our need. The Jews in their calamities were a type of mankind in its sin and weariness.
I. No EARTHLY SATISFACTION WILL MEET THESE WANTS. Food for the body cannot satisfy the soul. Man is nut able to live by bread alune. The life is more than meat. We are too large for the woild and its gifts, rich and abundant as they may be.
" We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our Bincerest laughter
With some pain is frailght ; Oni iweetest songs are those that tell ot saddest thoaght."
(Shelley.)
Henoe the restlessness and dissatisfaction we experience in the height of prosperity. Thank God for these feelings. They are indications of a heavenly birth, indications of immortality.
II. God offers us full satisfaction. He will satisfy — satiate. 1. God gives all we need. God does not keep his children on half-rations. He has rich stores, and he offers freely. From our broken cisterns we turn to his ever-flowing fountains. 2. What God gives is of the kind we need — true light, not mocking speculations ; Divine con- eolations of hope and peace, not barren philosophic maxims, but full and free forgiveness. What God does he docs perfectly. He does not call us to a bare salvation, but to a full satisfaction, meeting the peculiar and deep wants of the soul with the special satis- faction they need, an^l bestowing this to satiation
III. The full enjoyment op Divine satisfaction belongs to the pdtube. Much may be enjoyed now. Larger faith would open at once more abundant stores. God's hand is not shortened. It is we who limit our own enjoyment of his grace by unbelief and sinfulness. Still there can be no perfect satisfaction in this imperfect world. Heaven will be totally different from earth in the fact that here we are always reaching out to the beyond ; there for the first time all needs will be satisfied. The hope of such a condition should lead to patience and a faithful following of the way of the cross now that leads to the home of rest hereafter.
Ver. 29. — Heredity and individual responsibility. The passage before us is interesting aa Indicating a great advance in freedom and justice of thought from the old orthodoxy
20 THE BOOK OP THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, [oh. xxxl 1—44
that was satisfied with the punishment of children together with their parents to a new and wiser doctrine of individual reponsibility. But it is important to observe that it ia more than a si_n of advancing thought. It is a prophecy concerning fects, a prediction nf a higher justice of the future. The old notion here condemned is not condemned because it is false ; nay, it is treated as true for the present. The new idea is not substituted as a 1 ettcv interpretation ot the facts of experience ; it is a description of a highur urdev of facis not yet realized. The old doctrine applies with a considerable measure of trutli to Juiiaism ; the new is part ot the larger justice of Christianity. For tlie Jewish religion was essentially a family religion; its advantages came to the individual through the nation, the tribe, the family; the first condition for receiving them was descent frmii Ahraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But Christianity is fundamentally individualistic. It elevates the family, it creates the Church — one grand family of Christian brethren ; but it begins with individual ;"aith and ends with individual respoBsibility. Nevertheless, we have not yet perfect justice. Jeremiah's prophecy is still a prophecy to us. Let us examine the two conditions of life that are brought before us by the contrast of prediction with the present order of affairs.
I. The peksent condition of heredity. It is true now that if " the fathers have eaten some <;rapes the children's teeth are set on edge." Hereditary punishment and hereditary moml corruption are among the darkest mysteries of "all this unintelligible world." But they are tiacts that toUow necessary social and physiological laws. 1. Children suffei the punishment of ttieir parents' sins. Poverty, dishonour, disease, pass trom parent to child. The child of a spendthrift becomes a beggar, the son of a thief is ostracized, the drunkard's child diseased, perhaps insane. 2, Children inherit moral corruption from their parents. Where this is the case it may be thought to lighten the mystery of hereilitary punishment. However that may be, it is itself a deeper mystery, a more horrible injustice. It is remarked that if God visits "the iniquity ot the fathers u[ on the children unto the third and fourth generation," it is to generations of " them that hate " him. But if the wickedness that seems to justify the long-lived punishment is also hereditary, is not the case the more hard ? Now, Jeremiah teaches us that we are not to be satisfied with this as a final and equitable arrangement. It belongs to these present times that are out of joint, and it will be superseded by a better order.