message from Gorl to him through Jeremiah, he is not the less anxious to secure the prophet's intercession with God for deliverance from appri aching calamity. The king illustrates the too common case of those peo| le who will fly to the protection of religion in trouble, though they neglect all its obligations of holiness and of service. I. Remoion kequibes obedience to God's will. It is not all on one side. God speaks
1^2 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, [oh. xxxvii. 1—Zl
to us, and speaks words of command as well as words of consolation. It is, therefor^ our duty to hear and obey. 1. Ignorance is no excuse, if we wilfully refuse to heai the truth. Zedekiah and his servants did not obey because they did not " hearken," i.e. would not hearken. We are not responsible for failing through not knowing our duty if we could not know it. But if we could, it was our duty to ascertain it. The soldier who puts aside the despatch of his commander unopened, and then acts contrary to the orders contained in it is, of course, as guilty as if he did so knowingly ; for it was his duty to read the orders he received before poing into action. 2. The e!Bamj:)?e of those who have done wrong before is no excuse. Zeitekiah followed the example of Jehoiakim, But he iinew it was wrong. He had seen the miserable end of his predecessor's reiin. He should have taken warning from this. But men are more inclined to imitate the crimes of the wicked than to learn the lesson of their fate. 3. High position does not liiitisate guilt, but, on the contrary, it aggravates it. Zedekiah led the people with liiiii in his rejection of Grud's message through Jeremiah. He knew what influence he exerted, and he ought to have been the more careful that it was not wrongly used.
II. Pbateb without obedience is vain. Zedekiah seeks Jeremi.ih's prayers, but ill vain. It is not necessary, indeed, that our obedience should be faultless before Ood will hearken to a single prayer. If this were the case, no prayer of man's could be heard. But it is requisite that we should repent of our past disobedience, and should be unfeignedly desirous of obeying God iu the future. Fur otherwise our purely self- seeking religion is an insult to Gud. Besides, we cannot ijope to change the essential principles of God's action by' our prayer. If it is his will to chastise us for our sin, he cannot change his will so long as we remain unchanged in conduct. But when we turn from the sin which deserves the penalty, it may be possible for God to modify his treatment of us in answer to our prayer of submission. Therefore it is so necessary that we should pray through the intercession of Christ. Then, though our obedience is still most imperfect, if we desire to do better, Christ is our Representative and the promise of our future obedience, and therefore his good merits go to plead with Ood to answer our prayer offered in his Name.
Ver. 9. — Self-deception. " Deceive not yonrselvea."
I. The CHABACTEBISTI08 OF SELF-DECEPTION. As fallible beings, surrounded with mystery, and often beset by illusions we are likely to fall into unavoidable mistakes for which we cannot be held responsible. There are other errors which we might avoid if we took the right means for ascertaining the facts; but from indifference, or from indolence, or from unwillingness to see an unpleasant truth that is already halt suspected, we neglect these means, and thus land ourselves in a delusion. This is seif-deception, 1. It may he conscious and deliberate. The very notion is paradoxical. But we are not logical machines ; our belief is often most inconsistent. Our will and feelings have great influence over our convictions. We rarely contemplate things in the white light of truth. And in so far as we permit our visiou to be blinded by passion or distorted by prejudice, we may deceive ourselves. 2. This self-deception may be unconscious. Yet it is culpable if we voluntarily neglect the means of seeing things as they are. We may not know that we are deceiving ourselves. But we must know that we are not doing all we can to avoid delusions.
II. The cocabioks of self-deception. 1. These may be found in the stiperficial appearance of events. The outward seeming does not corresp'^nd with the inward verity. The temptation is to rest satisfied with the mere appearance and assume that it is an index of the underlying fact. Thus when the Chaldean army retreated from before Jerusalem at the advance of Pharaoh-Hophra, Zedekiah was ready to believe that his revolt was successful. 2. Occasions may be found in our own indU nationt. Zedekiah wished to see no more of the Chaldean army, and " the wish was father to the thought." 3. They may be found in preconceived notion*. We expect the facts to verify our opinions, and we contrive to make them do so by ignoring what will not agree with them, and selecting for consideration only what is favourable. All this may be traced in the history of religious delusions. People blind themselves to the thought of future judgment because, on the surface of life and for the present, all goes well. They are too ready to form their creed according to their inclination, droppin" out uupleasaut ideal as though there were no dark truths in existence. They go to thg
ott. iixvn. 1— 21.] THE BOOK OP THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. 123
Bible for confirmation of their own " views" rather than for instruction, and, if need be, correction of them, and of course they have eyes only to see those texts which make for this confirmation. Kote : Jeremiah tried to deliver the Jews fr m sclf-deceptioa A Divine revelation is necessary to save us from religious self-di.ception. The Bible aims at this result as well as at enlightening our ignurance.
III. The evil of self-deception. 1. It is disloyal to truth. It is our dnty not to rest in a delusion. The obligation of truthfulness reaches to our thinking as well as to our speaking. 2. It is dangerous to our own souls. Facts remain unchanged wliatever fanciful notions we may weave about them till they are quite unrecognizable, and when the time for action comes, they will act as they are, not as we thinlc them. The careless, who decline to consider a future judgment, are not the less amenable to it. Those people who have sought refuge in the Roman Catholic Church from the torment of doubt have not done anything to settle the facts about which they were troubled ; like the ostrich, who hides his head in a bush, they have quieted their doubt by turning from it; but if it was well grounded originally, it must t>e ultimately confirmed to their undoing.