Jeremiah

But the covenant of grace sets no limit for any weak soul, Christ racks not, nor does he (as it were) play the extortioner, and say, either the strongest faith, or none at all; he makes not Abraham's foot a measure to every poor sinner; many smoking flaxes, and broken reeds on e…

Thus Christ was called from the womb, and set apart to be a mediator (Isaiah 47:1; John 6:27). Jeremiah to be a prophet (Jeremiah 1:5). Christ is said to give Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, teachers (Ephesians 4:11).

This was a thing commanded to the prophets and apostles (Isaiah 58:1): Cry and spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, show my people their transgression. (Jeremiah 1:17): Truss up your loins, arise and speak to them all that I command you: be not afraid of their faces, le…

In that he commands her to come down: it has greater weight in it than if he had directly threatened she should come down: for thus he speaks with authority, as if he were already set in a throne of judgment: for he spoke nothing but what he had warrant from God to deliver; and…

Moreover, the Prophet defines not of the beginning of time, as if God had then begun to call him from the womb, but it is as if he should have said, Before I came out of my mother's womb, God ordained me to this office, as Saint Paul says, That God had chosen him from his mother…

When God's servants are handled thus shamefully, they must needs quail under so many injuries, if they had not brows of brass and iron to repulse them. And in this sense it is said, that Jeremiah was set as a defended city, and iron pillar, and walls of brass against the kings o…

I shall not be confounded, for God is at my right hand. To Jeremiah, whom God set up as a brazen wall against all oppositions (Jeremiah 1:18), and to Ezekiel (chapter 3:8): Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads…

So when he stirs up Ezekiel, he warns him beforehand that he sends him to a rebellious and stubborn people, to the end that he should not be afraid if he perceives himself to sing to deaf men (Ezekiel 2:3; 12:2). So he foretells to Jeremiah that his doctrine should become a fire…

Jeremiah, what do you see? I see the rod of an almond tree. You have well seen, says the Lord, for I will hasten my Word to perform it (Jeremiah 1:11-12). When men hasten the maturity of sin like the blossoms of an almond tree, (which come soonest out) then says the Lord will I…

It is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life. Our memory should be like the chest in the ark where the law was kept: God's oracles are ornaments, and shall we forget them (Jeremiah 2:32)? Can a maid forget her ornaments?

2. There is but one omnipotent power. If there be two omnipotents, then we must always suppose a contest between these two; that which one would do, the other power being equal would oppose, and so all things would be brought into a confusion. If a ship should have two pilots of…

Will a bride forget her jewels? (Jeremiah 2:32): Can a maid forget her ornaments? Did we prize the Word more, we should not so soon forget it.

Some make no more of killing men than sheep. (Jeremiah 2:34) In your skirts is found the blood of the poor innocents. Junius reads it in Alis; and so in Hebrew, 'In your wings is found the blood of innocents.'

What vows and solemn protestations do some make in their sickness, if God recover them they will be new men, but afterwards are as bad as ever! Jeremiah 2:20: You said, I will not transgress. Here was a resolution, but for all this she ran after her idols.

This may make us patiently submit to God in affliction, and say, your will be done. We have no cause to complain of God, it is nothing but what our sins have merited (Jeremiah 2:17). Have you not procured this to yourself?

When they were in a low condition, how humble, spiritual, and heavenly were they; but when advanced, what an apparent alteration has been upon their spirits. It was so with Israel when they were in a low condition in the wilderness; then Israel was 'holiness to the Lord' (Jeremi…

And yet do you cast yourselves down because the broken cistern is removed? The best creatures are no better than this — Jeremiah 2:13: Cisterns have nothing but what they receive, and broken ones cannot hold what is put into them. Why then do you mourn as if your life were bound…

Third, consider how often you do willingly choose some other thing than Christ, to spend your time and set your affections upon, laying obstructions and bars in the way of God's grace, setting up idols in the heart, and filling Christ's room beforehand with such things as are in…

Who call him a Deceiver: and if we come nearer, even to the Christian church, and to such as profess their faith of his being the Eternal Son of God, equal with the Father, that he is Judge of quick and dead, and that they look for salvation through him, yet if it be put to a tr…

(3.) The natural understanding is the most whorish thing in the world: there is a variety of fancied gods there. According to the number of your cities, were your gods, O Judah (Jeremiah 2:29). They have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own u…

Why do they drink rotten waters, and cisterns of hell? Oh, here is the cause (Jeremiah 2:13): Be astonished, O heavens, why? For my people have committed two evils: (Ah, these two are hundreds, and millions) they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters.

God would not send his Church among them for nothing, but he looks for some fruits among them, but since either none were gathered, or so few, as that they were not a considerable number, therefore God will send his people home again, when they say, Let us break their bonds asun…

And the residue thereof he makes a god, even his graven image, and he falls down to it, and worships it, and prays to it, and says, deliver me, for you are my God. This is one of the external acts, whereby the idolater shows the esteem of his heart, so (Jeremiah 2:27), saying to…

Custom, vain glory, and carnal interest may put them on joining in public prayer, or family-duty; but they are strangers to this spiritual self-denying duty of Closet-Prayer: The carnal hypocrite exposes all to open view; he is like a house with a beautiful frontispiece, but eve…

Thirdly, that when we see the gifts or graces of God in ourselves or others, we return all the praise and glory to God, from where they proceed, ascribing nothing to ourselves. Fourthly, this shows to whom we must have recourse in our need, namely, not to the virgin Mary, nor an…

Hearken what Jeremiah says; Has any nation changed their gods? But my people has forsaken me the fountain of living waters, to dig to themselves broken pits that can hold no water (Jeremiah 2:11). This comparison therefore ought to be well observed, lest we be found less constan…

Second, be directed to forget the things that are behind; that is, not to keep thinking and making much of what you have done, but let your mind be wholly intent on what you have to do. In some sense you ought to look back; you should look back on your sins (Jeremiah 2:23: 'See…

(2.) By these rebukes of sin, the evil of sin is discovered more sensibly to us, and we are made to see more clearly the evil of it in these glasses of affliction which Providence at such times sets before us, than formerly we ever saw. Jeremiah 2:19 Thine own wickedness shall c…

Psalm 130:3 But this I say, that it's Gods usual way, to visit the sins of his people with rods of affliction, and this in mercy to their souls. Upon this account it was, that the rod of God was upon David in a long succession of troubles upon his kingdom and family, after that…

The King spake and said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my Majesty? That success is not sanctified to men, which takes them off from their duty, and makes them wholly negligent, or very muc…

3. Because he knows the world is most bewitching, and the affections of his bride are not soon weaned from it (though this be most necessary) therefore three ways he presses her to deny herself in these, and follow him (which is the sum of the call.) 1. Says he, you are my spous…

It is a Meiosis, and we are to understand, that the Lord is highly displeased with such persons. See how God pleads with apostatizing Israel (Jeremiah 2:9-10, etc.). Therefore I will yet plead with you, says the Lord.

The fire of God's wrath which shall devour the wicked and burn them everlastingly, will be so furious and dreadful that the hearts of the damned will sink under it without the least hopes of ever extinguishing this flame, or flying from it when it has once got hold of them: And…

When the pulse can scarce be felt, it beats so low; men are near dying: so when those who were once violent for heaven, but now we can scarce perceive any good in them, the pulse beats low, grace is ready to die (Revelation 3:2). To you who have abated in your holy violence, and…

The prodigal never drew near to his father, till he began to be in want (Luke 15). A proud sinner who was never convinced of his want, minds not to come near God; he has a stock of his own to live upon (Jeremiah 2:31): We are lords, we will come no more to you. A full stomach de…

This was the generation with whom the covenant was renewed, as we have an account in Deuteronomy, and that entered into the land of Canaan. This generation God was pleased to make a generation to his praise, and they were eminent for piety; as appears by many things said in scri…

They had been accustomed to worship the gods so long, that they knew not any beginning of it. It was formerly spoken of as a thing unknown for a nation to change their gods, Jeremiah 2:10-11; but now the greater part of the nations of the known world were brought to cast off the…

Those of that sex are commonly observed to be very solicitous about their ornaments. When the question is asked, Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? no such possibility is supposed (Jeremiah 2:32). This prevailing inclination the Apostle here takes hold of, f…

The Latins call a meek man mansuetus: qu. manu assuetus; used to the hand, which alludes to the taming and reclaiming of creatures wild by nature, and bringing them to be tractable and familiar. Man's corrupt nature has made him like the wild ass used to the wilderness, or the s…

Certainly, God takes it well at your hands now. Jer. 2:2 I remember the kindeness of your youth, and the love of your espousals, when you wentest after me in the wilderness. God takes it kindely, that men will choose him and his ways in affliction: if there were always prosperit…

They cannot endure to look at themselves — and how shall they dare to appear in his presence? Though they wash themselves with lye and use much soap, yet their iniquity will continue marked, Jeremiah 2:22. For the removal of this they look in the first place to the purifying vir…

Some that have moral resolutions of amendment, dislike at least gross sins, and purpose to avoid them, and it is to them cleanness enough to reform in those things; but they consider not, what becomes of the guiltiness they have contracted already, and how that shall be purged,…

But are now returned, etc.] Whatever are the several ways of our straying, all our wandering is the aversion of the heart from God, from where of necessity follows a continual unsettledness and disquiet, the mind as a wave of the sea tossed to and fro with the wind, it tumbles f…

And yet truly, it is a disease that few escape, it is strange upon how poor things men and women will be vain, and think themselves somebody; not only upon some comeliness in their face or feature, which though poor, yet is a part of themselves, but of things merely without them…

2. There are some which perform it seldom; O how many days and weeks pass over their heads, and God never hears from them! The Lord complains of it (Jeremiah 2:32): "They have forgotten me days without number." It was time out of mind since they were last with God.

If we only knew the sweetness of it, and not the bitterness, we would not be so shy of it. Now the bitterness of it is seen by the effects (Jeremiah 2:19): "Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backslidings shall reprove you; know therefore, and see, that it is an evi…

3. Get a love to God and his ways. One cannot but think of that which he loves, Jeremiah 2:32. Can a Maid forget her Ornaments? when she has not her Jewel on her Ear, she will have it in her Thoughts.

Other men make no reckoning of it at all. And so for sin, common spirits value it only by the damage that it does to their worldly interests; when it costs them dear, they may hang the head (Jeremiah 2:9): Now know what an evil and bitter thing it is to forsake the Lord. A world…

Tertullian in his book on Penitence has this saying: After you have tried God, you do as it were deliberately judge Satan's service to be better; or at least you do not find in God what you did expect. Therefore the honor of God is mightily concerned and lies at stake, when you…

In his pang, in his distress, when his conscience pinches him sore, he will be calling upon God: yes, but has he any delight in God? he wants sincere grace. Some time he may come with his flocks and herds to seek the Lord (Hosea 5:6). And cry, arise, Lord save us (Jeremiah 2:27)…

I say they fell from God as envious, false, and wishing ill to them; and by the devil's instigation turned to the creature to find happiness in them, against the express will and command of God. As the first man was infected, so are all men wholly perverted, for sin still consis…

Take mercy according to the Word, according to the analogy of faith, and there is not a more powerful incentive of duty (Psalms 130:5): There is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared. (Jeremiah 2:11-12) The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teach…

When you have tried both, you do as it were deliberately judge that Satan's service is best, or that you do not find in God that which he promised, and you expected from him. And that's the reason why God stands upon his credit, and pleads with apostates (Jeremiah 2:5): What ini…

And this bondage is more sensible in them that have some kind of remorse and trouble with their convictions, either from temporal inconvenience, shame, or loss; and yet cannot leave their lusts, and so in despair resolve to go on, and make the best of it (Jeremiah 18:12): And th…

Our faith, our love, our desires, our delight, they are all acted and exercised by our thoughts; so that the spiritual life is but an imagination, unless we do frequently and often take time for serious meditation of him. It is not consistent with any of the three vital graces,…

4. It is an encouragement to us in well-doing, the more proofs and tokens we have of his support. We are wrought upon by the senses, as (Jeremiah 2:19). Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backslidings reprove you: see what an evil and bitter thing it is to forsake t…

1. God is primitively and originally good; the creature is but derivatively good. He is good of himself, which nothing else is — the fountain good, and therefore is called the fountain of living waters (Jeremiah 2:13). The creatures are but dry pits, or broken cisterns.

Micah 6:3. Oh my people what have I done to you, or wherein have I wearied you, testify against me. Jeremiah 2:5. Thus says the Lord, what iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanities and become vain? Why,

1. For correction to make us more penitent for sin past. We being in a lower sphere of understanding, know things better by their effects than their nature (Jeremiah 2:19). Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backslidings shall reprove you: know therefore, and see th…

The plow goes before the seed be sown; the heart must be plowed up by humiliation and repentance, before God sows the seed of assurance. 2. He who has a real assurance, will take heed of that which will weaken and darken his assurance; he is fearful of the forbidden fruit; he kn…

In this covenant of grace we may see the cream of God's love, and the working of his bowels to sinners. This is a marriage-covenant (Jeremiah 3:14): I am married to you, says the Lord. In the new covenant God makes himself over to us, and what can he give more?

Response: God will not go from his promise. Jeremiah 3:12: Return, you backsliding Israel, says the Lord, and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful. If your sins are as rocks, yet upon your repentance the sea of God's mercy can drown these rocks.

A pirate or rebel that knows there is a proclamation out against him, will never come in, but if he hears that the prince is full of clemency, and there is a proclamation of pardon to him if he submit, this will be a great incentive to him to lay down his arms, and become loyal…

Yes, and for such does God give gifts — 'the tongue of the learned.' God often gives a pastor after his own heart for a few: 'Take one of a city and two of a family, and I will give them pastors after my own heart' (Jeremiah 3:15). So even by Christ himself, as he says in Luke 4…

And Paul, I give thanks to my God, etc. And God's promise is, Jeremiah 3:19. You shall call me my father. The meaning of Christ is not to bind us to these words, but to teach us that in our prayers we must not have regard to ourselves only, but also to our brethren, and therefor…

Thus we see what the Father is. Now to believe in the Father, is to be persuaded, that the first person in Trinity, is the Father of Christ, and in him my Father particularly (Jeremiah 3:4, 19; Matthew 6:4), and that for this cause I intend and desire forever to put my trust in…

First of all, by this purgatory we understand the afflictions of God's children here on earth. Jeremiah 3: The people afflicted say, you have sent a fire into our bones. Psalm 66:12: We have gone through water and fire.

Query 1. If this be so, how is it that Christ put such a favorable construction upon the disciples' sleeping a third time when he had as often reproved them for it — Matthew 26:40-41? And how is it that we find in Scripture so many promises made not only to first sins but also t…

2. It serves to refute something in people's practice, and that is, their little sense of the need of grace; most part come and hear preaching as if they had the habit of faith, and as if it were natural to them, and pretend to the exercise of faith, never once suspecting their…

It is true, pride, covetousness, or some particular sins may come to the throne by turns, as either complexion, strength of corrupt nature, or times bear sway; for as Satan is not divided against Satan, so not any natural man will be a martyr for a false god, or a predominant lu…

And the grace of our Lord (says he) was more, or over-abundant in me through faith and love. (Jeremiah 3:1) And you have played the harlot with many companions, or lovers, yet return to me, says the Lord. It is here, as if Christ's rich grace and our extreme wickedness should st…

And this is a wanton eye, for a man may behold it with a wanton eye, either when he prides himself in it, or is induced thereby to licentiousness, and is glad of the occasion, and will say, if such and such men take such liberty, then they hope they may take the same liberty as…

Now there is a certain covenant between God and his people in all these; that look what a king requires of his people, or the people of a king, the very same does God require of his people, and the people of God, that offers himself to be a God to his people; that is, a governor…

Barbarous, as the eastern part of Arabia, toward Babylon. For the inhabitants dwelt in tents, and lived like wild and savage men, by robbing, and stealing, and consequently by killing (Isaiah 13:20; Jeremiah 3:2). Here we see Pauls estate and condition, when he first begins the…

Third, this repentance that has been described, is indeed the special condition of remission of sin. This seems very evident by the Scripture, as particularly, Mark 1:4: John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance, for the remission of sins. So, Luke…

Here is enough, not only to moves, but overwhelm my heart. May I not from this time cry unto you, my Father, you art the guide of my youth, Jeremiah 3:4 What a critical time is the time of youth? it's the moulding age; and (ordinarily) according to the course of those leading Pr…

Well then, if Providence has so disposed of you all, that you can eat your own bread, and so advantagiously directed some of you to imployments, that afford not only necessaries for your selves and families, but an overplus for works of mercy to others, and all this brought abou…

The Renuntiation of any hopes in expectation of deliverance either from sin or trouble, any other way; hope in Jehovah; this is frequently expressed, where the performance of this duty is mentioned; see Hosea 14:3. Jeremiah 3:22, 23. And we have declared the nature of it in the…

Or, 2. this word may be derived from Salem, which properly taken, is Jerusalem (Psalm 76:1) and (Hebrews 7:1) Melchisedec was king of Salem, which signifies peace, and so, as Shunamitish comes from Shunem, so Shulamite from Salem, and so taking the derivation thus, it comes to t…

3. What is the scope of these allegories, in other Scriptures, as that of Psalm 45, that of planting a vineyard (Matthew 21), that of marriage (Matthew 22), (which none can deny) is meant of espousing spiritually. (See this same allegory of marriage, Jeremiah 3, Hosea 2-3, Ezeki…

2. If the same allegories in other places of Scripture, will bear solid doctrines concerning Christ, his covenant, faith, etc. even such as are in plain Scriptures; then must this Song do the like, seeing it is the word of God, tending to the same scope with these. But it is cle…

7. God does expect, that London should mourn for her sins. We read (Jeremiah 3:21), A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the house of Israel. When the terrible voice of God's judgements has been heard in London, God does hearken for the voice of w…

The Lord hates putting away (Malachi 2:16). Though therefore the Church, through her weakness, does depart from him, and play the harlot, yet return again to me, says the Lord (Jeremiah 3:1). Learn we by this pattern to cleave close to the Lord, which is a duty most due to Chris…

6. The continuance of Christ's love was without date: Having loved his own, he loved them to the end. His love was constant (not by fits, now loving, then hating) and everlasting (never repenting thereof, never changing or altering his mind) — no provocations, no transgressions…

The [illegible] that accompanies the voice of God. Jeremiah 3:26, 27, 28, 29. The rejection of a plea of [illegible], wherein it consists.

Though profane men make no reckoning of it, yet were it in the hardest times, they that know the Lord will account of it as he does, a sweet alloy of all sufferings and hardship; though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not your tea…

See how God casts up his accounts. It is mercy (Jeremiah 3:12): I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. So his truth (Psalm 106:45): He remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.

A man is not to turn the back upon him, but call him Father, as well as he can. (Jeremiah 3:19) But I said, How shall I put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? And I said, You shall call me my Father, and shall not tur…

So the Lord treats his people. (Jeremiah 3:5-6) You have said, you are my Father: Behold, you have spoken and done evil things as you could. God takes it to be a contempt and reproach to himself, when we do evil, yet come and call him Father.

The soul cannot keep away from God, and that is an implicit owning him as a Father. (Jeremiah 3:19), You will call me, My Father, and will not turn away from me. It is a child-like act to look to him for all our supplies, and to recommend our suit: as when a child wants anything…

What King will be in league with him that holds correspondence with his Enemy? 2. Labor for Faith; 1. Faith in the Mercy of God, Jeremiah 3:12. I am merciful, says the Lord, and will not keep anger for ever.

God's justice is satisfied by Christ, but it must be glorified and owned by us. So (Jeremiah 3:13) I am merciful, says the Lord: only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God. God has mercy enough to pardon all; only he will have it sued ou…

1. What does this imply? It implies sincerity and integrity; for it is not to be taken in the legal sense with respect to absolute perfection, but in opposition to deceit (Jeremiah 3:10). Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but feignedly, says the Lord.

Therefore, 1. Commit yourselves to the care of his grace; a man is to choose God for a guide as well as to take him for a Lord, to ask his counsel as well as submit to his commandments (Jeremiah 3:4): Will you not from this time cry to me, My father, you are the guide of my yout…

Erubuit, salva res est. By how much less they are ashamed now, the more they shall be; their shamelessness will increase their shame (Jeremiah 3:3). You had a whore's forehead, you refused to be ashamed.

2. It is a great motive to repentance. As the prodigal thought of his father, so should we return; (Jeremiah 3:12) Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord, and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful…

7 And lastly, it is evident that sin has blinded man, that he can be content to be led, though but by a dog: Inter Caecos Inscus regnare potest, A half-eyed man may reign among the blind: Would a man be led by a dog if he were not blind? He would scorn it: Our Saviour tells us,…

'Tis indeed his goodness that he will admit us to repent, but that he will call and lead to repentance is goodness much more. And, oh, what goodness is it that he puts us to no greater penance than repentance (Jeremiah 3:13)! God might have said, you shall lie in Hell so many th…

Either all, or none at all; not cut, but cut off; the soul is not only changed from her lusts, but divorced fully. In (Jeremiah 3:10) it is said they turned not to the Lord with all their hearts but feignedly; there is some secret lust reserved in the heart that is the bane of a…

O its a blessed thing to be (as Job says he was,) eyes to the blinde, much more to blinde souls; such are the Ministers. God himself calls Pastours after his own heart, that feed his people with knowledge and understanding, Jeremiah 3:15. But wo to those that are accessary to th…

But he is, to speak so, more than a God to others (Hosea 2:19): I will betroth you to me forever, indeed I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercy. Now the Lord is joined to backsliding Israel, in an external marriage covenant:…

In the first Covenant no surety was allowed, under the Covenant of Grace, if we do but confess the debt, Christ will be our Surety. What way could be thought of more ready and facile for the salvation of man, than an humble confession? (Jeremiah 3:13). Only acknowledge your iniq…

And know assuredly, that upon your Compliance or non-Compliance with them, depends your everlasting Blessedness or Woe. Consider both Call and Promise in that Word of Gods Grace, Jer. 3:12, 13, 14. Go and proclaim these Words towards the North, and say, Return you Backsliding Is…

For the wicked nature of man can dissemble and counterfeit God's grace. As the Lord complains of the Jews: her rebellious sister Judah has not returned to me with her whole heart, but feignedly, says the Lord (Jeremiah 3:10). Counterfeit repentance is either ceremonial or desper…

If this could have hindered, Judah should never have received mercy; but the text says, I have seen his ways, and will heal him. You have played the harlot with many lovers, yet turn again to me, says the Lord (Jeremiah 3:1). There is no time past if a man has but a heart to ret…

Then rebuking of Ephraim, which is called speaking against him, is dipped in mercy (Hosea 11:7): My people are bent to backsliding — this is a rebuke sharp enough — yet he chides himself friends with the people (verse 8): How shall I give you up, O Ephraim, my heart is turned wi…

2. When objects of life work upon life, they cannot deceive, especially all the senses, hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling, smelling: the excellency and sweetness of Christ, going along with the word, cannot be delusion; a man may imagine that he sees and hears, and yet his sense…

Christ has not the tithe of mankind: he makes a journey while he is wearied and thirsty through Samaria; yes, and wants his dinner for one woman at that draught of his net, and thinks he dines like a king and above, if he saves one (John 4:33-34). O sweet husband's word (Jeremia…

As there is a fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19), so there's a fullness of the Devil, as (Romans 1:29) being filled with all unrighteousness. It is no wonder that Cavaliers and Malignants work as their Father, the nature of the Father is in the son, modus operandi sequitur modum e…

Before this effectual call, a humbling work passes upon the soul. A man is convinced of sin, he sees he is a sinner, and nothing but a sinner; the fallow-ground of his heart is broken up (Jeremiah 4:3). As the farmer breaks the clods, then casts in the seed; so God by the convin…

Perjury is a calling God to witness to a lie. It is said of Philip of Macedon, he would swear and unswear, as might stand best with his interest (Jeremiah 4:2). You shall swear the Lord lives in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness.

It reproves them who have too much of the serpent, but nothing of the dove. Jeremiah 4:22: "Wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge." These are like the devil, who retains his subtlety, but not his innocency.

Besides ignorance in the mind, there is error and mistake, we do not judge rightly of things, we put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter (Isaiah 5:20). Besides this, there is much pride, superciliousness, and prejudice, many fleshly reasonings against the truth, and swarms of…

Though repentance begins at the heart, it does not rest there, but goes into the life. I say it begins at the heart (Jeremiah 4:14): "O Jerusalem, wash your heart." If the spring be corrupt, there can no pure stream run from it.

If children will eat green fruit, they may thank themselves if they are sick; if we eat the forbidden fruit, no wonder to feel it gripe. Sin is the Trojan Horse that lands an army of afflictions upon us (Jeremiah 4:15). A voice publishes affliction: verse 18. Your way and your d…

Though the heart be not new-made, it is new-molded. (Jeremiah 4:14) Wash your heart, O Jerusalem. Ahab's clothes were rent, but not his heart.

We find not their murders, adulteries, blasphemies (though they were defiled with these) particularly alleged against them; but the evils of their hearts. Indeed, that which God was so provoked by as to give up his peculiar inheritance into the enemy's hand was the evil of their…

Use 2. What is light, and knowledge, though you had as much as the devils have, who are torches and lamps of hell for knowledge, if all your wisdom be against Christ? It is a black commendation (Jeremiah 4:22): My people are foolish, they have not known me, they are sottish chil…

But yet so that we are under the obligation of divine precepts to do our part (Ezekiel 18:31): make you a new heart and a new Spirit for why will you die, O house of Israel? (Jeremiah 4:4): Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskin of your heart. (Ephesians 4…

They proceeded from evil to worse, and this is the estate of us all without Christ, we grow from prodigality to covetousness; and from wantonness, to voluptuousness, and so go on till we come to take pleasure in all sin, though it be but for a season: this is all the growth and…

Who can say, that every thought in him is subdued to the obedience of Christ? Answ. It is true that you object, for (Jeremiah 4:14) it is a complaint, and an earnest speech; O Jerusalem, wash your heart from your wickedness that you may be saved, how long shall your vain thought…

Now then, the form of an oath is a certain form of words, in which not all, but some of the principal parts of an oath are expressed, and the rest concealed, and yet to be understood. In (Jeremiah 4:2) there is the form of an oath, The Lord lives, and here only confession is exp…

Circumcision had. And this appears; because the prophets put the Jews in mind of their circumcision when they fell away from God, bidding them to circumcise the foreskin of their hearts (Jeremiah 4:4). Argument 2.

Now the Prophet's public tears served (as we have said) to break the hearts of the people: for he had to do with men of such obstinacy, as could not easily be brought to lament. There is a place almost like to this in Jeremiah, where he bewails the destruction and scattering of…

Psalm 130:3 But this I say, that it's Gods usual way, to visit the sins of his people with rods of affliction, and this in mercy to their souls. Upon this account it was, that the rod of God was upon David in a long succession of troubles upon his kingdom and family, after that…

Numb. 14:11 Our corrupt hearts have made him cry, How long shall vain thoughts lodge within you? Jeremiah 4:14 Our impure natures and ways have made him cry, How long will it be ere they attain to innocency? Hosea 8:5 If God wait upon you with so much patience for your duties, w…

2. A duty laid on her, to quit this distance and to return; this the very expression bears. 3. A kind offer of welcome, which is implied in his offers and exhortations, whenever he calls: so (Jeremiah 3:14), (Jeremiah 4:1) and thus the sense is, as if he had said, There has been…

It ought therefore most deservedly to be the great and chief care of every Christian to lay the axe to this root, to purge and heal this fountain, that sends forth such corrupt, and poisonous streams, to keep his heart clean from sinful thoughts and affections; and then this lif…

So that the meaning of, Swear not at all, is, Swear not unnecessarily and voluntarily. Now to make an oath lawful, it must have these three qualifications mentioned by the prophet (Jeremiah 4:2): You shall swear, the Lord lives, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness. First…

2. God might have punished London more severely in other kinds of judgments. 1. He might have brought upon them, and upon the whole land, the sword of a foreign enemy, as he did upon Jerusalem, and the land of Judea, for their sins, which being so pathetically set forth by the p…

Oh be willing to make this blessed exchange, to part with your base lusts for a precious Christ, to forgo soul-damning corruptions for soul-perfuming dispositions: if you cannot put off the whole body of sin, yet you are to cut off the members thereof, you ought indeed to stub u…

How far are they distant from God, who have been traveling forty or fifty years from their Father's house! And which is worse, sinners are not only far from God, but they do not desire to be near him (Jeremiah 4:10). They have loved to wander; sin does not care to be near holine…

That the work of the Spirit in convincing and humbling the heart of a sinner, is a work wherein much of the wisdom, as well as power of God is discovered. The work of repentance and saving contrition, is set forth in Scripture by this metaphor of plowing (Jeremiah 4:3; Hosea 10:…

While the world is so full of the sparks of provocation, and there is so much tinder in the hearts of the best, no marvel if anger come sometimes into the bosom of a wise man, but it rests only in the bosom of fools (Ecclesiastes 7:9). Angry thoughts, as other vain thoughts, may…

10. The Throne of glory, Jer. 4:21 11.

And therefore it is the same prophet's advice from the Lord. Wash your heart O Jerusalem how long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you (Jeremiah 4:14). This is the true method, according to our Savior's doctrine: Make the tree good, and then the fruits will be good, not til…

It reproves such as instead of thinking on God, their minds are wholly taken up with Vain Thoughts. Vain Thoughts are the froth of the Brain, Jeremiah 4:14. How long shall Vain Thoughts lodge with you?

Not to God, when we come in his name without his message. Ah Lord! you have greatly deceived this people, says the Prophet Jeremiah to God (Jeremiah 4:10): You, you have done it, because the false prophets had done it in his name. The dishonor reflects upon him when his ordinanc…

Search the Scriptures, and you shall find that the godly are more troubled at God's judgments, than the wicked themselves who are to feel them; (Daniel 4:19) Daniel was astonished for an hour, and his thoughts troubled him, when he was to reveal God's judgments against Nebuchadn…

To medicine that purges away the sick matter (Isaiah 27:9): By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin. To plowing and harrowing of the ground, that destroys the ill weeds, and fits it to receive the good seed (Jeremia…

Sin is wrought out more and more by the blood of Christ applied to the conscience. And sometimes this is expressed in Scripture, by plowing up the fallow ground (Jeremiah 4:4). There are perverse inclinations, like briars and thorns, that grow in us; and the strength of vile aff…

How long do we make God stay and wait till our leisure comes! (Jeremiah 4:14) O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved: how long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you? And (Jeremiah 13:27) O Jerusalem, will you not be made clean?

Sin has: 1. Blinded man's understanding, and made him ignorant. 2. Depraved his understanding, and made him a fool. 1 Sin has darkened man's understanding: poor man is wise to do evil, but to do good has no knowledge (Jeremiah 4:22); indeed there is none that understands (namely…

So when men will and think wickedly, God takes their will for the deed; as he takes the good man's will for the deed with acceptation, so he takes the wicked man's will for the deed with abomination: for (Proverbs 15:26) the thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord,…

Use 3. Let me persuade Christians to heart-purity; the harlot wipes her mouth (Proverbs 30:20), but that is not enough. Wash your heart, O Jerusalem (Jeremiah 4:14). And here I shall lay down some arguments or motives to persuade to heart-purity.

Sin has drawn a veil over the understanding, casting a mist before our eyes, so that we neither know God nor ourselves. Naturally we are only wise to do evil (Jeremiah 4:22); witty at sin, wise to damn ourselves. The understanding is defiled (1 Corinthians 2:14); we can no more…

Let Satan dig his mines, lay his train of powder, shoot his balls of wildfire — if the Lord of Hosts pitch his tent in the heart, it can never be taken by storm. If you would keep your hearts, have a care to keep your thoughts (Jeremiah 4:14): how long shall vain thoughts lodge…

First, affect not subtilty in contriving any sin. Some are wise to do evil, Jeremiah 4:22. Masters of this craft, who can as they lie on their beds, cast their wicked designes into an artificial method, showing a kinde of devillish wit therein, as the Egyptians who dealt wisely…

2. A new heart has a twofold consideration, one as a duty commanded, and two, as a blessing promised. As to the former, (Ezekiel 18:31) make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, (Jeremiah 4:4) circumcise your heart to the Lord, take away the foreskin of your heart, you men o…

For, 1. Circumcision of the flesh was a seal of the Circumcision of the heart promised in the Covenant of Grace (Deuteronomy 30:6), and of the cutting of the foreskin thereof (Jeremiah 4:4; Jeremiah 9:26; Ezekiel 36:26-27), and baptism is the same (Colossians 2:11-12; Titus 3:5)…

Peter has a better heart than all men in the books of his own heart (Matthew 26:33), but it is not so indeed. 3. Propos. The washed heart that lodges not vain thoughts (Jeremiah 4:14), purged from dead works, by the blood of Christ (above all the blood of bullocks and goats) (He…

We have more in us of the brute, than the Angel. 7. In every sin there is folly, (Jeremiah 4:22). A man will be ashamed of his folly.

What beweildrings are there in the imagination! If Satan does not possess your bodies, he does your fancies, (Jeremiah 4:4). How long shall vain thoughts lodge within you?

Cyprian writes thus, concerning the Persecution of the Church under the Emperor Valerian, We must confess that this sad calamity, which has in a great part wasted our Churches, has risen from our own intestine wickedness, whilst we are full of avarice, ambition, emulation, etc.…

1st Commandment: You shall have no other gods, etc. He breaks this commandment: who does not know the true God (Jeremiah 4:22); who denies God in his heart by denying his presence, justice, mercy, etc. (Psalm 14:1); who hates God and shows it by disobedience (Exodus 20:5; Romans…

Jeremiah 4:14. How long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you? In these words he compares the heart to some house of common resort, made as it were with many and large rooms to entertain and lodge multitudes of guests in; into which, before conversion, all the vain, light, w…

Finally, they differ in their cures and remedies, a pierced conscience may be cured sundry ways, by which a pierced heart cannot. First, a pierced conscience may be cured by store of worldly business and cares, and sensual lust, the thorny soil went beyond the stony: the thorny…

"I kept myself from my iniquity" (Psalm 18:23) — we must keep ourselves from sinful defilements. "O Jerusalem, wash your heart from your filthiness" (Jeremiah 4:14). Keep your heart from old and new iniquities (Psalm 4:16).

Use 1. If God is so infinite in power, fear this great God. We are apt to fear such as are in power; (Jeremiah 5:22) Fear you not me, says the Lord? will you not tremble at my presence? He has power to cast our souls and bodies into Hell; (Psalm 90:11) Who knows the power of his…

Quest. But what is it to have other gods besides the true God? I fear upon search we have more idolaters among us than we are aware of. Resp. To trust in any thing more than God, is to make it a God. 1. If we trust in our riches, then we make riches our God: we may take comfort,…

Thus God has visited us with the sun-beams of his favour: He has made us swim in a sea of mercy: This is a happy visitation. 2. There is God's visiting in anger (Jeremiah 5:9). Shall I not visit for these things? That is, God's visiting with the rod; and (Isaiah 10:3). What will…

Either God can remove mountains, or can leap over them (Song of Solomon 2:8). Branch 2. If God be so great a king, let us fear him (Jeremiah 5:22), Fear you not me says the Lord? Will you not tremble at my presence? We have enough fear of men.

Therefore the adulterer is described like a horse neighing. (Jeremiah 5:8) Every one neighed after his neighbor's wife. Nay, this is worse than brutish; for some creatures that are void of reason, yet by the instinct of nature observe a kind of decorum, or chastity.

How unworthy is this — would we not cry shame of him who had a friend always feeding him with money, and he should betray and injure that friend. Thus ungratefully do sinners deal with God, they do not only forget his mercies but abuse them (Jeremiah 5:7): "When I had fed them t…

Surely God will be ashamed of those, that are not ashamed when he rebukes them. It is not magnanimity, but stupidity to make light of God's corrections, and for this the afflicted are smartly taxed (Jeremiah 5:3), I have smitten them but they have not grieved. When God struck Jo…

Who say they shall have peace, and please themselves with this their good hope, say the Word what it will. O! be persuaded, that this is nothing else but woeful unbelief and presumption; and we preach to you terror and the curse of God, though you cry peace to yourselves; the Lo…

The Lord calls this a deceiving of Him, for He says in His Word, that there is no peace to the wicked, and the foolish presumer says, I shall have peace; shall His Word or theirs stand? They say (Jeremiah 5:12; Jeremiah 7:9), "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are t…

(Isaiah 10:3) When God asks of them, What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation that shall come upon you from far? to whom will you flee for help? where will you leave your glory? (Jeremiah 5:31) What will you do in the end? Guiltiness is a shiftless and a…

In that mighty collection of waters in the sea, we cannot look upon that vast expansion of the firmament, that huge body of waters in the sea without some religious horror — what is the God that made all this? (Jeremiah 5:22) Do you not fear me, says the Lord? Will you not tremb…

No, God forbid. But we ourselves by our disloyalty, have been rejected: indeed, we have thereby repelled and put back his benefits from us (Jeremiah 5:25). And yet the Prophet condemns not only the men of his age, but those also of the ages before.

But not to take notice of it, is a vile and bruitish contempt of God, Ia. 1:3 Zeph. 3:2 You would not do so by a man for whom you have any respect. It's the character of the wicked, not to regard Gods favors, Isaiah 26:10 or frowns, Jeremiah 5:3 In a word. men can never order th…

It signifies a magistrate, and so in various places of Scripture, man is put for a magistrate, especially when it is expressed as here, by Ish (Genesis 43:11). Carry a present to the man, namely to the governor of the country (Jeremiah 5:1). Go through Jerusalem and search, and…

In an evil part, God is said to visit when he rewards those sins at which he seemed to connive, with deserved punishments; So (Psalm 89:32): I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. And (Jeremiah 5:9): Shall I not visit for these things? sa…

The perfection of a man is to govern himself according to law and reason, to bound and circumscribe his actions by the rules of what is fit and honest; whereas beasts show the inferiority of their natures by the scope and range of their unguided appetites, per vagas & effusas li…

If these men separate to be better instructed, I wish with all my heart their teachers would be pleased so far to condescend from their higher speculations, as to instruct them, that to attest any thing by their faith, or by their truth, is a wicked oath. For all oaths which are…

Has not the cursed leaven of this common sin of the times, spread itself also in the city? Therefore the Lord also has made ready his wrath as in a hot oven; and though like a baker he has seemed to sleep while he lay in wait, and delayed to execute his judgments; yet in the mor…

And now God has executed his judgments of plague and fire in London, have not we reason to fear that his anger is not yet turned away, but his hand is stretched out still? When the houses of London were consumed, which were the fuel to the late Fire, then the Fire quickly went o…

Israel of old made covenants and seemed very religious, and God himself attested that they had well said, but wishes: O that there were such a heart in them! We have a strange passage in (Jeremiah 5:2): Though they say, the Lord lives, surely they swear falsely. Why?

This made Abraham willing to wander up and down many years as a stranger in the world; for he looked for a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. The hopes of such a harvest is encouragement enough to work hard, and wait long; yet some Christians are so impat…

And in Deuteronomy 23:18. The hire of a whore, and the price of a dog, are put together. The expression of this lust in words or gesture, is called neighing, Jeremiah 5:8. Even as fed horses do, that scatter their lust promiscuously. Or if the Scripture speaks of them as men, ye…

3. These are joined together, because sin is the great obstacle and hindrance of all the blessings which we expect from God. (Jeremiah 5:25) Your sins have withheld good things from you. When mercy comes to us, sin stands in the way, and turns it back again, so that it cannot ha…

Many times in a mean condition a man seems to make conscience of doing the will of God; but when prosperous, he grows wanton and disobedient. (Jeremiah 5:5) I will get me to the great men, but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. So that there are a great…

And shall not we Fear this God? Jeremiah 5:22. Fear ye not me, says the Lord, will ye not tremble at my presence?

Possibly this may be the meaning of that (Psalm 5:9), Their throat is an open sepulchre, they flatter with their tongue; that is, the slanders of the wicked are a preparation to death, as an open sepulchre is prepared to swallow and take in the dead carcass. I expound it thus, b…

1. Of a stupid carelessness under the rod; it is a time of seeking after God, a summons to the creature to come before him. Now if we think to sport away our trouble without looking after God's comforts, it is a desperate security (Jeremiah 5:12). They have belied the Lord, and…

1. The fear of reverence when the soul is deeply possessed with a sense of God's majesty and goodness, that it dares not offend him: his greatness and majesty has an influence upon this fear. Do you not fear me, says the Lord, will you not tremble at my presence, who have placed…

And besides this, there are three things which speak approbation; as, When we take pleasure in the actions or the actors (Jeremiah 5:30-31): the Prophets prophesy falsely, and the Priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so, that is, they set their seal to…

Man's mercy is large when it reaches to seven times — what is God, then, that reaches to more than seventy times seven in a day! (Matthew 18:21). When good men have prayed, "Lord, forgive them not" (Isaiah 2:9; Jeremiah 18:23), yet God has pardoned: and when himself was so put t…

5. Those things which (if we have nothing else) will make us cursed, cannot make us blessed; but the sole enjoyment of worldly things will make us cursed; therefore it is far from making us blessed: Riches are kept for the hurt of the owner (Ecclesiastes 5:13). Riches to the wic…

3. My sickness, my pain, my bands owe themselves to God, and are debtors to his glory, I, and every one of men should say, O that my pain might praise him, and my hell, and flamings of everlasting fire, might be an everlasting Psalm of the glory of his justice; that my sorrow co…

God smites on mens backs, but they smite not with Ephraim upon their thigh . It was a sad complaint the Prophet took up, (Jeremiah 5:3). you have stricken them, but they have not grieved. That sure is reprobate silver which contracts hardness in the furnace, 2 (Chronicles 28:22).

Ingratitude is worse than brutish, Isaiah 1. 3. 'Tis reported of Julius Caesar, that he would never forgive an ungrateful person; though God be a sin-pardoning God, he scarce knows not how to pardon for this, Jeremiah 5. 7. How shall I pardon thee for this, thy children have for…

It was said of Rome of old, it was become a Stews,—Urbs est jam tota Lupanar— I wish it might not be verified of many parts of this Land. Adultery is a brutish sin, Jeremiah 5:8. They neighed every one after his neighbour's Wife.

When were they then sinners? Never, their sins were just no sins from eternity, and blotted away as a cloud, as a thick cloud, as it is (Isaiah 44:22), and that from eternity, and from eternity sought and not found, because pardoned (Jeremiah 5:20), no more remembered (Isaiah 43…

Secondly, so God's goodness. Reason 1. Because it shows us the desperateness of our danger; to sin against a great God, is great danger, but yet there may be a remedy, but to sin against a good God, that makes our case desperate, as thus, When a man's heart is convinced that he…

He who had received a better heart than Solomon, and yet seeing it so bad, had good reason to give Solomon this charge: Above all keepings, keep your heart. This deceitfulness of man's heart is mentioned in Jeremiah 5:22-23, 24: this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart…

And now, no wonder if only Noah, and eight persons more for his sake, be preserved. (Jeremiah 5:30-31) Had there been many horrible things committed, and God's people but mourned and been ashamed of them, God would never have looked at it, as such a wonderful and horrible matter…

But surely the death of one out of many, is much more tolerable than of all in one. Hence it is noted in Scripture as the greatest of earthly sorrows (Jeremiah 6:26), O daughter of my people gird yourself with sackcloth, and wallow yourself in ashes. Make mourning as for an only…

That is, I will spread the net of my judgements over them, and they shall be taken in the Net. 4. Covetousness. Jer 6. 12. I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the Land, for from the least of them, even to the greatest, every one is given to Covetousness. When men…

3. And how the Lord corrects, is worthy to be known. He corrects Jacob in measure (Jeremiah 6:28). Mercy wrapped about the rod, and a cup of gall and wormwood honeyed, and oiled with free love, and a piece of Christ's heart, and his stirred bowels mixed in with the cup, is a mer…

Christians (Acts 11:26). Some who have hardened their heart, are called men, but something more, reprobate (Jeremiah 6:28, 30). Seed of the Serpent (Genesis 3:15).

And because that may be more proper to corrupt teachers, Jeremiah speaks it of all the sons of nature, and those especially that had lived a while under the means, and were not thereby brought on to an estate of grace, those whom God had kindled some fire in their hearts, and wh…

This imitation of others, is to be limited with that necessary caution, in so far as the practice of others agrees with the first pattern, Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). In a word, this direction shows there is no way, but the good old way to be asked for, and followed in the most…

How universally has this sin reigned in the City? So that it may almost be said of London, as it was of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 6:13), From the least of them even to the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness. Those who have been free from gluttony, drunkenness, adulter…

Many persons are thus given over; as incorrigible and hopeless (Revelation 22:11). "Let him that is filthy, be filthy still." Jeremiah 6:29: "Reprobate silver shall men call them, for the Lord has rejected them." Isaiah 6: "Go make the heart of this people fat, their ears dull,…

Those also speak against the Scriptures, who profanely jest with them, and that they may the more securely rebel against Scripture laws, make themselves and their idle companions merry with the Scripture language. The word of the Lord is to them a reproach, as the prophet compla…

See Isai. 1. 5. Hosea 4:14. Jeremiah 6:29, 30, Hebrews 6:8. THE POEM.

(3) We speak peace to ourselves, when we do it slightly. This the prophet complains of in some teachers (Jeremiah 6:14): They have healed the wound of the daughter of my people slightly. And it is so with some persons, they make the healing of their wounds a slight work, a look,…

But men must be gold and silver in the bottom, or else refining will do them no good. The prophet gives us the sad issue of wicked men's utmost attempts for mortification, by what means soever that God affords them (Jeremiah 6:29, 30): The bellows are burnt, and the lead is cons…

And certainly, as to the wicked, it is a very great temptation, judicially inflicted, disposed of to them by God's judgment, they are plagued by worldly felicity; and it is part of their curse, that they shall be written in the earth (Jeremiah 17:13). And suitable to this purpos…

All religions aim at this, Ut anima sit subjecta Deo, & peccata in se; no true peace without the Word, nor no true holiness. The first is proved (Jeremiah 6:16): "Thus says the Lord, Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, a…

Because there are different ways propounded to man, therefore he must follow all, or take up one upon evidence. Not only in point of practice, as life and death is set before us (Deuteronomy 30:15), and the broad way and the narrow (Matthew 7:13-14); not only to counterwork the…

USE 2. If covetousness be the great hindrance from keeping God's testimonies, then let us examine ourselves, are we guilty of it? Doting upon the creature, and an inordinate affection to sensible things, is a natural, an hereditary disease, more general than we are aware of (Jer…

Principles must be fixed, before they can be improved, and we can feel their influence and power: but people will be making essays, and try this, and try that. God's grounds of comfort are immutably fixed; God will not change his gospel-laws for your sake: and therefore unless w…

3. With respect to the tendency and issues of things; and so it notes fore-consideration, or deliberation in order to choice. God bids his people stand upon the ways and see, and inquire after the old paths, which is the good way, and walk therein (Jeremiah 6:16). As travelers w…

1. Thoughts — they are liable to God's tribunal, which can be arraigned before no other bar, yet the Word does find them out. It does not only discover the evil of them (Hebrews 4:12): The word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to…

Wealth cannot allay a grieved mind, nor appease a wounded conscience. The Word directs us where we may find rest for our souls (Jeremiah 6:16): Go, ask for the good old way, and you shall find rest for your souls. We lose ourselves in a maze of uncertainties till we come to the…

God puts us sometimes under the black rod; but it is virga disciplinaris, a rod of discipline; Hear you the rod, and who has appointed it. God makes our adversity, our university: Affliction is a preacher; Blow the trumpet in Tekoah (Jeremiah 6:1). The trumpet was to preach to t…

Meekness and zeal may stand together. In matters of religion a Christian must be clothed with the spirit of Elijah, and be full of the fury of the Lord (Jeremiah 6:11). Christ was meek (Matthew 11:29), yet zealous (John 2:14-15): The zeal of your house has eaten me up.

In a race there is the way or path to run in; so in Christianity there is the pathway in which we must run (Psalm 119:32): I will run the way of your commandments. This is a good old way (Jeremiah 6:16); it is as good as it is old. The way of sanctification and obedience is the…

While we are waiting, let us take heed of wavering. Go not a step out of God's way, though a lion be in the way, avoid not duty to meet with safety: keep God's highway, the good old way (Jeremiah 6:16), the way which is paved with holiness (Isaiah 35:8), and a highway shall be t…

The unjust knows no shame. It is a great shame not to be ashamed; the Lord sets it as a brand upon the Jews, (Jeremiah 6:15). Were they ashamed when they committed abomination; nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush .

'Why should you be stricken any more? You will revolt more and more' (Isaiah 1:5). And to keep to our metaphor, consult Jeremiah 6:29: God had put that incorrigible people into the furnace of affliction, and kept them long in that fire; and what was the issue? The prophet says,…

To the dung or garbage, the poison, sting, excrement, vomit of these filthy creatures; to a root of bitterness which defiles many (Hebrews 12:15); to thorns and briers, which bring forth no other fruits but [reconstructed: curses] (Hebrews 6:8). To the excrement of metals, dross…

Offerings and sacrifices in themselves were holy things, but yet to them says the Lord, to a revolting and disobedient people, they shall be as the bread of mourners, that is unclean (Hosea 9:4), and the Prophet elsewhere intimates the reason, I hate, I despise your feast days,…

No, to obey is better than sacrifice. God disclaims sacrifice, if obedience be wanting (Jeremiah 7:22). I spoke not to your fathers concerning burnt offerings, but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice.

Dry wood is not more prone to take fire, than our nature is to idolatry. The Jews made cakes to the Queen of Heaven, that is the moon (Jeremiah 7:18). Quest. From where is it that we are so prone to idolatry?

Visiting the iniquity of the fathers. Most of God's envenomed arrows have been shot among idolaters (Jeremiah 7:12). Go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it. God for Israel's idolatry, suffered their army to be routed, t…

Judges 17:13: I have a Levite to my priest; surely I shall go to heaven. The Jews cried (Jeremiah 7:4): The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. We are apt to glory in this — the oracles of God are committed to us, we have Word and Sacrament.

It is God's will that we should believe; and why is it but that we should be crowned with salvation; (Mark 16:16) He that believes shall be saved. What God wills is not so much our duty as our privilege; he bids us obey his voice, and it is greatly for our good; (Jeremiah 7:23)…

And thus was Abraham warranted to sacrifice his Son; namely, by virtue of a special, and personal commandment to himself alone. But if Abraham had not had this particular commandment, the sacrificing of Isaac had been unlawful and abominable; for, the killing of a man is a heino…

When God calls to a people by his Word, Spirit, Judgements, but they regard him not, he will pack up and be gone. Jer. 7. 13. I spake unto you rising up early, but you heard not, therefore will I do to this house which is called by my Name, as I did to Shilo. Why, what did God t…

The Lord calls this a deceiving of Him, for He says in His Word, that there is no peace to the wicked, and the foolish presumer says, I shall have peace; shall His Word or theirs stand? They say (Jeremiah 5:12; Jeremiah 7:9), "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are t…

But if Mr. Den and others will contend that this seeing of the salvation of God, is the revelation of the literal knowledge of Christ, that saving thing which is bestowed on the nations by the ministry of John and the coming of the Messiah, they must with us confess a large syne…

Thirdly, God sometimes requires that we should part with all his holy ordinances in some cases; part with all confidence in them, and from staying our hearts upon them; we may soon lose Christ, and lose his protection, and his fatherly compassion towards us, if in the use of the…

This prophecy therefore might seem very strange, to wit, that they should become heartless, and betake them to their heels, and yet should not escape this way neither. (Jeremiah 7:4) Verse 4. Therefore said I, Turn away from me: I will weep bitterly: labor not to comfort me for…

And Solomon in dedicating the Temple said, When they shall come and pray in this house, then you will hear in heaven your dwelling place (1 Kings 8:33). Which is the cause why Christ reproaches the Jews for making his Father's house a den of thieves (Matthew 21:13), and thereunt…

For they confess they had nothing to glory in but the Temple, wherein God was pleased to be worshipped and served. And yet we see that this their rejoicing was often vain; insomuch that Jeremiah reproves them for it, saying: Trust not in lying words; to wit, The Temple of the Lo…

Indeed, he so manifests his fatherly love, and so willingly accepts of us, that if we yield not obedience to his voice, we ought justly to impute the same to our own frowardness. Moreover, the clause, all the day long, aggravates the fault greatly, namely, that God ceased not fo…

13. It is written. Christ quotes two passages taken out of two Prophets; the one from Isaiah 56:7, and the other from Jeremiah 7:11. What was written by Isaiah agreed with the circumstances of the time; for in that passage is predicted the calling of the Gentiles.

37. Jerusalem, Jerusalem. By these words, Christ shows more clearly what good reason he had for indignation, that Jerusalem, which God had chosen to be his sacred, and — as we might say — heavenly abode, not only had shown itself to be unworthy of so great an honor, but, as if i…

53. And went into the holy city. When Matthew bestows on Jerusalem the honorable designation of the holy city, he does not intend to applaud the character of its inhabitants, for we know that it was at that time full of all pollution and wickedness, so that it was rather a den o…

And he says daily that it should be no marvel to any man, though he were weary of doing good to them, seeing he did avail and profit nothing by his assiduity or continual doing good. This is the same figure which is in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7:13 and 11:7), where he says that he ros…

Henry the Second of France in a great rage against a Protestant Counsellor, committed him to the hands of one of his Nobles to be imprisoned, and that with these words, that he would see him burned with his own eyes: but mark the righteous Providence of God, within a ew days aft…

This is our duty, because God has expresly commanded it, and called his people to make the most serious reflections, and animadversions upon his works, whether of mercy or judgement. So when that dreadfullest of all Judgements was executed upon his professing people for their Ap…

And the prophet puts in this as an aggravation of their sin, that when the Lord called for such a mourning as was joined with baldness and shaving the head, that then there should be joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine. See this mor…

How much more then, is it a most hellish wickedness, committed against the great God, to assert a known lie, and then call in God to attest it for a truth? Which is no other but to father a brat of the Devil, who is a liar, and the Father of Lies, upon God, who hates liars, and…

Lastly, when fields prove barren, and will not quit the husbandman's cost, nor answer the seed he sows in them, he plucks up the hedges, and lays it waste. So when churches grow formal and fruitless, the Lord removes his gospel-presence from them; plucks up the hedge of his prot…

And one principal Reason of this different distribution, is to maintain fellowship among them all, 1 Corinthians 12:21. The Head cannot say to the Feet I have no need of you. As in a Family, where there is much business to be done, even the little Children bear a part, according…

2. By the Name of God is meant his Glorious Attributes, which are the several Letters of his Name. 3. By the Name of God is meant his Worship and Ordinances where his Name is called upon, Jeremiah 7:12. Go ye to my Place which was in Shiloh where I set my Name at first: That is,…

With what busy diligence does an idolatrous family carry on their way and their course! See (Jeremiah 7:18): The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, etc. says the Lord. Every one will have his hand in the work, and are quickening and inflaming one another; fat…

5. There are many aggravating circumstances attending the sins of men (beside the greatness of its own nature) which do exceedingly provoke God: men's sins are not only many and great, but are both multiplied and magnified, they are heightened by many circumstances: men increase…

Jeremiah, who was a weeping prophet, was a great intercessor. God said to him, Pray not for this people (Jeremiah 7:16) — as if the Lord said, Jeremiah, so powerful are your prayers and tears that if you pray, I cannot deny you. Tears have a mighty influence upon God.

You shall be my portion, my jewels, the apple of my eye; I will give kingdoms for your ransom. Jeremiah 7:23: obey, and I will be your God; I will make over myself to you by a deed of gift. What a superlative distinguishing mercy is this! Psalm 144:15: happy is that people whose…

Tertullian speaks of some that think, Satìs Deum habere, si corde & animo suspiciatur, licèt actu minus fiat: God has enough (they think) if he be feared and reverenced in their hearts, though in their actions they show it not so much: and therefore they can sin, and believe in…

But 2. Justification by grace does not, in iisdem apicibus, in the same points, have the same adversaries. 1. Moses and the Prophets contend most with ceremonial hypocrites, who sought righteousness much in ceremonies, washings, sacrifices, new moons, and also their own inherent…

Such thoughts the Jews of Old had concerning their Sacrifices; namely, that they were appointed for their own Sakes, and were acceptable Service to God, meerly on their own Account. Wherefore, God to deliver them from this pernicious Mistake, affirms ofttimes, that he never appo…

For thus says the Lord: And it shall be, if you shall hear these commandments and judgments, and shall keep them and do them, the Lord also shall keep with you his covenant and mercy which he has sworn to your fathers, he shall love you and multiply you, and bless you, etc. (Deu…

How dreadful a sin is idolatry; and what a signal mercy is it to be snatched out of an idolatrous place, as Lot was snatched by the angel out of Sodom? 3. It is a mercy to be delivered from idolatrous places, because idolatry is such a silly irrational religion; I may say as (Je…

And Hosea called his hearers to the most High, yet none at all would exalt Him. It was their work to stretch out their hands all the day long, but they hardened their necks, and refused to return (Jeremiah 8 and Zechariah 7). But 5thly, consider — all these are servants and prea…

Let them go for wise men, but they are wise for the devil. Let the Lord speak to such (Jeremiah 8:8): How do you say, we are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us. Verse 9: Lo, they have rejected the law of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them?

But for the seasons which are of our own ixing and appointment, as God is not tyed to them, so his Providences are not governed by them: and hence are our disappointments. We looked for peace, but no good came; for a time of health, and behold trouble, Jeremiah 8:15 And hereupon…

I have given you cleanness of teeth, yet you have not returned to me: I have withheld the rain, yet you have not returned to me: I have smitten you with blasting, yet you have not returned to me: I have sent among you the pestilence and the sword, yet you have not returned to me…

The formalist is never violent, but in persecuting the power of godliness. 3. It reproves such as are violent in a bad sense: they are violent for hell; they go there in the sweat of their brows (Jeremiah 8:6). Every one turned to his course; as the horse rushes into the battle.

But O the stupifying nature of sin! Though the Stork in the heavens knows her appointed time, and the Turtle, Crane and Swallow the time of their coming, yet man, whom God has made wiser than the fowls of the air, in this acts quite below them (Jeremiah 8:7). The end of God's or…

The reason is, because it meets with an obstacle in their souls; so that it cannot run through them and be glorisied, as it does in gracious Souls. All the means and endeavours used to cleanse them, are in vain; all the grace of God they receive in vain: They hold fast deceit, t…

God brings to nothing the understanding of the prudent, and makes foolish the wisdom of the world. And if there be neither wisdom nor knowledge (as doubtless there is not) without the knowledge of God (Jeremiah 8:9), it is all shut up in the Lord Christ. John 1:18, no man has se…

Well then, it is necessary that you should take some time to discourse with yourselves, to ask of your souls what you have been, what you are, what you have done, what shall become of you to all eternity. Jeremiah 8:6. No man asks of himself, What have I done? You would think it…

Many think the word of God too plain for their mouths to preach it; others too stale for their ears to hear it; and they must have the fancies of men. (Jeremiah 8:9) They have rejected my word: and what wisdom is in them? It is strange to see how many will disguise religion to p…

There is sin, and there is a way of sin (Psalm 139:24), Search me and see if there be any way of wickedness in me, as Chrysostom glosses. 4. When they fall they do not rest in sin: Shall they fall, and shall they not arise? (Jeremiah 8:4). They may fall into the dirt, but they d…

God's great complaint of his people is, that they will not consider (Isaiah 1:3): "The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not consider." So (Jeremiah 8:6): "I listened and heard, but they spoke not aright; no man repented…

3. How little you have answered this end. God complains of our backwardness to this work (Jeremiah 8:6): No man repented of his wickedness, saying, what have I done. God upon a review found every day's work good, very good, in themselves, and their correspondence and frame (Gene…

Use 1. Is for Reproof. 1. That men do so little revive the belief of God's commandments; hence sins of omission, (James 4:17) Therefore to him that knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin: of commission, (Jeremiah 8:6) I listened and heard, but they spoke not aright:…

For means; 1. You must be one in covenant with God, for to them the dispensations of God come marked not only with justice as to all, but faithfulness; (Psalm 25:10) All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth to them that keep his covenant. 2. You must examine yourselves; the…

So the fainting of the soul, is either first, from the tediousness of present pressures; or secondly, from a fervent and strong desire. First, from the tediousness of present sorrows and pressures; as (Jeremiah 8:18), When I would comfort myself against my sorrow, my heart faint…

2 Sinful man is worse than beasts in the very quality for which he is likened to the beast: the ox and the ass which have no understanding, and to which sinful man is compared for ignorance and stupidity, is yet more knowing than sinful man; as it is (Isaiah 1:3). And the like i…

It further appears that sin is an unpleasing thing, and that which sinners are ashamed of, that they dare not look into their actions, nor call themselves to an account. 'Tis as troublesome a thing to sinners to look into themselves, and to examine their lives, as 'tis for men t…

Is there any hope for poor sinners? Is there any balm in Gilead, or Physician there? (Jeremiah 8:22). Yes, surely there is: God would never (as a learned person expresses it) have suffered so potent and malicious an enemy to have set foot in his dominions, but that he knew how t…

Second, despair; despair affronts God, undervalues Christ's blood, damns the soul. Jeremiah 8:12: They said there is no hope, but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart. This is the language of despair: There is no hope; I…

We value a seasonable kindness — else it is worth nothing; duties of religion performed in their season are glorious. Creatures by the instinct of nature observe their season (Jeremiah 8:7): the stork in the heaven knows her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane. Pliny s…

3. My sickness, my pain, my bands owe themselves to God, and are debtors to his glory, I, and every one of men should say, O that my pain might praise him, and my hell, and flamings of everlasting fire, might be an everlasting Psalm of the glory of his justice; that my sorrow co…

5. Use. If creatures keep their covenant-natural with God, shall not the ox, the crane (Isaiah 1:3; Jeremiah 8:7), the ass (2 Peter 2:16), who never had a design of rebellion, testify against us in judgment? Ah! what an unnatural policy, the first evil wit of him that sinned fro…

Hath he not been to England in the devouring Plague ? Well, all this while God waited for our Repentance; but we went on in sin, (Jeremiah 8:6). I hearkned and heard, butno man repented him of his wickedness, saying, what have I done?

There are some persons I have little hope to prevail with: Let the trumpet of the word sound never so shrill, let threatnings be thundered out against them, let some flashes of Hell fire be thrown in their faces, yet they will have the other game at sin. These persons seem to be…

This disease I fear is epidemical, (Jeremiah 8:6). No man repented him of his wickedness.

Sins directly against the Gospel. He sins against the Gospel: who denies either directly or by consequence that Christ is come in the flesh (1 John 4:3-8); who treads under foot the blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:29); who believes not the remission of his own sins and acceptance to…

Secondly, nor is it usual with these men under the rod to retire into their closets, and search their hearts there; to find out the particular cause and provocation of their affliction. 'No man repented of his wickedness, saying, What have I done?' (Jeremiah 8:6). What cursed th…

3. Not to confess is held forth as a guilt (Jeremiah 2:35): Yet you said, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me, behold, I will plead with you, because you say, I have not sinned. It is a token of impenitence (Jeremiah 8:6): No man repented him of his wicked…

Sin is the most ugly, and deformed thing in the world: and therefore sinners can have no communion with God, while they be washed: 2. Devils were once pure and clean spirits, their understandings were made clear, to see God and his beauty; now these fair spirits are darkened, fo…

Now when men's eyes are open to see Christ, they see and feel that in sin which before they felt not; then we see our sinful course most bitter, the very grapes of gall and wormwood. Secondly, there is the bitterness of God's wrath which a man sees and feels when he sees Christ…

7. Sin is a painful thing; it costs men much labor in pursuing their sins. How do men tire themselves in doing the Devil's drudgery (Jeremiah 9:5). They weary themselves to commit iniquity.

Branch 2. See the sad condition of such as live and die in unbelief, they are not the sons of God: To as many as received him, he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name. No faith, no sonship; unbelievers have no sign of sonship, they know not…

What hazards does he run, even to the endangering his health and soul, that he may satisfy his lust? What tedious journeys did Antiochus Epiphanes take in persecuting the Jews (Jeremiah 9:5)? They weary themselves to commit iniquity; and are not God's commands more easy to obey?

What we make our trust, God makes our shame: the sheep run to the hedges for shelter, and they lose their wool: we have run to second causes to help us, and we have lost much of our golden fleece: they have not only been reeds to fail us, but thorns to prick us: we have broken o…

Let a man be under the command of any lust, how does he tire himself! What hazards does he run to the endangering his health and soul that he may satisfy his lust (Jeremiah 9:5). They weary themselves to commit iniquity.

Such as are enveloped with ignorance, cannot give God a reasonable service (Romans 12:1). Ignorance is the nurse of impiety: the Schoolmen say, Omne peccatum fundatur in ignorantia; (Jeremiah 9:3). They proceed from evil to evil, and know not me, says the Lord. Where ignorance r…

They sin 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (Ephesians 4:19). Though they are tired out in committing sin, yet they sin; (Jeremiah 9:5). They weary themselves to commit iniquity; as a man that follows his game while he is weary, yet he delights in it, and cannot leave off. Though God has…

2. Other tyrants have some pity on their slaves; though they make them work in the galleys, yet they give them meat and let them have their hours for rest; but Satan is a merciless tyrant — he gives his slaves poison instead of meat, he gives them hurtful lusts to feed on (1 Tim…

6. It will be an aggravation of the loss of heaven for sinners to think how active they were in doing that which lost them the kingdom; they were felo de se. What pains did they take to resist the Spirit, to stifle conscience, they sinned while they were out of breath; (Jeremiah…

8. Sin is a painful thing; it costs men much labor and pains to accomplish their wicked designs. Jeremiah 9:5: They weary themselves to commit iniquity. Peccatum est sui ipsius paena.

Thirdly, the knowledge of God is one of the most special points in Christian religion: and therefore the Lord says, Let him that rejoices, rejoice in this, that he understands and knows me. For I am the Lord which shows mercy and judgment in the earth (Jeremiah 9:24). And our Sa…

Is it not from the earthliness and vanity of their hearts? My brethren, these are the things that have spoiled Christian fellowship and made it become a dry and sapless thing — so that many Christians are even weary of it and are ready to say with the prophet — Jeremiah 9:2: 'O…

Will, as well as the mind, can frame syllogisms; every unrenewed man has a faith of his own in the bottom of his will. Some are willingly ignorant (2 Peter 3); some, through deceit, refuse to know the Lord (Jeremiah 9); whereas lust puts out reason, and takes the chair. Lust has…

For "all" is put in Scripture ordinarily for many; as (Deuteronomy 1:21; Psalm 71:18; Jeremiah 15:10; Jeremiah 19:9; Jeremiah 20:7; Jeremiah 23:30; Jeremiah 49:17; Ezekiel 16:27; Exodus 33:10; Colossians 1:28; Isaiah 61:9; Genesis 41:57; Mark 14:4; John 3:26; Acts 17:31; Acts 10…

Take you any natural man, and he is ever growing worse and worse, ever growing of the worse hand; he grows more and more unprofitable, and more loose from God, and estranged from the ways of his grace, and settled in the ways of sin. And this is that which the prophet Jeremiah c…

Out of himself, in God alone, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the rich man in his riches. But let him that glories, glory in this, that he understands and knows me (Jeremiah 9:23-24; 1 Corinthians 1:31). In himself, in the comfor…

When the Prophets perceived they labored in vain to break the hard hearts of this people, surely they could not but be overwhelmed with grief and sorrow, and therefore they endeavored by all means to mollify the hearts of the obstinate, that if it were possible they might be bow…

He can make a servant, a child, a wife instrumental for our ruin. In this sense, we may apply that caveat of the prophet (Jeremiah 9:4): Take you heed every one of his neighbor, and trust you not in any brother. That also of Micah, Trust you not in a friend, put you not confiden…

And that we might mark it the better, she rehearses orderly in these four verses six godly works in six kinds of men, and parts the world in two, setting on each side three manner of works, and three kinds of men so, that a continual debate does remain among the parties, by reas…

Mischievous lies, which some tell to do another an injury. We read of some, that bend their tongue like their bow for lies, that will not speak the truth, but teach their tongue to speak lies (Jeremiah 9:3, 5). How many liars have there been in London?

Amnon offered violence to his sister, he would have his lust, though it cost him his life. Sinners tire out themselves in the Devil's drudgery (Jeremiah 9:5): They [reconstructed: weary] themselves to commit iniquity. They are out of breath with sin, yet not out of love with sin…

Oh! that you would be warned; there are still multitudes running headlong that same course tending to destruction through the midst of all the means of salvation; the saddest way of all to it, through word and sacraments, and all heavenly ordinances to be walking hellwards. Chri…

It is said that we ought to glory in our knowing of the only one God (Deuteronomy 4:35, 39; 1 Corinthians 8:4, 6): but yet that is accomplished in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, because that when men go about to seek God, they enter into a terrible maze, unless Jesus Chris…

If there are many doubts about the true Religion, why they are occasioned by the scandalous lives of professors; we reason from the artist to the art itself. Look as there is a correspondence between the stamp and the impression, the seal and the thing sealed; so should there be…

If we refuse God speaking to us in infinite wisdom, as he does in the word, no wonder if God refuse us stammering foolishly in Prayer. (Jeremiah 9:21) Men that purpose to continue in their sins shall not be heard in other things, otherwise the grossest sinners may come to God to…

The commands of sin are burdensome; let a man be under the power and rage of any lust — whether covetousness or ambition — how he tires and tortures himself! They weary themselves to commit iniquity (Jeremiah 9:5). Are not Christ's precepts easy and sweet in comparison of sin's…

Ezekiel 37:12: O my people, I will open your graves, as many as Saul and David did feed, whether they have a new heart or not, the Lord calls them his people (1 Samuel 9:16; 2 Samuel 7:8). See Psalm 50:7: Hear O my people (Psalm 81:13; Jeremiah 9:26), and so the church of Corint…

For, 1. Circumcision of the flesh was a seal of the Circumcision of the heart promised in the Covenant of Grace (Deuteronomy 30:6), and of the cutting of the foreskin thereof (Jeremiah 4:4; Jeremiah 9:26; Ezekiel 36:26-27), and baptism is the same (Colossians 2:11-12; Titus 3:5)…

5. So must there be a deadening of the husband to the wife (Job 19:17), to servants (Job 15:16), to sons (2 Samuel 16:11), of the mother to the daughter, of the daughter-in-law to the mother-in-law (Micah 7:6), to blood-friends. 12. All the godly and zealous Prophets said Amen t…

4. Sin is profound ignorance. The School-men say, All sin is founded in ignorance; did men know God in his purity and justice, they durst not go on in a course of sinning, (Jeremiah 9:3). They proceed from evil to evil, and know not me, says the Lord.

2. When our hearts are softened. Affliction is God's furnace where he melts his gold, Jeremiah 9:7. I will melt them and try them.

That adversity is a furnace to try of what metal our hearts are, none can doubt, that has either studied the Scriptures, or observed his own heart under afflictions. When the dross and rust of hypocrisy and corruption had almost eaten out the heart of religion among the Jews; th…

Fall into sin, indeed the same sin, he may, and that often; but then it is not without reluctance, repentance, and a protest entered by the soul in heaven against it: so that sin has not a quiet possession of his soul; he is not the servant of sin, nor does he willingly walk aft…

Why, says the Lord, they must go into the furnace again. 'I will melt them and try them, for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?' (Jeremiah 9:7). 'I love them too well to lose them for want of a rod.'

1. His love consists [reconstructed: not] in a taking his Church into his bosom, and [illegible] continual, and never interrupted laying of her [reconstructed: between] his breasts; indeed, tempting flows from the love of God, nor is it any act of Justice; indeed, to take vengea…

This convinced Plato of a deity, when he saw all the world could not make a fly. Thus God proves himself to be the true God, and distinguishes himself from idols (Jeremiah 10:11). It is written in Chaldean, Thus shall you say to them, the gods that have not made the heavens and…

Could he stand of himself against a temptation, this prayer were needless: Lead us not into temptation. No man has power of himself to resist a temptation further than God gives him strength (Jeremiah 10:23): O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. If Peter who had…

The first is the testimony of the scripture, which ascribes the event of all particular actions, even such as are in themselves casual, as the casting of lots and such like to the disposition of God: which very thing also teaches that even men themselves, endowed with reason and…

And in all such actions with Augustine I understand the will of man to be only wounded or half dead. 2, That the will of man is under the will of God, and therefore to be ordered by it; as Jeremiah says (Jeremiah 10:23), O Lord I know that the way of man is not in himself: neith…

(Genesis 21:6) All that hear shall laugh with me — Sarah means the laughter of faith; then must all that hear of Sarah's bearing of Isaac in her old age, believe in Christ, as Sarah did? (Psalm 65:2) O you that hears prayer, to you shall all flesh come — a figure there must be i…

We are to fear God, and not to fear the stars: neither are we to make differences of days in respect of them, as though the affairs we take in hand, should prosper the better or the worse, in respect of their different operation. God's commandment is, Fear not the signs of heave…

The trial itself also shows clearly what fruit the people gather by these books. For being deceived by such gross imaginations, they frame to themselves earthly and fleshly gods: of whom Jeremiah justly says, that the idol is not only a vain thing, but also a teacher of falsehoo…

Satan and the wicked on the other side would not only entangle and entrap us in many of their nets; neither would they think it sufficient to cast some small stumbling-blocks in our way: but one while they would drive us upon the rocks, another while into bottomless depths of mi…

But as I think the sense which I have given agrees best. Now that we may the better clear this sentence, we must lay this foundation, to wit, that God always keeps a measure in his corrections: the reason is, because he is inclined to mercy, which we gather from the word judgmen…

They pray then that their pains may be moderated. As Jeremiah says, Correct me, O Lord, but in judgment, that is to say in measure (Jeremiah 10:24). For he opposes judgment to wrath, as in (2 Samuel 7:14) it is said that he chastises us with the rods of men, because he will not…

Here our Lord condemns another fault, which is almost always connected with immoderate anxiety about food: and that is, when a mortal man, claiming more than he has a right to do, does not hesitate, in sacrilegious hardihood, to go beyond his limits. “O Lord, I know (says Jeremi…

Things that you never projected for your selves, have been brought about beyond all your thoughts. Many such things are with God; and which of all the saints has not ound that word Jeremiah 10:23 verified by clear and undeniable experience? The way of man is not in himself.

See Isaiah 54. 15, 16, 17. and 8. 8, 9, 10. expounded by 2 Kings 18:17 & seq. See you at any time a rub of Providence diverting the course of good men from falling into evil, or wicked men from committing evil; how loudly do such Providences proclaim the truth and certainty of t…

This is the case of Millions, and Millions of Millions: for Pagan Idolars (as that searching Scholar Mr. Briwood informs us) do not only fill the circumference of nine hundred miles in Europe, but almost the one half of Africa, more than the half of Asia, and almost the whole of…

That as the way of a man is not in himself, so much less is the end of a man in himself. The way of a man is not in himself, says the Prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 10:23), that is, a man's actions are not in his own power, he is not master of his own will, or of his own way. If a m…

And so from this simile, her stature is commended: the palm tree is recorded in Scripture to have diverse commendable properties. 1. It is straight; therefore it is said of the idols that they are upright like the palm tree (Jeremiah 10:5); straightness is comely in a stature; h…

That is, (as many learned expositors understand it, although some take another way) then began men solemnly and publicly to worship God in their assemblies. And (Jeremiah 10:25): Pour out your fury upon the heathen that know you not, and upon the families that call not on your n…

How few did labor to instruct their families, catechize their children and servants, to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Has not God threatened to pour out his wrath upon irreligious families? (Jeremiah 10:25) Neglect of city-reformation: have not the mag…

The roaring lion was conquered by the Lamb of God, in the strongest dominion that ever he had, even the Roman empire. This was a remarkable accomplishment of, Jeremiah 10:11, "The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from…

The Lord shall be King, and it is added over all the earth, not only over a few churches, but over all nations. Christ will show himself in the largeness of his power, not only as King of Saints (Revelation 15:3), but as King of Nations (Jeremiah 10:7), as head to the Church, bu…

Must we not needs say, this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? The several false religions of the heathen with their various superstitions and idolatries, though they gave very little opposition one to another, but agreed together well enough, yet having no f…

Every morning we should revive the sense of it upon ourselves, as the care of our work and aim, so the sense of our weakness: This day I am to live with God; but how unable am I? and how easily shall I dishonor him? The way of man is not in himself (Jeremiah 10:23). When a Chris…

God is not an idle spectator, he disposes of all events, and gives the blessing. (Jeremiah 10:23): The way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walks to direct his steps. That is, as to any happy issue.

2. The excellency of the Word of God, and the religion it establishes: it contains store of sure comforts; and when all other comforts can do us no good, then the Word of God affords us relief and support. Bare human reason cannot find out such grounds of comfort in all their ph…

Therefore we need to call God to counsel, and to inquire of the oracle in all matters that concern family, commonwealth or church. We need a guide (Jeremiah 10:23): O Lord I know that the way of man is not in himself, neither is it in man that walks to direct his steps. Affairs…

His goodness and mercy (Hosea 3:5): They shall fear the Lord, and his goodness. (Jeremiah 10:6-7): There is none like you, O Lord, you are great, and your name is great in might. Who would not fear you, O King of nations?

And let it not seem strange that the troubles and afflictions of the godly should be called judgments; for though there be no vindictive wrath in them, yet they are called so upon a double reason: partly, because they are acts of God's holy justice, correcting and humbling his p…

And (Ecclesiastes 9:12): Man knows not his time. 'Tis not in man to direct his way (Jeremiah 10:23). We cannot order our speech by reason of darkness (Job 37:19).

The Kingdom of God comes of small beginnings. God complains of Israel, they were brutish in their knowledge, Jeremiah 10:14. he does not say brutish in their ignorance, had they sinned because they did not know better, this would have excused à tanto, but they did that which was…

He has not dealt so with any nation; and as for his judgments, they have not known them' (Psalm 147:19-20). Hence those designations of the heathen and those imprecations, as in Jeremiah 10:25: 'Pour out your fury upon the heathen that know you not, and upon the families that ca…

But because we know that the world was made principally for mankind's sake, we must therefore consider this end in the governance of man. The prophet Jeremiah cries out: "I know, Lord, that the way of man is not his own, neither does it belong to man to direct his own steps" (Je…

But as we read everywhere that the holy ones suffer such punishments with quiet mind, so they have always prayed to escape the first kind of scourges. Chastise me, Lord (says Jeremiah) but in your judgment, not in your wrath, lest you destroy me (Jeremiah 10:24). Pour out your w…

My times are in your hands (Psalm 31:5). (Daniel 5:23) You have not honored your God, in whose hand your breath is, and all your ways, it was the sin of the profane King not to regard it; All his ways and turnings, his sickness and health, and all his changes, they are all in Go…

First, God will reveal his secret counsels to such, and make them of his counsel (Genesis 18:18-20). Secondly, he will bring upon Abraham all the good he has promised him: it is the ready way to bring about the accomplishment of all God's promises to us; otherwise God will heap…

And it appears two ways how great a Mercy it is to enjoy and improve this privilege, (1.) In that both the Psalmist and the Prophet pray directly in a Spirit of Prophecy and without limitation, that God would pour out his fury on the Families that call not on his name, Psalm 79:…

And thus Christ did glorify his Father, He went about doing good (Acts 10:38). By being fruitful we are fair in God's eyes (Jeremiah 11:16): The Lord called your name a green olive-tree, fair and of goodly fruit. And we must bear much fruit, it is muchness of fruit that glorifie…

But sinners are content to be under the command of sin, they are willing to be slaves, they love their chains, they will not take their freedom: They glory in their shame (Philippians 3:19). They wear their sins, not as their fetters, but their ornaments: They rejoice in iniquit…

And whereas the Lord's prayer is a perfect platform of prayer, temporal blessing must have some place there, unless we will ascribe the having and enjoying of them to our own industry, as though they were no gifts of God: which to think were great impiety. By bread then we must…

If God sees that Sanctuary-blessings bear but a low price, he will remove the Market. 7. Perjury. Jer. 11. 10. The house of Israel, and the house of Iudah have broken my Covenant; therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to…

But there is shame formally in sin; and that: 1. Which we call thinking of shame or being ashamed actively; 2. In bearing of shame passively. In the former consideration; because sin is a shameful thing in itself (Jeremiah 11:13): "You set up altars to that shameful thing, even…

And now what course is to be taken for preventing these horrid designs? Alas, we have no other remedy, but the ancient Christians' weapons, prayers and tears; these may break their nets, and blunt their weapons; good Jeremiah knew not that they had devised devices against him, b…

Doubtless none of them would once show themselves so impudent, as in plain terms to desire they might be seduced; or to say, that they would resist the truth: for in outward profession, they made the world believe they sought to promote the same with all diligence, as all our ad…

Fruitfulness adorns a Christian; the fruit adorns the tree; a fruit-bearing Christian is an ornament to religion. The more fruitful the branch, the more fair to look on (Jeremiah 11:16): the Lord called your name a green olive tree, fair and of goodly fruit. A dead tree, as it i…

The Scripture is called the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 24:7; 2 Kings 23:4; 2 Chronicles 34:30, 21). The question is easily determined — it can be the Book of no Covenant, but of that made with Abraham, the oath to Jacob (1 Chronicles 16:16, 17; Psalm 105:9; Jeremiah 11:5; Dani…

1. How far are they from Repentance, who instead of hating sin, love sin. To the godly sin is as a thorn in the eye; to the wicked it is as a crown on the head, (Jeremiah 11:15). When you do evil, then you rejoycest.

8. When we grow more fruitful in Grace. A Christian should be like the Olive tree, fair and of goodly fruit, Jeremiah 11:16. There is a tree in the Isle of Pomona which hath its fruit folded and wrapped up in the leaves of it.

Psalm 119:21: "You have rebuked the proud, that are accursed." Jeremiah 11:3: Cursed be the man that obeys not the words of this covenant. Ibid. chapter 17:5: Cursed, be the man, that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm.

God is an infinite ocean of blessedness, and there is enough in him to fill us: If a thousand vessels be thrown into the sea, there is enough in the sea to fill them. 4. If God be our God, he will entirely love us: Propriety is the ground of love: God may give men kingdoms, and…

The righteous are God's treasure (Psalm 135:4), and where his treasure is, there is his heart: they are God's delicious garden, where he plants the flower of his love (Psalm 146:8). They are the dearly beloved of his soul (Jeremiah 12:7). They are his Hephzibah, or darling (Isai…

God loves his people with the choicest of his love, they have the spirits of his love distilled; and to shew this, he calls them by those Titles which denote love; the apple of his eye, Deutr. 32. 10. The dearly beloved of his soul, Jer. 12. 7. His Treasure, Psal. 135. 4.

Answer: The thing in question is not concluded; we say not we are to pray for the salvation of none but believers only, and that Christ died for none but those that already believed: we are to pray for all ranks, believers or unbelievers, as Christ died for thousands of both, bu…

Reasons. 1. We pray cursorily, and go about prayer as a customary task for fashion's sake; we come with a few cold devotions morning and evening, and so God is near in our mouths, and far from our reins (Jeremiah 12:2). Oh take heed of this; nothing breeds slightness and hardnes…

The way of the wicked often prospers, and the way of these wicked Chaldeans prospered so often, that the prophet Habakkuk complains to God as one scandalized at it: You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity, why do you look upon them that deal treach…

In the Old we have a prophecy of what should be hereafter in the times of the gospel (Isaiah 45:23): I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear. And again (Jeremia…

After this, how was the church opposed in Egypt! And how was the church of Israel always hated by the nations round about, agreeable to that in Jeremiah 12:9, "Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her." After the Babylonish captivity, ho…

Can there be a greater slight put upon the eternal God than for men to use his sacred and blessed name as a byword, with which they give vent to their exorbitant passions, or fill up the vacancies of their other idle words? The name of God is thus abused not only by those that b…

2. His pleasant portion, Jer. 12:10 They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. 3.

Wind shaking the tree, makes it grow more steady. Thus the tribulations of the godly, and the persecutions they suffer, do oppose their graces, but because they cannot overcome them, they strengthen them: As we read Psalm 45. when the Church forsakes all, when she leaves her fat…

O what will you do in the day of your visitation? Jer. 12:5 If thefootmen have wearied you, how can you contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, how will you do in the swelling of Jordan? We read of Polycarpus, that as he lay in his bed, he saw in a vision the bed set o…

It may be learned from his constant way in governing the world; notwithstanding all provocations; yet he does good to men, causing his sun to shine upon them, sending them rain and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness. From this it was easy for them to c…

That none may pervert this comfortable doctrine, let me add two caveats. 1. That men deceive not themselves with a naked name, thinking themselves to be of the Church, when they are only in it; such may Christ hate (Jeremiah 12:8). 2. That being of the Church they grow not insol…

Because there is not so much as a word of it for the time (so the word is) this greatens, and fills the heart of man, and makes it big to do evil. And not only is the Lord's long suffering mistaken by the ungodly, but even by his own, that should understand him better, and know…

David stood both in the one temptation and in the other, the reproach and contempt of the vulgar, and also when princes sat and spoke against him. But to these we may say as (Jeremiah 12:5): If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how will you contend w…

Use 1. Is to reprove those that do not give God the heart in their service. 2nd. Not the whole heart. First, not the heart, but content themselves with outward profession (Jeremiah 12:2): you are near in their mouth, but far from their reins. God is often in their speech, but th…

God's judgments are a great deep, we should believe the righteousness and goodness of God in the general (Psalm 36:7), before we can find it out. The people of God have maintained their principle, when they have been puzzled and entangled in interpreting God's providence (Jeremi…

2. God may delay so long, till a land be wasted by sundry successive common judgments that light upon good and bad. (Jeremiah 12:4) After the complaint of the prosperity of the wicked, the prophet subjoins, "How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of the field wither?" When…

The hypocrite makes only a show of obedience. Jeremiah 12:2: You are near in their mouth and far from their inner being. There may be a fair complexion when the lungs and vitals are rotten.

He who is born of God honors those who fear the Lord (Psalm 15:4). The saints are the dearly beloved of God's soul (Jeremiah 12:7). They are his jewels (Malachi 3:17).

1. A hypocrite is he who on the stage represents a King, when he is none, a beggar, an old man, a husband, when he is really no such thing (Luke 20:20). They sent out spies, feigning themselves to be just men: to the Hebrews they are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 faciales, facemen,…

Nothing so much comforts you under or after an affliction as the discovery it has made of your heart. You will seem to feel with what affections those words came from the prophet's lips (Jeremiah 12:3): 'But you, O Lord, know me; you have seen me, and tried my heart toward you.'…

Secondly, a passive trial of it: whether we try it or not, God will try it; he will bring our gold to the touchstone, and to the fire. 'You, O Lord, know me, you have seen me and tried my heart toward you,' said the prophet (Jeremiah 12:3). Sometimes he tries the strength and ab…

'If they draw near to him with their lips, yet their heart is far from him' (Isaiah 29:13). 'You are near in their mouth, but far from their minds' (Jeremiah 12:2). There are some that feel the influence and power of their communion with the Lord in duties, going down to their v…

O who can value the comfort that is tasted by the soul upon the trial and discovery of its sincerity! When after some sore temptation wherein God has helped us to maintain our integrity, or after some close pinching affliction wherein we have discovered in ourselves a sweet resi…

How [〈◊〉] did he come a wooing to you by his Spirit? He waited till his head was filled with dew: He cried as (Jeremiah 13:27). Will you not be made clean, when shall it once be? O Christian! did God wait for your love, and can you not wait for his?

Custom is a second nature. Jeremiah 13:23. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the Leopard his spots, then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil?

You cannot sin, but your Judge looks on. Jeremiah 13:27: I have seen your adulteries and your neighings. Jeremiah 29:23: They have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives, even I know, and am a witness, says the Lord.

Therefore he says, 'Blessed are all they that wait for him.' And as he now waits only to be the more gracious to you, so he did formerly wait a long while for you to begin to turn to him, and said, 'When will it once be?' (Jeremiah 13). You made him wait your leisure in turning…

The other ground of our answer to all the places on the contrary, is that the word [Greek text], and [Greek text]; Christ died for all: does never signify all and every one of mankind, by neither Scripture, nor the doctrine of adversaries: but is as all Divines say, to be expoun…

Nor therefore work anything because God set us to work, or to aim at any service of God, or good to his people in it, so that as our thoughts be, so are our words, evil, and only, and continually evil; and much more all the works of our hands, that require greater strength of gr…

God would have it so, Job must pray for them when he sees them in a sin. And Jeremiah speaks to the same purpose (Jeremiah 13:17): My soul shall mourn and weep in secret for you. And the pattern of our Savior is without exception (Luke 23:34) — happy was he that could do him a m…

Ille dolet verā qui sine teste dolet. My soul shall weep sore in secret places (Jeremiah 13:17). And Peter went out and wept bitterly (Matthew 26:75).

It was not the first time Elijah had there wrestled with God; if it was his lodging room, it was his praying room: And here God heard him, and wrought the miracle: what he did for Elijah, he can and will do for us, if he see fit: for Elijah was no more than a man, and subject to…

6. Would you not have the sins of others to bring wrath and judgment on the place? Oh then, let your souls weep and pray in secret places, as Jeremiah did (Jeremiah 13:17). This is the last and safest way to be delivered from the guilt of open crying sins in the land, even a mou…

Therefore this is the proper and true use of the law, by lightning, by tempest, and by the sound of the trumpet (as in Mount Sinai) to terrify, and by thundering to beat down and rend in pieces this beast which is called the opinion of righteousness. Therefore says God by Jeremi…

Nay he calls to us standing without, Open to me my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is full of dew, and my locks with the drops of the night (Song of Solomon 5:2). Woe to you Jerusalem, will you never be made clean? when will it once be? (Jeremiah 13:27). More…

Be clothed with humility: Some think the word imports that string or ribbon that ties together those precious pearls of divine graces, these adorn the soul, and if this spring break they are all scattered: humility is the knot of every virtue, the ornament of every grace: hence…

Thirdly, let us greatly lament the folly and wickedness of those who speak against Christ and his holy religion, and if we can do anything, have compassion upon them, and help to undeceive them, and rectify their mistakes. Surely this is one of the abominations committed among u…

Let the name of God be precious to you: Is it not a precious thing to live so, as to bring honor to God? to hold forth the honor of God, is all the glory we can bring to God; let us be known to be those we profess ourselves to be, separated from the world, by the holiness of our…

When a man weeps, and is in a mournful posture, he seeks secrecy, that he may indulge his grief. They were to mourn apart (Zechariah 12), and (Jeremiah 13:17), My soul shall weep sore for your pride in secret places. So here, when a man would deal most earnestly with God, he sho…

The third thing I shall produce: That the Scripture does expressly deny any power in man to convert himself to God (1 Corinthians 2:14): The natural man cannot know the things of the Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned; and as he cannot know, so he cannot obey…

Let us fly to this Asylum, Lord spare us as a Father spares his Son. See Gods different dealing with the Godly and the Wicked; the Lord will not spare the Wicked, Jeremiah 13:14. I will not Pity, nor spare, nor have Mercy, but destroy them. 'Tis sad, when the Prisoner begs of th…

Every act lessens fear, and strengthens inclination. (Jeremiah 13:27) Woe to you, O Jerusalem, will you not be made clean? When shall it once be?

Their obstinacy in sin, or unsubjection to God, is made to be pride. So Jeremiah, when he gives the people good counsel to prevent ensuing judgments, Hear you, give ear, be not proud (Jeremiah 13:15), that is, do not obstinately refuse to comply with God's will. And afterward, v…

As soon as we are born we follow our sensual appetite; and the first years of man's life are merely governed by sense, and the pleasures thereof; are born and bred up with us, and deeply engraved in our natures; and by constant living in the world, conversing with corporeal obje…

And so Paul (Romans 7:14): I am carnal, sold under sin. 4. Consider how this bondage is always increased by custom, which is a second nature, or an inveterate disease not easily cured (Jeremiah 13:23): Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the Leopard his spots? then may you als…

Thus Lot escaped in Sodom, because his righteous soul was vexed: and Noah was upright in his generation, because he reproved the deeds of the wicked. 2. When we see their punishment in their sin, and fear a storm when the clouds are gathering, it puts us upon mourning and humili…

Now the more we provoke God, the more we resist his call, the more hard the heart is; the impulses of his grace are not so strong as before, and the heart every day is more hardened. As a path wears the harder by frequent treading, so the heart is more hard, the mind more blind,…

And shall God stand waiting till we turn from our evil ways? If any cry how long, God may, as he does (Jeremiah 13:27), when shall it once be? 4. It is [reconstructed: base] self-love, when we can be content to dishonor God longer, provided that at length we may be saved.

4. Joy is communicative; mourning apart is good; Peter went out and wept bitterly (Matthew 26:75). And Jeremiah says when he would weep for the people (Jeremiah 13:17): My soul shall weep in secret places for your pride. And (Zechariah 12:12-13): They shall mourn every family ap…

And this is that we should lay to heart at this day. (Jeremiah 13:17) But if you will not hear, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride. When a people will not be brought to any serious consideration of God's judgments, nor abate their haughty minds, he would bewail t…

(Jeremiah 4:14) O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved: how long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you? And (Jeremiah 13:27) O Jerusalem, will you not be made clean? When shall it once be?

I have preached to you, prayed, and wept for you; I have shown you the way of repentance, faith, and holiness; and were it to die for you, I hope I should not account my life dear to me, that I might save your souls by losing it. Oh, let me again entreat, beseech, and beg you fo…

Oh how dear is the law of God, and how vile the sin of men to holy David! So the Prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 13:15-17) expresses the like zeal for God: "Hear, and give ear, be not proud, give glory to the Lord, etc. But if you will not hear, my soul shall weep in secret for your…

When distempers become as it were natural, and are in the constitution, they are hard to be cured; it is not easy obliterating that which is written with a pen of iron, and the point of a diamond; it is difficult to soften a heart of stone. Besides, this filthiness has had long…

Lo these many years have I served you, neither at any time transgressed I your Commandment, and wilt you cast me off now? what in mine old age, after you have had so much pleasure by me? See how sin pleads custom, and that is a Leopards spot, (Jeremiah 13:23). It is dangerous to…

17:30. 1. It is necessary for great ones, (Jeremiah 13:18). Say to the King and the Queen, humble your selves.

The mind will not be compelled to give place to them any more. The Prophet gives the Reason of it, Jer. 13:23. Can the Aethiopian change his skin, or the Leopard his spots, then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to evil.

Both from a reluctancy, and indisposition to any such employment as this is itself; and from disaffection to that whereto it tends, the breaking off your former sinful course of life, and entering upon a better. And does not all this show you the plain truth of what the word of…

And it is good when sin that has exposed men to so much shame shall itself be exposed to shame. This is the just reward of sin (Jeremiah 13:25-26): 'This is your lot, the portion of your measures from me,' says the Lord, 'because you have forgotten me and trusted in falsehood, t…

He was resolved to leave him, not thinking it was worth his time to wait longer at his door, nor give any reply to those base-bred children, and servants he kept in his house; for Peevish made him so [reconstructed: fretful], that there was no speaking to him, remembering that w…

2. The blot of sin in relation to God, as offended and injured, puts on the habit of guilt, and so it is washed away in the Fountain opened to the house of David, and formally removed in justification, but now it is not formally considered as sin, but according to that which is…

First, it is a deep pollution of a crimson dye, of a scarlet tincture that will not wear out (Isaiah 1:18). Like the spots of a leopard, or the blackness of an Ethiopian, which is not by way of accidental or external adherence, but innate and commingled, belonging to the constit…

Resp. 1. To make God to be a God to us, is to acknowledge him for a God: The gods of the heathen are idols (Psalm 96:5), and we know that an idol is nothing (1 Corinthians 8:4), that is, it has nothing of deity in it: If we cry, Help O idol, an idol cannot help; the idols were t…

Deutr. 23. 14. For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy Camp to deliver thee. Jer. 14. 9. Thou O Lord, art in the midst of us. The Church of God hath not only enemies without her, to conflict with, but within her, such as are Hypocrites and Apostates; she complains that…

All the fields do languish, and the bellowing cattle are pined with thirst. Such a sad state the prophet rhetorically describes (Jeremiah 14:3-6). The nobles have sent their little ones to the waters, they came to the pits and found no water; they returned with their vessels emp…

Though you make many prayers, when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: and when you spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; your hands so filthy that if you would follow me to lay hold on me with them, you drive me further off, as one with foul hands following…

As the ivy wrapped about the tree, cannot be hurt, except you do hurt to the tree: So, the Lord has twisted our concernment about his own honor and glory. Thus the saints plead God's glory as an argument (Jeremiah 14:7), O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do you i…

1. Let us be earnest suitors to him, exercise Eyes of Faith, and Knees of prayer. Jeremiah 14:9. And in prayer let us use Joshua's argument, Josh. 7:9.

Doctrine 2. It is God alone that can keep us from wandering. Reason. There is in man's heart a mighty proneness thereto (Jeremiah 14:10). You have hearts that love to wander. Man is a restless creature, that loves shifts and changes.

There need many mercies from first to last for the saving of a poor sinner; their natural misery is great (Ezekiel 16:6): When I passed by you and saw you polluted in your own blood, I said to you when you were in your blood, live; yes, I said to you when you were in your blood,…

We have boisterous lusts, and wandering hearts, we need not only to be conducted but governed. We have hearts that love to wander (Jeremiah 14:10). We are sheep that need a shepherd, for no creature is more apt to stray (Psalm 95:10).

Good David had cause to say (Psalm 119:176), I have gone astray like a lost sheep: Oh, seek your servant. We go astray, not only out of ignorance, but out of perverseness of inclination: Jeremiah 14:10, Thus have they loved to wander, they have not restrained their feet. We have…

There is no way to shake off those evil companions and associates, till there be a bent seriously toward heaven. So for ourselves, we have changeable hearts, that love to wander (Jeremiah 14:10). We have many revoltings and reluctancies, therefore until a sanctified judgment, an…

Magistracy, ministry, and commonalty are diseased, and those who pretended to be our healers are physicians of no value. We have spent our money upon these physicians, but our sores are not healed (Jeremiah 14:19): why have you smitten us and there is no healing for us? Instead…

Our turning away our eye from the Covenant is the cause why we succumb; Christ, under his sorest assault with hell and hell's pursuivants and officers, devils, and the felt anger of a forsaking God, doubles his grips on the Covenant, my God, my God (Psalm 22:1) (Matthew 27), O m…

14. And upon this account there is required a deadening of our hearts to shipping and trading with diverse mighty nations, as we see in the case of Tyre (Ezekiel 27), of Babylon (Revelation 18:11-13; Jeremiah 51). So are we to be mortified to fair houses (Isaiah 5:8), stately ci…

Our blessed Savior not only did not in fact pray for the world, but openly and in the most solemn manner avowed the omission (John 17:9). And the prophet Jeremiah was forbidden by God, to pray for the Jews, for their good (Jeremiah 14:11). So that when the apostle in the first v…

(Psalm 40:12): My sins are more in number than the hairs of my head. (Jeremiah 14:7): Our iniquities testify against us — our backslidings are many. It is a vain shift to say, the Church prays and confesses in name of the wicked party, not in name of the justified ones; for as m…

Here are two living things, Christ, and believing Paul acting mutually one upon another, there is a heart and a life upon each side. 5. Faith under fainting and great straits can so improve the promise as to put a holy and modest challenge upon God, so (Psalm 119:49) afflicted D…

4. We may use arguments of faith, challenging God (Jeremiah 31:18): "Turn me, and I shall be turned" — and why? "For you are the Lord my God." The covenant is faith's Magna Carta, the grand mother-promise; all prayers must be bottomed on this (Jeremiah 14:21): "Do not abhor us"…

Well then may we count those the sweetest hours which are spent in reading the holy Scriptures. Well may we say with the prophet (Jeremiah 15:16): "Your words were found, and I did eat them, and they were the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Conform to Scripture.

Hear the word with delight and complacency. (Jeremiah 15:16) Your words were found and I ate them, they were the joy and rejoicing of my heart. (Psalm 119:103) How sweet are your words to my taste, indeed, sweeter than honey to my mouth.

4. If we would have the word written effectual to salvation, we must delight in it as our spiritual cordial. (Jeremiah 15:16) Your words were found, and I did eat them, and they were the joy and rejoicing of my heart. All true solid comfort is fetched out of the word.

Cain brought his sacrifice but grudgingly, his worship was rather a task than an offering, rather penance than sacrifice, he did God's will, but against his will; we must be carried upon the wings of delight in every duty; Israel were to blow the trumpets when they offered burnt…

And from this we learn two things. The first, that every minister of God's word, and every one that intends to take upon him that calling, must propose to himself principally this end, to single out man from man, and gather out of this world such as belong to the church of Chris…

3. God will be in the midst of his people, because they are engaged in his quarrel. Jer. 15. 15. Know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke! All the oppositions the godly meet with, are for standing up in the defence of Truth; if they would desist from Religion, and throw off…

(Chapter 3:11) "Why did I not die from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost, when I came out of the belly?" And (Jeremiah 15:18) "Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed?" (Chapter 20:18) "Why did I come out of the womb, to see labor and…

Nor need we flee to that exposition ever and anon, that Christ died for all, that is, all ranks of men. For "all" is put in Scripture ordinarily for many; as (Deuteronomy 1:21; Psalm 71:18; Jeremiah 15:10; Jeremiah 19:9; Jeremiah 20:7; Jeremiah 23:30; Jeremiah 49:17; Ezekiel 16:…

7. Jeremiah is a remarkable instance; he was a Prophet of the Lord, sanctified from his Mother's womb, yet he met with so many discouragements, that he has a mind to leave his people; and he wishes for a lodging-place in the wilderness, that is, some solitary retirement, that th…

When the Lord our God puts us to silence, and into solitary places, he expects that we should visit him there (Song of Solomon 2:14). Oh my Dove that is in the clefts of the rock, in the secret place of the stairs, that is, in an afflicted persecuted and desolate condition, Let…

Hence it appears, that Ministers of the Gospel, must not be men-pleasers, nor apply, and fashion their doctrine to the affections, humors, and dispositions of men, but keep a good conscience, and do their office. The Lord tells Jeremiah he must not turn to the people, but the pe…

Thirdly, ministers have not the presence and protection of God, unless their lives be virtuous and godly. If you turn, you shall stand before me (Jeremiah 15:19). God reveals his secrets to the prophets his servants (Amos 3:7).

True prophecy judges men, discovers the things of the heart, and causes men to say, The Lord is within you (1 Corinthians 14:25). The scepter of Christ whereby he smites the nations, is in his mouth (Isaiah 11:4): that is, in the Ministry of the word (Jeremiah 15:19). And it is…

But here is plain truth, without a miracle. Secondly, whereas it is said, seven days and seven nights; we may note further, that the number seven, (as other numbers) may be understood indefinitely, a certain time being put for an uncertain; as (Jeremiah 15:9), the prophet says,…

4. As Christ may withdraw, if provoked and not entertained, from a private believer; so will he do from a Church, if they hold not fast what they have received, and walk not accordingly. 5. Church-members, by their sins, have much influence on Christ's removal from among them; i…

It's known also, that in nature, the navel has much influence on the child in the womb, which may be especially taken notice of here, as appears by the following commendation, namely, that it's like a round goblet, that is, well formed and proportioned (opposite to a navel not c…

The cup has wrath in it, the wrath of an angry God; and is it good for you to drink off the wine of God's wrath? Drunkenness has been your sin, and if you go on, God threatens that drunkenness shall be your punishment (Jeremiah 15:12). Speak to them this word, thus says the Lord…

The preaching of the gospel did indeed prove the occasion of contention. Our Savior foresaw and foretold it would be so (Luke 12:51-53), that his disciples and followers would be men of strife, in the same sense that the prophet was (Jeremiah 15:10), not men striving, but men st…

And Plutarch tells of Agesilaus, that he cast off voluptuous pleasures to his slaves, as better beseeming a base quality and servile nature, then himself. You mayest think to live in pleasure is a brave life, but it is the basest life that is; so God judges it: Hence the same wo…

He might take comfort in a subordinate way in these things; but the solace of his life, and the true sauce of all his labors was in the word of God. As David, so Jeremiah 15:16: Your words were sound, and I did eat them; they were to me as the joy and rejoicing of my heart. That…

So he who hungers after righteousness feeds eagerly on an ordinance. Jeremiah 15:16: Your words were found, and I ate them. In the Sacrament he feeds with appetite upon the body and blood of the Lord.

But suppose he should be so understood; it is most uncertain that by the buying of these false teachers is meant his purchasing of them with the ransom of his blood. The word translated 'buying' in the Old Testament signifies any deliverance, as Deuteronomy 7:8, 15:15, Jeremiah…

2. The Devils never sinned against Gods patience; as soon as they apostatized they were damned: God never waited for the Angels : but we have spent upon the stock of Gods patience; he has pitied our weakness, born with our frowardness; his Spirit has been repulsed, yet has still…

A pious Soul meditates of the Verity and Sanctity of the Word; he has not only a few transient thoughts, but lays his mind a steeping in the Scripture; by meditation he sucks from this sweet flower, and concocts holy truths in his mind. 3. He shows his love to the Word by deligh…

The Word is his delight. Thy Words were found, and I did eat them, and thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart, Jeremiah 15:16. The Sabbath is his delight, Isaiah 58:13.

And in this regard David might say, the Words of God's mouth were sweeter to his taste than honey, Psalm 119.103. because one may soon surfeit upon honey, but he can never surfeit with the Word of God. He that has once with Jeremiah, found the Word and ate it, Jeremiah 15.16. wi…

Christ may give rough answers, when he has a good mind; he put a hard word upon the nobleman (John 4) that came to him for his dying son: You (and all your nation) will not believe, except you see signs and wonders. Never any man saw and apprehended harder things of God than Jer…

1. After the revelation of the spirit, neither devil nor sin can make the soul to doubt (say they). Indeed, but the spirit of revelation was in Jeremiah, who doubted when he complained (Jeremiah 15:18) to God of God, 'Will you be to me altogether as a liar, and as waters that fa…

And what more concerns us than to keep our first love to Christ? When he multiplies our widows in the three kingdoms, as the sand of the sea, and brings against the mother of the young men, a spoiler at noon-day (Jeremiah 15:8). This woman stayed on her watchtower, and now the v…

Answer. The flesh may come in and join in prayer, and some things may be said in haste, not in faith, as in that prayer (Psalm 77:9): "Has God forgotten to be gracious?" Nor is that of Jeremiah's to be put in Christ's golden censer to be presented to the Father (Jeremiah 15:18):…

First, it does feed upon the word, and that makes to rejoice in the word. And secondly, it lays up the word in remembrance for us, that we shall not forget it: read (Jeremiah 15:16). I did eat your word, and it was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; which shows you, that a…

Hence is that you read (Ezekiel 14:14): They shall deliver neither son nor daughter, but themselves only. And (Jeremiah 15:1). So that, though sometimes the mourning of God's people, is accepted for the mourning of the whole land; yet sometimes, though clusters of good families…

You may see a jade under his gilt trappings. (Jeremiah 16:17). Their iniquities are not hid from my eyes. And he that has an eye to see, will find a hand to punish.

Every sin has a voice to speak, but some sins cry. As some diseases are worse than others, and some poisons more venomous; so some sins are more heinous (Ezekiel 16:47; Jeremiah 16:12): You have done worse than your fathers, your sins have exceeded theirs. Some sins have a black…

Answer: His naming one sort infers we should exclude no sort out of our prayers; seeing this one sort were persecutors, that may seem farthest from our prayers. Moor: We are not to pray for such as are known to sin against the Holy Ghost, because they cast aside the sacrifice an…

For this Epistle (although brief and short) is wonderfully effectual, pithy, and rich. So a little before, where he speaks of their vain conversation, in pursuing the traditions of their Fathers, he did (as it were) lightly touch sundry places of the Prophets, as namely, that pl…

To add one instance more (Micah 1:16), in case of their sore affliction the prophet says, make yourself bald and poll yourself for your delicate children, enlarge your baldness as the eagle; the meaning of all is, mourn bitterly, or mourn greatly for your delicate children, your…

What great cause have we thankfully to remember this day! As the benefit of Israel's deliverance from the Babylonish captivity was so great that it drowned the remembrance of their deliverance from Egypt (Jeremiah 16:14), so the benefit of our deliverance from Satan's captivity,…

I deny not but Vain Thoughts may sometimes come into the best Hearts, but they have a care to turn them out before night, that they do not Lodge. This denominates a Wicked man, his Thoughts Dwll upon Vanity; and well may his Thoughts be said to be Vain, because they do not turn…

For these reasons God's mourners may lack comfort. But that the spiritual mourner may not be too much dejected, I shall reach forth the cup of consolation (Jeremiah 16:7), and speak a few words that may comfort the mourner in the want of comfort. First, Jesus Christ was without…

5. So must there be a deadening of the husband to the wife (Job 19:17), to servants (Job 15:16), to sons (2 Samuel 16:11), of the mother to the daughter, of the daughter-in-law to the mother-in-law (Micah 7:6), to blood-friends. 12. All the godly and zealous Prophets said Amen t…

But directly this is the same with that parallel place (Titus 1:3): according to the commandment of God our Savior, where no interposition of that conjunctive particle can have place, the same title being also in other places ascribed to him, as Luke 1:47: my spirit has rejoiced…

Resp. To trust in any thing more than God, is to make it a God. 1. If we trust in our riches, then we make riches our God: we may take comfort, not put confidence in them: it is a foolish thing to trust in them. 1. They are deceitful riches (Matthew 13:22). and it is foolish to…

'Tis a deceitful creature: we should not in this sense be like the serpent, for deceitfulness. Naturally we too much resemble the serpent for fraud and collusion (Jeremiah 17:9). The heart is deceitful above all things.

Besides this, there is much pride, superciliousness, and prejudice, many fleshly reasonings against the truth, and swarms of vain thoughts (Jeremiah 4:14). How long shall vain thoughts lodge in you. 2. Original sin has defiled the heart: the heart is mortiferum junius, deadly wi…

Then we hallow God's name, and sanctify him in an ordinance, when we give him the vitals of religion, a heart flaming with zeal. 7. We hallow and sanctify God's name when we hallow his day (Jeremiah 17:22): Hallow you the Sabbath day. Our Christian Sabbath which comes in the roo…

This is a great argument for keeping the Sabbath day holy: God is not benefited by it, we cannot add one cubit to his essential glory; but we ourselves are advantaged: the Sabbath day religiously observed entails a blessing upon our souls, our estate, our posterity. As the not k…

His sin was monstrous, and it was punished with a monstrous birth. The Lord threatened the Jews, that if they would not hallow the Sabbath-day, he would kindle a fire in their gates (Jeremiah 17:27). The dreadful fire which broke out in London began on the Sabbath-day; as if God…

(5.) Self-examining is needful, because without it we may easily have a cheat put upon us. (Jeremiah 17:9) The heart is deceitful above all things. Many a man's heart will tell him, he is fit for the Lord's Table.

Let your ear be open to God, and shut to sin. (3.) Watch your hearts: we watch suspicious persons; the heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9). Watch your heart; 1. When you are about holy things; it will be stealing out to vanity.

How righteous therefore is God in punishing of us? We sow the seed, and God only makes us reap what we sow (Jeremiah 17:10): I give every man the fruit of his own doings. When we are punished, we do but taste the fruit of our own grafting.

Considering withal that our hearts are a great deep also — so deep in darkness and deceitfulness as no plummet can fathom them. 'Deceitful above all things, who can know it?' (Jeremiah 17:9). Darkness covers not the face of this deep only, but it is darkness to the bottom, throu…

In a word, let men conceive in mind the most notorious trespass that can be, though they do it not, nor intend to do it, and never do it: yet the matter, beginning, and seed thereof is in themselves. This made Jeremiah say, "The heart of man is deceitful and wicked above all thi…

When sufferings for religion grow hot, then blessed is he that is not offended in Christ. Troubles are then at a height: first, when a man's nearest friends and relations forsake and leave him — Micah 7:5-6; 2 Timothy 4:16; second, when it comes to resisting unto blood — Hebrews…

Entreat one smile, one gracious look to lighten your darkness and cheer your drooping spirit. Say with the prophet in Jeremiah 17:17: Be not a terror to me; you are my hope in the day of evil. And try what relief such a course will afford you.

But it follows not therefore, the fallen angels never saw the face of Christ's Father; it follows only, they saw it not immutably, and in a confirmed way of grace, and [in non-Latin alphabet], always, as now the elect angels do. It is no dominion in Satan to know the thoughts of…

And what ensued (Psalm 49:12): man that is in honor and understands not is like the beasts that perish, degraded to the beasts, as the brutish and bestial nature prevailed in him when he fell from God. Or else, if we have them, we were better be without them; we have them with a…

In the second place, let us depend neither upon the help of men, nor upon any creature else: but let us place our whole trust in the Lord. Cursed is he, says Jeremiah, which trusts in man, and puts his strength in the arm of flesh, that is to say, in outward means and helps (Jer…

For this cause we are often admonished in the holy Scriptures, not to trust in man, because nothing is more vain than he (Psalm 146:3). Cursed be he (says Jeremiah) that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm (Jeremiah 17:5). Yet we see that all, none excepted, determine and con…

That all the world being brought to nothing, we might content ourselves with him alone. But to encourage those whom before he had cast down, he sets this remedy before them; Blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is, etc. (Jeremiah 17:5, 7). Contrari…

For being settled upon leagues and succors of their confederates, they thought themselves in such safety, as if before they had never been annoyed by such associates. But he protests, that all the aid which they have gathered together, shall serve them to no use: for the hopes w…

I grant the Lord has no need to write for his memory's sake: but it pleases him to use this phrase of speech, that we should not imagine him to be forgetful of anything, when he defers the execution of his judgments. Indeed, in Jeremiah 17:1 he says yet more expressly, that the…

But here we may perceive it is a proper name, because Isaiah contents not himself therewith, but has added the epithet Gibbor, which signifies strong. And truly if Christ were not God, it were ill done to rejoice in him; for it is written, Cursed is he that trusts in man (Jeremi…

It's true, if God have a purpose to destroy a man, he may for a time suffer him to succeed and prosper in his sin, for his greater hardening, Job 12:6 But it is not so with those whom the Lord loves; their sinful shits shall never thrive with them. The world prohibits your trust…

By bed, is understood the special means of nearest fellowship with, and enjoying of Christ; the bed being the place of rest, and of the nearest fellowship between the Bridegroom and the Bride. Its commendation is, that it is green: that is, 1. Refreshing, like the spring. 2. Fru…

But however, some secret withering curse seizes upon it; and what is thus wickedly added to our former possessions, will rub its rust and canker upon them all; and if restitution be not duly made, will insensibly prey upon them and consume them. And therefore, says the wise man…

But now, although this six days' labor was not so strictly required, as not sometimes to admit the intervention of a holy rest; yet the seventh day's rest was so exactly to be observed, as not to admit any bodily labor, or secular employment. God would not have this holy rest di…

The citizens carrying forth their goods, and lying in the fields, with grief and fear, might put them in mind how often they had walked out into those fields on the Lord's day for their recreation; when they should rather have been hearing the word preached, or if that were over…

It will be some cost and toil to hang every room of the heart with lively pictures of the divine image: for it is altogether empty of that which is truly and spiritually good, or may be called a treasure: but that's not all; for 5. The soul is by nature filled with an evil treas…

4. Men are hardly brought to examine themselves, because they do not believe Scripture. The Scripture says, The heart is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9). Solomon said, there were four things too wonderful for him that he could not know (Proverbs 30:19).

Woe is me! I have revolted from God, and now that dreadful word (Jeremiah 17:5-6) is evidently fulfilled upon me; For I am like the heath in the desert, that sees not when good comes; my soul inhabits the parched places of the wilderness. Alas! all my formal and heartless duties…

This is their way, this their communion with Christ; this is the life of faith as to grace and holiness. Blessed is the soul that is exercised therein: he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, that spreads forth her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat comes, but…

So then its never well with the soul, but when it is near to God, indeed, in its union with him, married to him, and mismatching itself elsewhere, it has never any thing but shame and sorrow. All that forsake you shall be ashamed, says the Prophet (Jeremiah 17): and the Psalmist…

David, it was a trial to him; while he was wandering in the wilderness, he had such tenderness, that his heart smote him, when he cut off the lap of Saul's garment; while he was chased like a partridge upon the mountains, wandering up and down, from forest to forest: but when he…

Insensible, inflexible: Insensible, he has no feeling of his condition: Inflexible, he will not be moved and worked upon by the Word, and the Spirit, and Providence: How many means are wasted upon him, and to no purpose? And (Jeremiah 17:9) The heart is deceitful above all thing…

Mens sins are written in the book of Conscience, and the Book of Gods Omnisciency. They think because God does not speak to them by his loud Judgements, therefore God does not know their sins; but though God does not speak, he writes, Jeremiah 17:1. The sin of Iudah is written w…

A Judge can judge of the fact, but God judgeth of the Heart. Jeremiah 17:10. He is like Ezekiels wheels, full of eyes, Ezekiel 10:12. and as Cyril says,, all Eye.

2. The Fear of God will make a man afraid of his own Heart. Luther used to say, he feared his Heart more than the Pope or Cardinals, Jeremiah 17:9. The Heart is deceitful above all things.

His enterprises or devices (2 Corinthians 2:11): Lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices: He is ready to entrap us and ensnare us by plausible temptations, he suits the bait to every appetite. Then our own hearts (Jeremiah 17:9): The hear…

To convince these men of the baseness of their choice, and make them bethink themselves, their choice is part of their punishment. There cannot be a greater punishment than that they should have what they choose, that they should be written in the earth (Jeremiah 17), they shall…

His soul is lost not in a natural sense, but in a legal sense, forfeited to God's justice. We may please ourselves in our carnal choice for a while, but death blows away all our vain conceits (Jeremiah 17:11). At his latter end he shall be a fool.

All the world understands the worth and value of God's love when death comes, then a child of God feels it, Oh says he, I would not for all the world but that I had made sure of the love of God, before this hour, how terrible else would it have been to leave all, and leap out in…

Whatever praise we have with men, we must see that our hearts be right with God, who is witness, approver, and judge, and searches the heart, and tries the reins, and will not be put off with shadows; God's all-seeing eye is a special means to make a man upright. 4. Observe how…

And from this unclean fountain issues forth all that defiles the man. Sin has made the heart of man deceitful, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9), and it is hardened in impenitency through the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:12-13). Indeed, though thereby man does nothing bu…

But 1 We may not do evil; that good may come is to ourselves: God allows man to love himself, and has made self-love the rule and measure of our love to others; you shall love your neighbor as yourself: God is not against man's being rich, only God will not that men grow rich by…

God knows our thoughts afar off (Psalm 139:2), long before they came out into words or actions (Deuteronomy 31:21). So the father saw the prodigal, while yet afar off, while but thinking to return: indeed, he does search and try the heart to this very end, that he may give to ev…

As none but infinite power can pardon it, so none but infinite power can punish it sufficiently: as its aim is infinite, so is its desert, and therefore though its punishment be so, it is but just. Seeing sin contains all evil, it is not strange that its punishment should be ans…

Moreover this leprosy has spread itself not only on whole mankind, but on the whole of man; every whit of every man is infected, it has made flesh and spirit filthy (2 Corinthians 7:1), from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, there is no sound part in him — all (as I…

I'll name five to you. First, the desperate deceitfulness of the heart of every natural man (Jeremiah 17:9): the heart is deceitful above all things. The Hebrew is 〈in non-Latin alphabet〉; the word 〈in non-Latin alphabet〉 is the same with Jacob's name.

This is the crown of all our graces, and the commendation of all our duties, thousands perish and go to hell in the midst of all their performances and duties, merely for want of a little sincerity of heart to God. Now where there is not a change of state, a work of grace in the…

Beloved, I know the preaching of the Gospel has proselyted many of you into a profession; but I fear that but few of you are brought by it to a true close with the Lord Christ for salvation (I beseech you bear with my jealousy, for it is the fruit of a tender love to your precio…

Whatever therefore can be said to the contrary, [illegible] it is that unbelief makes a man incapable of [illegible] of the spiritual good which Christ has [illegible] and is willing to communicate to his own. So the [illegible] determines this cause (Jeremiah 17:5-6): Cursed [i…

The Scripture calls slandering, smiting with the tongue. Come and let us smite him with the tongue (Jeremiah 18:18). You may smite another and never touch him.

This is desperate willfulness: and Voluntas est regula & mensura actionis, the more of the will in a sin, the greater the sin. Jeremiah 18:12: We will walk after our own devices. Though there be death and hell every step, we will march on under Satan's colors.

Unbelief kept Israel out of Canaan; (Hebrews 3:19) So we see they could not enter in because of unbelief; and it keeps many out of heaven. Unbelief is an enemy to salvation, it is a damning sin, it whispers thus, to what purpose is all this pains for the heavenly kingdom, I had…

7. Men do not look after forgiveness through despair. Oh, says the desponding soul, it is a vain thing for me to expect pardon, my sins are so many and heinous, that sure God will not forgive me (Jeremiah 18:12): And they said, There is no hope. My sins are huge mountains, and c…

God not only chooses persons, but also things; and every cross that befalls you is a chosen and selected cross, and it was shaped in length, and breadth, and measure, and weight, up before the throne, by God's own wise hand. Heaven is the workhouse of all that befalls you; every…

Now to dislike of his holy government is a presumptuous arrogance in the creature; we will take upon us to model our mercies, and choose our means, and will not tarry the time that he has appointed for our relief, but will anticipate it, and shorten it according to our own fanci…

You shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them. Again burning of incense (Jeremiah 18:15). My people have forgotten me, they have burnt incense to vanity.

He calls them a terrible nation, because they should be an astonishment to all those that should behold them, being disfigured with such horrible calamities. For I cannot approve of their judgment who expound this of signs and wonders which the Lord showed among the Jews to make…

And yet their accusations are painted over with such colors, that so they may make us the more odious among them, who are ignorant of our just cause. But admit they assail us with open violence by the smitings of the tongue (Jeremiah 18:18), or with any other weapon, yet let us…

In all the Sad and Afflictive Providences that befall you, Eye God as the Author and orderer of them also. So he represents himself to us, Jeremiah 18:11 Behold, I create evil, and devise a device against you. And Amos 3:6 Is there evil in the City, and the Lord has not done it?

2. They smote her, that is, more gently at first; however, they suffer no occasion to slip, whereby they have any access to give a cutting remark to such heart-exercised souls, but it is laid hold upon; and what infirmity is in any of them, or inconsiderateness in their zeal, th…

Under the Old Testament God's messengers and his prophets were generally mocked and misused, and it was Jerusalem's measure-filling sin (2 Chronicles 36:16). It was one of the devices they devised against Jeremiah to smite him with the tongue, because they would not, and they de…

Men flatter themselves with a pretence of obedience, and cry, Lord, Lord, but do not do his will. They give God good words, but do not break out into an actual contest; as those wretches (Jeremiah 18:12): We will every one do the imagination of his evil heart. And (Jeremiah 44:1…

Sin has gotten such a deep interest in their actions, and command over their affections, that they cannot leave what they know to be naught, or follow that which they conceive to be good. And this bondage is more sensible in them that have some kind of remorse and trouble with t…

Iron often heated grows the harder. On the other side, see they do not degenerate into despair, either the raging despair which terrifies, or the sottish despair which stupefies (Jeremiah 18:12): They said there is no hope, but we will walk after our own devices, and we will eve…

Oh what a horrible thing is that which puts the unchangeable God on changing! — for such a thing repentance is, namely, a change. It repented the Lord that he had set up Saul to be King (1 Samuel 15), and when men do wickedly, God repents that he has done them good (Jeremiah 18:…

Man's mercy is large when it reaches to seven times — what is God, then, that reaches to more than seventy times seven in a day! (Matthew 18:21). When good men have prayed, "Lord, forgive them not" (Isaiah 2:9; Jeremiah 18:23), yet God has pardoned: and when himself was so put t…

But that's impossible, [illegible] what is the clay to the Potter? So the Prophet expresses the difference; the interrogation shows [illegible] impossibility of the opposition: they may [illegible] with his will but they cannot cross it, [illegible] the [illegible] "Who has resi…

Isaiah 44:22. Jeremiah 18:23. Acts 3:19.

7. Another obstacle of Repentance is, despondency of mind. Oh says a sinner, it is a vain thing for me to set upon Repentance; my sins are of that magnitude, that there is no hope for me, (Jeremiah 18:11), 12. Return ye now every one from his evil way, and they said, there is no…

O Christian look inward, did you view your own spots more, in the looking-glass of the Word, you would not be so ready to throw the stone of censure at others. Deny this sin of rash censuring, or smiting with the tongue, Jeremiah 18:18. You who speak reproachfully of your brothe…

8. Sin brings many low in despair; this is a gulf that none but reprobates fall into. Jeremiah 18.11. Thou saidst, there is no hope. Despair is devoratoria salutis, it is a millstone tied about the soul, that sinks it in perdition.

O! but there is a hard stone in our will, the stony heart is the stony will; Hell cannot break the rock and the adamant, and the flint in our will (1 Samuel 8:19). No, but we will have a King; whether God will or no (Jeremiah 18:12). God's will stands in the people's way, biddin…

Nor need we flee to that exposition ever and anon, that Christ died for all, that is, all ranks of men. For "all" is put in Scripture ordinarily for many; as (Deuteronomy 1:21; Psalm 71:18; Jeremiah 15:10; Jeremiah 19:9; Jeremiah 20:7; Jeremiah 23:30; Jeremiah 49:17; Ezekiel 16:…

By Topheth, no doubt he means hell: not as though we should imagine there were some place where the wicked are shut up after their death as in a prison, there to suffer the torments which they have deserved: but he thereby signifies their miserable condition and extreme torments…

Psalm 50:20: You sit and slander your own mother's son. Jeremiah 20:10: Report, say they, and we will report. Ezra 4:15: This city (that is, Jerusalem) is a rebellious city, and hurtful to kings and provinces.

Say your arrow killed the man, yet the soul is saved. 6. Many love not their life to death, as the witnesses of Jesus: Death is death, as clothed with apprehensions of terror; no man is wretched, actu secundo, within and without, but he that believes himself to be so: here are t…

Nor need we flee to that exposition ever and anon, that Christ died for all, that is, all ranks of men. For "all" is put in Scripture ordinarily for many; as (Deuteronomy 1:21; Psalm 71:18; Jeremiah 15:10; Jeremiah 19:9; Jeremiah 20:7; Jeremiah 23:30; Jeremiah 49:17; Ezekiel 16:…

His meaning is, Be not of a masterly spirit, be not masters of many persons, to be every man's master is out of censoriousness, our natures are ready to sift into every man's failings, and would ever be taxing of them, and that is the utmost end such men aim at, not so much the…

In this sense (as David cursed a place), so Job curses a time, his day, the day which either gave [reconstructed: occasion] to his sufferings, or the day in which he actually suffered such a world of evils. Thus also Jeremiah curses his day with a vehement curse (Jeremiah 20:14)…

As Nero, for his barbarous sport, wrapped up the Christians in beast skins; and then set dogs to worry them: so these disguise their brethren into false and antic shapes; and then fall upon them, and bait them. Secondly, There is a more secret and sly conveyance of slander; and…

Habits of grace are no otherwise known but by their acts: what's a man better for that he uses not? A talent of grace of the right stamp will not be confined to a napkin, though gifts may: exercising is as necessary and evidential, as having sincere grace: things that are not, a…

When the word was come to them, it was as a fire within them, that must be delivered, or it would consume them. Psalm 39:3. Jeremiah 20:9. Amos 3:8. Chapter 7:15, 16. So Jonah found his attempt to hide the Word that he had received, to be altogether vain.

God makes use of watchful enemies to show us the spots in our garments that are to be washed off. Many times a friend is blinded with love, and grows as partial to us as ourselves; therefore God sets spies for us to watch for our halting (Jeremiah 20:10). I heard the defaming of…

USE. O! then let the word of God be ever in sight, as your Comforter and Counsellor; the more we do so, the more shall we walk in the fear of God: You are not to walk according to the course of this world, but according to Rule, and therefore you are not to walk rashly and indel…

They show us the spots in our garments that are to be washed off. Many times a friend is blinded with love and grows as partial to us as we are to ourselves, will suffer sin upon us and not tell us of it; then the Lord sets spies upon us to watch for our halting (Jeremiah 20:10)…

Would he raise a confidence to disappoint us? In such a case we might say as the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:7): "You hast deceived me, and I was deceived" — the words seem to intrench upon the honor of God. In the general, I answer, they were spoken by the prophet in a passio…

(Philippians 4:6) In every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. (Jeremiah 20:12) O Lord of hosts, that tries the righteous, and sees the reins and the heart, let me see your vengeance on them; for to you have I opened my cau…

He took with him Peter, James, and John: first, they had a glimpse of his glory, then a sight of his bitter agonies and sufferings. Jeremiah in one line singing of praise, and in the next cursing the day of his birth (Jeremiah 20:13-14). After the most ravishing comforts, may be…

Qu. 2. Whether a Christian may not lay open his grievances to God, and yet be contented? Ans. Yes: To you have I opened my cause (Jeremiah 20:12), and David poured out his complaint before the Lord. We may cry to God, and desire him to write down all our injuries; shall not the…

2. It is a more Gospel way to bear in the threat of everlasting wrath than of temporal rods. 3. Desertions and trials under the Law were more legal and sharp and sad upon David, Hezekiah, Job, Jeremiah, Heman (Psalm 6; Psalm 38; Psalm 77; Psalm 102; Psalm 88; Isaiah 38; Jeremiah…

(6.) There is an atheist heart to hate the existence of God, of Christ, of a Gospel (James 2:19; Matthew 8:29) compared with (Psalm 14:1; Ephesians 2:12). Some believers are near to say, I take my leave of Christ, I'll pray no more, for it is in vain (Jeremiah 20:9; Psalm 73:13-…

1. After the revelation of the spirit, neither devil nor sin can make the soul to doubt (say they). Indeed, but the spirit of revelation was in Jeremiah, who doubted when he complained (Jeremiah 15:18) to God of God, 'Will you be to me altogether as a liar, and as waters that fa…

When Peter by denying his Lord had rotted a bone or a joint of the new man in himself, he rested not well that night; he went out and wept bitterly (Matthew 26:57). Jeremiah made a rash and passionate vow to speak no more in the name of the Lord; but he could not sleep with that…

David's Grace (Psalm 39:1) was kept in as with a muzzle put upon the mouths of Beasts: it was as coals of fire in his heart, and he was compelled to speak even before the wicked; I believed, therefore I spoke (Psalm 116:10). 5. When Jeremiah lays unlawful bands on himself, to sp…

Answer. The gleanings of the one are better than the vintage of the other. 1. Spiritual joys help to make us better; worldly joys do often make us worse (Jeremiah 22:21). I spoke to you in your prosperity, and you said, I will not hear.

[illegible], Theophilact. Pride, idleness, wantonness, are the three worms that usually breed of plenty; prosperity often deafens the ear against God (Jeremiah 22:21). I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, I will not hear.

Also the bodies of men are the good creatures of God, yea the bodies of God's children are the temples of the Holy Ghost, and therefore there is good cause why they should be honestly laid in the earth. And it was a curse and judgment of God upon Jehoiakim that he must not be bu…

Death is our Father's pale horse, which he sends to fetch home his tender children, and carry them out of harm's way. Surely, when national calamities are drawing on, it is far better for our friends to be in the grave in peace, than exposed to the miseries and distresses that a…

Oh, men are for their own gain, from their quarter (Isaiah 56:10). Their eyes and hearts are not but for covetousness (Jeremiah 22:17). For the glory of their own name (Daniel 4:30).

For the interjection, [non-Latin alphabet] Ho, is a mark of sorrowing; as Ah, or woe; every one that thirsts (Isaiah 1:4): Ah sinful nation, or woe, [non-Latin alphabet] to the sinful nation. Verse 24. Ah, I will ease me, or alas, [non-Latin alphabet] I will ease me of my advers…

Neither will any man offer to touch clothes defiled with blood and mire, for fear of drawing some infection from them. Now we cannot affirm that this happened to the kings of Babylon, yet no question but it was fulfilled, neither ought we to doubt anything at all of it (Jeremiah…

Nevertheless this must be acknowledged to be a sad stroke upon any person, and such as maims them upon the working hand, by unfitting them for duty, 1 Peter 3:7 and cuts off much of the comfort of life also. (2.) How many are there, who never enjoy the comfortable fruits of Marr…

Every thing was (by the law of its creation) ordained for some use, and therefore cannot but be unhappy when it is made useless. And if it be the glory of inanimate creatures when God will use them, or when men make use of them for God; how unglorious then is the condition of th…

A seal is used for confirming evidences, or closing of letters: they have some peculiar engraving on them, serving to distinguish the deed of one man from the deed of another; therefore men use to have a special care of their signet or seal: (for both are one upon the matter and…

When he would express the contrary of this love, he says he was not well pleased (1 Corinthians 10:5); he fixed not his delight, nor rest on them. And, if any man draw back, the Lord's soul has no pleasure in him (Hebrews 10:38; Jeremiah 22:28; Hosea 8:8; Mark 1:10). He takes pl…

When there is an effective, and an affective knowledge; when we cannot only discourse of God and Christ, and are inclined to believe; but when these truths soak into the heart to frame it to the obedience of his will. When the Lord had spoken of practical obedience, Was not this…

So (Psalm 111:10): "A good understanding have all they that do his commandments." (Jeremiah 22:16): "He judged the cause of the poor and the needy; was not this to know me, says the Lord?" That is true knowledge that produces its effect.

Oh says one, sure God does not love me, I am none of his child, because he does follow me with such severe afflictions: why, it is a sign of childhood to be sometimes under the rod; God had one son without sin, but no son without stripes; God puts his children to the school of t…

Some have so blossomed in prosperity that they have blossomed themselves into hell. It is an ancient experiment that the planting of some tender trees near the west sun does them hurt and parches the fruit, the sun being so extremely hot; too much prosperity, like the west sun,…

Stay while Christ tries his skill before you give it over: bring Christ by your prayers to its grave, to speak a Resurrection-word. Admirable has the Saints faith been in such straits: as Josephs, who pawn'd his bones that God would visit his brethren, willing them to lay him wh…

And this is so much the more dangerous, that the prejudice and blindness of self-love, does more strongly persuade self-godliness than any godliness of the world, and begets a more strongly rooted and fixed habit of believing self-godliness, than Ministers the godliest of them,…

But a desire to innovate all things without punishment, moves troublesome men to this point, that they wish all avengers of the breach of peace to be taken away. As for so much as pertains to the second table, Jeremiah warns kings, to do judgment and righteousness, to deliver th…

When the spleen swells, the rest of the body pines away; and when the heart is puffed with pride, the whole man is in danger of destruction. The sheep that goes in the best pasture soonest comes to the slaughterhouse; and the ungodly man fattens himself with continual prosperity…

God planted him (to allude to that, Jeremiah 2:21) a noble vine, a holy and right seed, but he degenerated, and so have all grafted on him, and so bring forth nothing but grapes of Sodom, as Isaiah speaks. But second, God the Father having many branches of chosen ones, that grew…

I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said I will not hear. And this has been your manner from your youth, says the Lord (Jeremiah 22:21). But the faithful have earthly things as rewards of their righteousness, as an accession, advantage, and overplus to the kingdom of God;…

So prodigious a property is there in worldly things to obliterate all notions of God out of the heart of a man, and to harden him to any impudent abominations. I spoke to you in your prosperity, says the Lord, but you said, I will not hear (Jeremiah 22:21). According to their pa…

1. It is the great end of the word preached, to bring us to a settlement in religion: (Ephesians 4:11, 13). And he gave some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the edifying of the body of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children. The word is called a hammer (J…

2. There is but one infinite being, therefore there is but one God. There cannot be two infinites (Jeremiah 23:24). Do not I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord?

Response 1. Justification. In justification there are two things: 1. guilt is remitted, 2. righteousness is imputed (Jeremiah 23:6): The Lord our righteousness. We are reputed not only righteous, as the angels, but as Christ, having his robes put upon us (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The Cherubims were made with wings, to show the swiftness of the angels in discharge of their office: and if we cannot picture the soul, nor the persons of the angels, because they are spirits, much less can we make an image or picture of God, who is infinite, and the Father of…

Resp. But to answer, God who is infinite is in all places at once, not only by his influence, but his essence; for if his essence fills all places, then he must needs be there in person. But, Ergo, Minor in (Jeremiah 23:24). Do not I fill heaven and earth?

Quest. Wherein lies the formality or essence of our Justification? Resp. In the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us (Jeremiah 23:6). This is the name whereby you shall be called, Jehovah Tzidkennu, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Swearing may be called the unfruitful work of darkness; there is neither pleasure nor profit in it; it is like a hook the fish comes to without a bait. (Jeremiah 23:10). Because of swearing the land mourns. Some think it the grace of their speech; but will God reckon with men fo…

To whom then will you liken God? The Papists say, they worship God by the image; which has a great absurdity in it; for if it be absurd to bow down to the picture of the King, when the King himself is present, then much more to bow down to the image of God, when God himself is p…

Those therefore who usurp the work of the ministry without being solemnly set apart for it, discover more pride than zeal; and they can expect no blessing. Jeremiah 23:32: I sent them not, nor commanded them, therefore they shall not profit this people, says the Lord. So much fo…

The promise of healing is for them; (Isaiah 57:18). The promise of salvation, (Jeremiah 23:6). The promises are supports of faith, they are God's sealed deed, they are a Christian's cordial.

To do any treasonable action in the king's presence, is high impudence. Jeremiah 23:11. Indeed, in my house have I found their wickedness.

2. Contrition; as when ice is melted into water. This is done by the Gospel, which is as a fire to melt the heart (Jeremiah 23:9). It is the sense of abused kindness that causes contrition.

1. God's Providence reaches to all places, persons, and occurrences. 1. To all places (Jeremiah 23): Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off? The diocese where Providence visits is very large, it reaches to heaven, to earth and sea (Psalm 107:23-24): They that go down to sea…

This second person in the Trinity, who is Jehovah, is become our Jesus. The Scripture calls him the Branch of David (Jeremiah 23:5), and I may call him the Flower of the Virgin, having assumed our nature. By him all that believe are justified (Acts 13:39).

1. Branch. It reproves such as do not God's Will; they have the knowledge of God's will, (knowledge they count an ornament) but though they know God's Will, yet they do it not. (1.) They know what God would have them avoid; they know they should not swear (Matthew 5:34), Swear n…

For the first, in Exodus 34:4-7 the Lord proclaimed his name: 'The Lord God, merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and will by no means clear the impenitent.' For the second, I…

In which forlorn condition, what is there to be found to relieve and support this man? But only one thing, which is here held forth to him: the name of the Lord, for him to trust and stay himself upon — both that name of God (Exodus 34:6), 'The Lord God, gracious and merciful,'…

First, that God himself — who is the God of comfort — will be an abundant reward (Genesis 17:1-2). By faith we take him to be so and are divorced from all other comforts in comparison with him. Second, that Jesus Christ his Son is made the Lord our righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6).…

If the head plot treason, all the body is guilty; but Christ is made to us righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30). Indeed it is this righteousness only, in which we can stand before the justice of God (Jeremiah 23:6). This is the name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our righteo…

1. There is his universal presence, whereby he is in all places. Jer. 23. 23. Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? This is no priviledge at all; for this universal presence is with the damned, they have the presence of his power and justice.

I grant it was not that righteousness of God through faith (Philippians 3); yet it was a fruit and infallible sign of that righteousness, and such as did prove them to be in Christ. And 2. all our acts of sanctification are no acts, no infallible marks of justification to my sou…

Now he was made King, not on such terms, as he might destroy all his subjects, (for all mankind are his subjects to Arminians.) But he is made King (Psalm 72:11) that all nations may serve him; that he should deliver the poor, needy, and helpless; and redeem their souls from vio…

It is God's prerogative to know the inward motions and thoughts of the heart, whether they be sincere or no in their professions of dependence and subjection. So omnipresent, that he may be ready at hand to help us and relieve us (Jeremiah 23:23-24). Am I a God at hand, and not…

4. God sees in secret, therefore closet-prayer is a solemn acknowledgment of God's omniscience and omnipresence: When you pray in a corner you testify your faith in God's ubiquity, and look upon him as filling Heaven and Earth; and this God commands us to believe, indeed would h…

Sixthly, whereas Paul says, Every man must bear his own burden, he meets with the profaneness and Atheism of our time, when men make a mock at the day of judgment, and the strict account that every man is to give for himself. The Jews were used to feast at the threatenings of Go…

He also commanded the fathers to be often recording of it to their children, and to continue the remembrance of it to their successors. This therefore must be taken by way of comparison: as in Jeremiah; Behold the days come, says the Lord, that they shall say no more, The Lord w…

When a wise Man speaks in the Exercise of his Wisdom, there is something in every thing he says, that is very distinguishable from the Talk of a little Child. So, without doubt, and much more, is the Speech of GOD, (if there be any such Thing as the Speech of GOD,) to be disting…

Hence the word is used to express madness, because madness is the height of folly, being without any seasoning, without any temper, a thing that has no taste of wisdom or goodness in it. (Jeremiah 23:13): I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria — that is, they are unsavory,…

The Immensity of his essence, and his Omnipresence is of the same consideration. Do not I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord, Jeremiah 23:24. The heavens, even the heavens of heavens, the supreme and most comprehensive created being cannot contain him, says Solomon.

2. From whom it comes, it's from him, her being his love, makes her like the lily. 3. The nearness of the mystical union, that is between Christ and his Bride; it is such, that thereby they some way share names (Jeremiah 23:6 and Jeremiah 33:16). 3. He intermixes her beauty and…

3. The arguments he uses for prevailing with her. By knocking is understood the inward touches of the Word upon the conscience, when the efficacy of the Spirit goes along, which raps at the Bride's heart, as knocking does at a door, and is the means of awaking her from spiritual…

In the exhortation or invitation, consider: 1. the party invited, or called. 2. The duty called for. 3. Its repetition. The party called, is a Shulamite: this word comes either from Solomon, as the husband's name is named over the wife (Isaiah 4:1), and it is from the same root…

For no man takes this honor to himself, but he that is called of God, as the Apostle subjoins (verse 4). And therefore God complains of those prophets whom he had not sent, and yet they ran; and to whom he had not spoken, and yet they prophesied (Jeremiah 23:21). Audacious, unde…

But now the righteousness that we are dependent on is not in ourselves, but in God. We are saved through the righteousness of Christ: he is made unto us righteousness; and therefore is prophesied of, Jeremiah 23:6, under that name of the Lord our Righteousness. In that the right…

Your Word has quickened me. If you find your hearts hard, the Word does liquefy and melt them; therefore is compared to fire for its mollifying power (Jeremiah 23:29). If you are poisoned with sin, here is an herb to expel it.

"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots." Jeremiah 23:5, "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise up unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper." So chapter 33:15, "In those days…

1. He is exceeding excellent and desirable in his deity, and the glory thereof. He is Jehovah our Righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6). In the rejoicing of Zion at his coming to her, this is the bottom, Behold your God (Isaiah 40:9).

Is he weak? Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30). Has he the sense of guilt upon him? Christ is complete righteousness, the Lord our righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6). Many poor creatures are sensible of their wants, but know not where their rem…

Hence said the spouse, "My beloved is mine": in all that he is, he is mine. Because he is righteousness, he is the Lord our righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6). Because he is the wisdom of God, and the power of God, he is made unto us wisdom, and so on (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Something there is moreover to be done in respect of us, if after the slaying of the enmity and reconciliation made we shall enjoy life; being reconciled by his death: we are saved by that perfect obedience which in his life he yielded to the law of God. There is distinct mentio…

Section 10. But that he had, and has done so, he declares, Jeremiah 23. How long shall this be in the heart of the Prophets that Prophesy lies? that are Prophets of the deceit of their own heart; which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams, which they tell e…

In the Lord shall we have Righteousness and Strength: In the Lord shall all the Seed of Israel be justified and shall glory, Isaiah 45:24, 25. And the Prophet Jeremiah expressly calls Christ the Lord our Righteousness, Jeremiah 23:6. The Promise of Sanctification by the Spirit o…

Childish minds, we have been so often gulled, and yet never grow wiser, still bewitched and deluded with dreams, a deceived heart (a mocked or deluded heart) has turned him aside, etc., when we think we are surest, have that hand that holds fastest, our right hand upon some good…

In regard of his essence, he is in all places, being infinite and indivisible: He is not included within the heavens, nor excluded from earth, but fills all places alike. (Jeremiah 23:24) Do not I fill heaven and earth? says the Lord. But yet in an especial manner is God present…

4. They speak one to another in a bad sence, who instead of seasoning their words with Grace, mix them with Oaths. Swearers rend and tear Gods Name, and like mad Dogs fly in the face of Heaven, Jeremiah 23:10. Because of swearing the Land mourns.

Proverbs 4:23: Out of it are the issues of life; it is the forge of spirits. He dwells not in temples made with hands (Acts 7:48), and Jeremiah 23:24: Do not I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord? He will dwell in your heart and remain there, if you will give your heart to him.

If you do not consider, God will make you consider before he has done with you. (Jeremiah 23:20) The anger of the Lord shall not return, till he has performed all the thoughts of his heart: And then you shall consider it perfectly. God will follow blow after blow, till we do con…

[I do not forget.] That is, I do not decline from, or neglect my duty: as Hebrews 13:16, To distribute and communicate forget not; that is, neglect it not. As on God's part, when he will not perform what belongs to him, being hindered by our disobedience, he threatens to forget…

5. It proves sin the worst and greatest of evils, that Christ is the best and greatest of Saviors, and his salvation the best and greatest salvation: he came to save sinners, and to save them, not from the petty evils of sickness, affliction, and persecution, but from sin, the g…

They act out of their sphere; and are guilty of thievery; they steal upon a people: And as they come without a call, so they stay without a blessing. Jeremiah 23:32: I sent them not, therefore they shall not profit this people at all. And so much for the first, the preacher.

Do the enemies carry away the good figs — even the best among the people — into captivity? This looks like a sad providence; but yet God sends them there for their good (Jeremiah 24:5). Does God take the Assyrian as a staff in his hand to beat his people with?

For, as by virtue of the Covenant made with Noah, the whole earth shall never be overflown with a deluge, yet there may, and hath been such inundations since, that several parts of the earth have been swallowed up with water: So the Church Universal cannot be extinct, yet it may…

True it is that God has neither hands, nor any bodily shape: but thus it pleases the Holy Ghost to stoop down to our slender and weak capacities, that he might the better set forth the infinite love which he bears us. And because the Church is in many places called the Temple, o…

This also is a sweet principle of peace and quiet to the Christians mind, that he knows not, but his good may be imported in what seemed to threaten his ruine. Many were the distresses and straits of Israel in the Wilderness, but all was to humble them, that he might do them goo…

Our misery lies in the ignorance of God, and the transgression of his law; our happiness in being enlightened and sanctified by the spirit of wisdom and understanding. It is God's great gift (Jeremiah 24:7): I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord, and they shall…

His pleasure should satisfy us though we do not see the reason of it. So (Jeremiah 24:5) God speaks of the basket of good figs, whereby were represented the best of the people, "whom I have sent into the land of the Chaldeans for their good." What can there be seemingly more con…

Surely he means a saving knowledge: and therefore when the work of grace is expressed by knowledge, a theoretical and notional knowledge is not understood, but that which is practical and operative; such a knowledge as does work such a change both in the inward and outward man,…

There are conditions that concern making covenant, and keeping covenant. First, conditions for making covenant (Jeremiah 24:7): I will give them a heart to know me that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 36:26): A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I bestow upon you.

In regard of a man's weakness, the well is deep and you have nothing to draw with, the work of application is spiritual and mystical, the eye is dim and your understanding shallow, not able to search into such mysteries, you cannot discern neither the way, nor the work, how will…

I will give you an heart of flesh. I will soften your Adamant hearts in my Sons blood: shew God his hand and seal: and there is another gracious promise, (Jeremiah 24:7). They shall return to me with their whole heart.

As (Ezekiel 9:4): Set a mark on them that mourn, but utterly slay all the rest; which was accomplished. (Jeremiah 24:5) The basket of good figs was preserved, but the other was for a prey to captivity, and the sword, and pestilence, and to utter extirpation from the earth. Hence…

The very consideration of his nature — a God of love, pity, and tender mercies — or of his relation to you, as a father, husband, friend — might be security enough, even if he had not spoken a word, to quiet you in this case. And yet you have his word too (Jeremiah 25:6): 'I wil…

In a word, what have we to do with consolations, unless the doctrine of repentance goes before? The dregs then are not to be taken in this place, as they are in Jeremiah 25:15. where he speaks of the reprobates (whom the Lord chokes and stifles with the drink of this cup) but fo…

Here he brings in two places of the Prophets at once, tending both to this purpose. The first is in (Jeremiah 25), saying thus. Behold, I begin to plague the city, where my name is called upon: I will first chastise and punish my best beloved and dearest children, they must firs…

We read in Scripture sometimes of the face of the sword, and sometimes of the mouth of the sword. As Isaiah 31:8. where we translate, they shall flee from the sword, the Hebrew is, they shall flee from the face of the sword; The like text you have, Jeremiah 25:27. Now when the S…

This promise is my security, however things go in the world. My God will do me no hurt, Jeremiah 25:6. In fact, he will do me good by every dispensation. O that I had but an heart to make all things work for his glory, that thus causeth every thing to work for my good.

A heavy judgment of God now then lies upon them. It is a grievous reproof the Prophet takes up against the Chaldeans (Isaiah 47:6-10): These two shall come upon you in one day, loss of children and widowhood, etc., and yet compare that with (Jeremiah 25:9). The Chaldeans did no…

"Indocti;" — "quelques gens n'entendans pas le propos," — "some people not understanding the design." persons ventured to strike out the repetition of it as superfluous; which, he tells us, ought not to have been done, because Jehoiakim, the father of king Jehoiakim, had the nam…

Or in Revelation 13:3 ('All the world wondered after the beast'), which few would take as meaning every individual person on earth? That 'all nations,' an expression of equal breadth with 'the world,' is to be understood in like manner is apparent from Romans 1:5; Revelation 18:…

The hypocrite thinks to prevaricate and juggle with God, but God will unmask him; (Ecclesiastes 12:14). God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing. (Jeremiah 29:23). They have committed villainy in Israel, even I know and am a witness, says the Lord. I, but…

"The Lord is rich to all that call upon him" (Romans 10:12). (Jeremiah 29:13) "Then shall you find me when you search for me with all your heart." (Psalm 145:19) "He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him."

Every failing is not a crime, and every crime is not a heinous crime, but adultery is Flagitium, a heinous crime. The Lord calls it villainy (Jeremiah 29:23). They have committed villainy in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives.

When will we be earnest if not when we are praying for the life of our souls. 3. It is only fervent prayer that has the promise of mercy affixed to it (Jeremiah 29:14): then shall you find me when you search for me with all your heart. It is dead praying without a promise; and t…

How many affronts and injuries does he put up? God sees all the intrigues and horrid impieties committed in a nation (Jeremiah 29:23). They have committed villainy in Israel, and have committed adultery, even I know, and am a witness, says the Lord.

Yet when Paul gave this commandment, we read not that there were any Christian kings, but all Infidels. And the Jews are commanded to pray for Babylon, where they were captive (Jeremiah 29:7): And seek the prosperity of the city, where I have caused you to be carried captive, an…

Job 35:13: 'Surely God hears not vanity, neither does the Almighty regard it.' The promise is made to a heart engaged — Jeremiah 29:13: 'Then shall you seek me and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart.' Well then, when you find your heart under the power of…

Now this voice was unknown to those that heard it, and yet it was for men that understood it not: Christ acts for us, when we are sleeping. The people of God were to be seventy years in Babylon, and were going on in their obstinacy, yet then God says (Jeremiah 29:11), I know the…

1. In that he prayed, it teaches us to hallow all our actions by prayer; we do not bid ourselves God speed, unless we recommend our affairs to God; whatever assurance we have of the blessing, yet we must pray. (Jeremiah 29:10-12) "For thus says the Lord, after seventy years be a…

Look upon this word in the abstract, folly is wickedness; and to work folly, is in the language of the Scripture, as much, as to work wickedness, to work the greatest wickedness. Hence it is sometimes translated villany (Jeremiah 29:22-23): The Lord make you like Zedekiah and li…

Seek the Lord diligently: he has promised to be found of all them that diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6). God looks for earnest, hearty, fervent prayer: there is a sweet promise which God makes to his people's prayers after his sore judgments which he had brought upon them (Jer…

5. They did seek inconstantly: because mercy did not come presently, they gave over seeking. But if we seek the Kingdom of Heaven cordially, God has pawned his truth in a promise, we shall find (Jeremiah 29:13), "Then shall you find me, when you search for me with all your heart…

§53. Of parents' care in providing fit marriages for their children. God has further laid a charge upon parents to provide marriages for their children: for thus says the Prophet in the name of the Lord to parents, Take wives to your sons, and give your daughters to husbands (Je…

Whatever he intends, though he knows our wants, and resolves to answer them; yet it is a piece of religious manners, to ask what he is about to give. Jeremiah 29:11. I know my thoughts towards you, thoughts of peace; yet will I be enquired of you for these things. God knows his…

How can we forget a freind who is ever mindful of us? Jeremiah 29:11. I know the Thoughts that I think towards you (says the Lord) Thoughts of Peace.

God who is the inspector of the Heart, sees all the intrigues and Private Caballs in the Thoughts. God knows the true Motion of a false Heart, Jeremiah 29:23. I know and am a witness, says the Lord.

Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you and you shall glorify my name. I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end (Jeremiah 29:11-12). Then you shall call upon me, and you shall go and…

God says, "I will do thus and thus for you" (Ezekiel 36:37), "But I will be inquired after by the house of Israel for this very thing." God will do it, but prayer must give a lift; he will be sought to (Jeremiah 29:11-12): "I know the thoughts which I think towards you, says the…

No wonder if we are much in the dark, if we look only to present sense, and present appearance; then his purposes are hidden from us, he brings one contrary out of another, light out of darkness, meat out of the eater. God knows what he is doing with you, when you know not (Jere…

(Ezekiel 36:37) Thus says the Lord God, I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them: I will increase them with men like a flock. And (Jeremiah 29:12-13) Then shall you call upon me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will hearken to you. And…

Third, it supposes we are bound to pray for every individual person that they may be saved — for which there is no warrant, rule, precept, or example in Scripture; it is contrary to the apostolic direction (1 John 5:16), to our Savior's example (John 17:9), and to the revealed c…

4. The sweet promises which God has made to prayer, Isaiah 30. 19. He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry, Jeremiah 29. 13, 14. Then shall ye go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you; and ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with…

A father takes a letter from his son kindly though there are blots, or bad English in it: what blottings are there in our holy things, yet our Father in Heaven accepts: God says, it is my child, and he would do better; I will look upon him through Christ with a merciful eye. 6.…

God does checker his works of providence, and shall not we submit and say, Lord if you are so kind mixing so many bright colors with my dark condition, your will be done. 11. There is kindness in affliction in that God does moderate his stroke (Jeremiah 30:11). I will correct yo…

Lastly, if we confess and believe God to be the father of Christ, and in him our father also; then in regard of our conduct, we must not frame ourselves like the world: but the course of our lives must be in righteousness and true holiness. Paul exhorts the Corinthians to separa…

Chaldea shall be a spoil, says the Lord, because [reconstructed: ye] were glad, because you rejoiced, O you destroyers of my heritage. Jeremiah 30:16. All that prey upon you, will I give for a prey.

There remains still some wildness in the thoughts and fancies of the best to humble them; but if you find a care beforehand to prevent them, and opposition against them when they come, and grief and sorrow afterwards, you will find enough to clear you from reigning hypocrisy. (1…

Now that we may the better clear this sentence, we must lay this foundation, to wit, that God always keeps a measure in his corrections: the reason is, because he is inclined to mercy, which we gather from the word judgment: for the Prophet's meaning therein is, that the Lord no…

Notwithstanding when it speaks of the elect, this word cup, serves to set forth the measure which God keeps in his judgments: for he favors his blow, though he chastises his people sharply. See Chapter 27:8. Jeremiah 30:11. I take the word Taraela, for anguish, or trembling, wit…

Accordingly, the name of David is sometimes applied to the Messiah. "They shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king," (Jeremiah 30:9.) Again, "my servant David shall be a prince among them," (Ezekiel 34:24; 37:24.)

How soon was the Persian Monarchy swallowed up by the Grecian, and that again by the Roman?Dioclesian and Maximin in the height of their persecution ound themselves so baffled by Providence, that they both resigned the government, and lived as private men. But in this wonderful…

Indeed, have we not found it in Scripture and experience that a dead and discouraged entrance upon duty has increased to sweet enlargements, and ravishments of spirit? Search and see, usually a heart engagement has ended in a heart-enlargement, and God-enjoyment: God will bring…

Well then, if God only send love-tokens to us, he deals well with us. 6. God deals well with his People when he afflicts them, because he moderates his stroke, Jeremiah 30:11. I will correct you in Measure. 1. God does not smite his Children so much as he might, Psalm 78:38.

Though we cannot lay wagers upon our own strength, yet we may resolve in God's strength, and ought to engage ourselves to duty. Jeremiah 30:21: Who is this that engaged his heart to approach to me, says the Lord? We must promise what is due, but not presume as if we could carry…

God will follow blow after blow, till we do consider his mind and purpose. (Jeremiah 30:24) The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return until he has done it, and until he has performed the intents of his heart. 2. To reprove us for not taking this advantage.

God deals with his own with much moderation, meting out their sufferings in due proportion. So (Jeremiah 30:11), I will correct you in measure. Thirdly, right as to their end and use.

Then I was by him as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him (verse 30). And they may that have been verified (Jeremiah 30:21). And their noble one shall be of themselves, and their Governor shall proceed from the midst of them, and I wi…

For there is hidden in this speech a mutual relation, which is contained in the promise: I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. Therefore Christ proves that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have immortal life, by this that God testified that he is their God (Jeremiah…

As we use to say to Children when they are sick, this is your green fruit you have eat, or your going in the Snow: So says God, This is your wickedness. Jeremiah 30.15. Why do you cry for your affliction, because your sins were increased, I have done these things unto you.

Christ spoke more good of you than you are all worth. He tells over again Ephraim's prayers behind his back (Jeremiah 30:18). O woe to you, Christ is telling black tidings of you in heaven: Such a man will not believe in me, he hates me, and my cause, and my people.

Indeed — which is wonderful in this case — faith not only looks at affliction as a gift of God's grace and a fruit of God's love, but even those very afflictions wherein God is most heartily displeased, and strikes with incurable blows, and handles us as a man handles his enemy;…

2. In case of sadness of spirit, when God seems to cast off the soul in dejection (Song of Solomon 5:6), "My beloved had withdrawn himself;" yet God is unchangeable. He is immutable in his love; he may change his countenance but not his heart (Jeremiah 31:4): "I have loved you w…

Who forgives your iniquity, who crowns you, etc. This is a branch of the covenant (Jeremiah 31:33). I will be their God, and I will forgive their iniquity.

As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear him. Is Ephraim my dear son? my bowels are troubled for him (Jeremiah 31:20). God pities his children in two cases.

As Christ's love is matchless, so it is endless: the flower of Christ's love is sweet, and that which makes it sweeter, it never dies. Christ's love is eternized (Jeremiah 31:3). He will never divorce his elect spouse: the failings of his people cannot quite take off his love: t…

Two things will comfort us, deity and propriety: since the fall we have lost likeness to God, and communion with God; let us labor to recover this lost interest, and pronounce this shibboleth my God (Psalm 43:5). It is little comfort to know there is a God, unless he be ours; Go…

But as great a wonder as it is, there is such a thing as perseverance; a saint's perseverance is built upon three immutable pillars. (1.) God's eternal love: We are inconstant in our love to God; but he is not so in his love to us (Jeremiah 31:9): "I have loved you with an everl…

This contrition goes before remission. Jeremiah 31:18-19. I repented, I smote upon my thigh, is Ephraim my dear son? My bowels are troubled for him, I will surely have mercy upon him.

If the new creature were not produced by the Holy Ghost, then the greatest glory in a man's conversion would belong to himself; but this glory God will not give to another. The turning of the will to God is from God (Jeremiah 31:19): After I was turned I repented. 2. The organic…

And when you are as it were sinking into hell in your own apprehensions, see if he does not call you back again. See what he himself says in Jeremiah 31:18-20. Ephraim is his son, his dear son, his pleasant son — as he says there.

In Isaiah 63:9: 'In all your afflictions he is afflicted.' And in Jeremiah 31:20: 'Since I spoke against him, I remember him still; therefore my heart is troubled for him.' When a child is sick, the mother is more troubled and careful about it and her eye and mind more upon it t…

Seventhly, Lastly. Our sorrows may then be pronounced sinful, when they deafen our ears to all the wholesome and seasonable words of counsel and comfort offered us for our relief and support. Jeremiah 31:15: A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel weep…

1. It's clear from these places of Scripture, where there is an express distinction and difference put between the outward ministry of the word, and this inward, powerful, efficacious work of grace on the heart, and wherein the great weight of conversion is laid on this inward w…

Another passage we have in Philippians 2:12-13: "Work out the work of your salvation in fear and trembling; for it is God that works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure;" where the Apostle makes the work of grace not only to work ability to will and to do, but to…

And (Proverbs 14:13) even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness: though often times our laughter may not be so sinful, yet it readily more indisposes us for any spiritual duty, than sorrow does; the heart is like a clock, whereof, when the in…

For he has a special delight in this, and therein gives wonderful expression to the bowels of his tender compassion toward his chastised and humbly submissive children. Surely (says he) I have heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a…

Arias Montanus: [reconstructed: circumiverat], Pagninus in the margin, verterat se, the old Version, declinaverat. Christ being unwilling to remove, and wholly go away, he only turned aside, as (Jeremiah 31:22): How long will you go about, ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩ O you backsli…

The taking away of the world's sins to us is the complete pardoning of them. Remission of sins in his blood (Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14); blotting out of transgressions ([reconstructed: Isaiah 43:25]) as a thick cloud (Isaiah 44:23); a not remembering of sins (Isaiah 43:25;…

As God says in the Prophet, so may Christ say much more, My Bowels are troubled for him, I remember him still. Jeremiah 31:20 Secondly, there is comfort concerning such infirmities, in that your very sins move him to pittie more than to anger.

The commandment of Christ is, Believe the Gospel. Now the stipulation of the covenant of grace (which also is the substance of the gospel) is this, I am your God (Jeremiah 31:33), this therefore must we believe. And to this knowledge, is the promise of life everlasting annexed (…

Moreover, the abundance of knowledge is here closely compared to that small taste which God gave to the ancient people under the law. And although the Jews were kept under such childish rudiments, yet to us has the perfect light of the heavenly wisdom shined by the means of the…

It seems he attributes some feeling to the dead, and then they know what we do in this world: from there the Papists argue, that the dead know all that we do. I answer, there is here the feigning of a person; which is often found in the Scriptures: in which sense Jeremiah says;…

But because God began not only to be a nursing father to this people from their natural birth, but also begat them spiritually; it is not amiss to extend his speech even to that, to wit, that they issued as it were out of God's womb, into newness of life, and to the hope of the…

For under Christ the Lord spoke so evidently, that he openly manifested himself to be the teacher of his Church, and after he gathered to himself a great number of disciples. Moreover, this place accords with that of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:34), And they shall teach no more every…

There is propriety in the distinction here made between the people Israel and the Gentiles: for by the right of adoption the children of Abraham “were nigh” (Ephesians 2:17) to God, while the Gentiles, with whom God had made no “covenants of promise,” were “strangers” to the Chu…

18. A voice was heard in Ramah. It is certain that the prophet describes (Jeremiah 31:15) the destruction of the tribe of Benjamin, which took place in his time: for he had foretold that the tribe of Judah would be cut off, to which was added the half of the tribe of Benjamin. H…

God had, indeed, promised a new covenant at the coming of Christ; but had, at the same time, showed, that it would not be different from the first, but that, on the contrary, its design was, to give a perpetual sanction to the covenant, which he had made from the beginning, with…

This is a far loftier distinction than to be preferred to an unbelieving multitude. Christ does not mean any kind of hearing, or the mere beholding of the flesh, but pronounces their eyes to be blessed, because they perceive in him a glory which is worthy of the only-begotten So…

A still more abundant light of understanding is promised by Jeremiah. No longer shall any man teach his neighbor, nor a man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me from the least to the greatest, (Jeremiah 31:34). And, therefore, we need not wonder if the Jews…

In Exodus the Lord says thus, Israel is my first begotten son, let my son go that he may serve me (Exodus 4:22). I am become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first born (Jeremiah 31:9). Also in the same place, Is not Ephraim my dear son?

Secondly, not to be, is not to subsist, or not to live: when that which has lived dies, it is said not to be. The Prophet brings in Rachel, weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they were not (Jeremiah 31:15), that is, because they were dead. Joseph's bre…

Having freely forgiven you (for so much the word imports) all your trespasses. And this is the word that God useth in the covenant, in that great promise of grace and pardon, Jeremiah 31:34. It is warrantable for us, yea necessary to take the word in the utmost extent of its sig…

and frequently elsewhere, both in the Old and New Testament. By moving of the bowels (or sounding, or making a noise, as the word is elsewhere translated, Isaiah 10:11 and 63:15) is understood a sensible stirring of the affections, when they begin to stound, and that kindly, and…

The expression is borrowed from men (for, properly it agrees not to him) who by sudden effects that fall out beyond their expectation, use to magnify the wonderfulness of the cause that brings them about: Thus, I know not how it was, it was before I was aware, or, while I was no…

And yet again we read as expressly, (Ezekiel 18:20): The soul that sins, it shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the iniquity of the wicked s…

Though God's anger be not yet turned away, yet it may be turned away; and though one hand be stretched out to destroy you, yet the other hand is stretched forth to save you; for he stretches forth his hand all the day long, to a disobedient and gainsaying people (Romans 10:21).…

Oh how shall I believe in Jesus Christ, that I may receive remission of sins! Truth it is, sirs, you'll never be filled till you be sensible of soul-emptiness; spiritual poverty is the prologue and preparation to true soul-plenty: gospel sorrow widens the soul, and so capacitate…

The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge. Knowledge then shall be very universal among all sorts of persons; agreeable to Jeremiah 31:34. "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know…

Is he not a pleasant child? For since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still, I will surely have mercy on him (Jeremiah 31:20). Does he not know your life would be altogether useless to him, if he should not restore you?

This is the day of Jacob's visitation; the ways of Zion mourn, our gold has grown dim, the sun has gone down upon our prophets. A dry wind, but neither to fan nor to cleanse, is coming upon this land, and all our ill comes from the multiplied transgressions of this land and from…

He has promised to relieve in such cases, and he will fulfill his word to the utmost. God tells us that his covenant with us is like the ordinances of heaven, the sun, moon and stars, which have their certain courses (Jeremiah 31:36). Thence David said, that he watched for relie…

Now in order to explain what it is for Sinners to come to God the Father by Jesus Christ, let us consider that all saving Approaches of the Creature unto God, depend on God's Approaches to the Creature: He first draws us by his Grace, and then we follow. Jeremiah 31. 3. I have l…

Why is it that he chose me of a family, and leaves another; but because it pleases him, he blots out their transgressions for his own name's sake. And second, as it is free mercy, it is tender mercy, the word in the Prophet signifies tenderness or bowels of compassion, and such…

The gracious Lord saw his poor creatures undone by sin, and no power in heaven nor in earth able to rescue but his own alone; therefore his pity was moved, and his hand answers his heart, his own arm brought salvation, he sent the Deliverer out of Zion, to turn away iniquity fro…

Or as the Hebrew carries it, I am blotting them out. God in forgiving sin passes an act of Oblivion, Jeremiah 31:34. I will remember your sins no more.

He is still consulting and projecting for their good; if they wander out of the way, he guides them; if they stumble, he holds them by the hand; if they fall, he raiseth them; if they be dull, he quickens them by his Spirit; if they be froward, he draws them with cords of Love;…

3. Justice is provoked the longer, and that will be a grief to you first or last. If ever we be brought home to God, it will cost us many a bitter tear; not only at first conversion (Jeremiah 31:18). I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus: You have chastised me, and…

Where it is in gift rather than in grace, there men are puffed up. The more we know God or ourselves by a divine light, the more humble we shall be (Jeremiah 31:18-19): When I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach…

Come and put your mouths in the dust, and acknowledge that you have too long stood it out against God. As the nobles of the King of Assyria came with ropes about their necks, and submitted themselves: so (Jeremiah 31:9), They shall return with weeping, and with supplications. Th…

Paul groaned under the relics of the flesh, and so should we under our bondage by sin. And then (2.) bewail it to the Lord, I am as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke (Jeremiah 31:14), to bewail this stiffness of heart, and the treachery of sin whereby we are enchanted, wholly b…

(Jeremiah 2:25) You have said, there is no hope; no, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go. Indeed further, that have a kindly remorse from the conviction of the Spirit (Jeremiah 31:18): I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself, thus, You have chastised me, a…

Branch 4. From hence, God manifest in the flesh, Christ born of a Virgin, a thing not only strange in nature, but impossible, learn, That there are no impossibilities with God: God can bring about things which are not within the sphere of nature to produce: That iron should swim…

But indeed it is God's power that we question. Is anything too hard for God? (Jeremiah 32:27) yet we stagger through unbelief, as if the arm of God's power were shrunk, and he could not help in desperate cases. Take away a king's power and we un-king him; take away the Lord's po…

2. As God has asserted it, so he has promised it: The Truth of God, the most brilliant Pearl of his Crown, is laid a pawn in the promise (John 10:28): I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish. (Jeremiah 32:42) I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I…

It is spoken of Israel's march out of Egypt, when the sea fled, and the waters were parted each from other. Here was the power of God set forth (Jeremiah 32:27): Is anything too hard for me? God loves to help, when things seem past hope; he creates deliverance (Psalm 124:8).

The text calls it Berith Gnolam, an everlasting covenant. Such as are in covenant are elected; God's electing love is unchangeable (Jeremiah 32:40). I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, but I will put my fear in their heart, that th…

2. Besides God's decree, he has engaged himself by promise, that the heirs of Heaven shall never be put by their inheritance. God's promises are not like blanks in a lottery, but as a sealed deed which cannot be reversed: The promises are the saints' royal charter; and this is o…

(2.) A saint's perseverance is built upon the covenant of grace; [illegible] a firm, impregnable covenant: This you have in the words of the sweet singer of Israel (2 Samuel 23:5): "God has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure." It is a sweet cove…

Also perseverance in good works and godliness is of grace. So the Lord says, I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will never turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me (Jeremiah 32:40). Lastly,…

Can difficulties pose the Almighty? Jer. 32. 27. Is there any thing too hard for me? Did not he make the dry bones live? Ezek. 37. 7, 8.

A second ground, of kin to the former, is from the many and various expressions that are used in the Scriptures for holding forth this work of the Spirit of God in conversion, that point out, not only a hand working, and a work wrought; but an inward powerful way of working and…

Many glorious mercies are transacted in God's mind, without our knowledge: Before the corner stone of the earth was laid, he had made sure work of our election to glory (Ephesians 1:4; Romans 9:11). (2.) The everlasting covenant between the Father and the Son, that blessed barga…

The calling particular (Isaiah 55:1-2; Matthew 11:27-28; Acts 2:39). The Covenant particular, and takes in only the house of Judah, the elect and such as cannot fall away (Jeremiah 31:34-35, etc.; Jeremiah 32:39-40; Isaiah 54:10; Isaiah 59:19-20). The surety of the Covenant, Chr…

Truly he will assuredly fulfill the desires of them that fear him, when we reverence him in his ordinances, pray with reverence, and in a holy fear (Psalm 2:11). Them that go about holy duties in a reverent and holy fear, do all things in the fear of the Lord, he has a spirit of…

2. This eminently shines forth both in his works of creation and providence. 1. Creation, in the stupendous fabric of the heavens (Jeremiah 32:17-19): Ah Lord God, behold you have made the heaven, and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm, and there is nothing too h…

Indeed, in Jeremiah 17:1 he says yet more expressly, that the sin of Judah was written with an iron pen, and with the point of a diamond. To render into their bosom, is a phrase of speech much used in the Scriptures (Psalm 79:12; Jeremiah 32:18), because men think their sins are…

Spiritual mercies are of two sorts; such as belong to the Essence, the very being of the new creature, without which it must fail: or to its well being, and the comfort of the inner man; without which you cannot live so cheerfully as you would. The mercies of the former kind are…

Thirdly, The grace of regeneration, and the fruits of it are administred in and by the covenant. This is the promise of the covenant, That God will write his law in our hearts, and put his fear in our inward parts, that we shall not depart from him, Jeremiah 32. This is that gra…

And (Jeremiah 5:9): Shall I not visit for these things? says the Lord; and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? And in this sense is the word to be taken here, Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children; that is, punishing the fathers' iniquity in t…

Mary's better part shall not be taken away. This fear in the heart, keeps them from departing from God (Jeremiah 32:40). They have constancy in their hearts, and perseverance in their hands [constantiam in proposito, et perseverantiam in opere].

So violent were the Jews, that they would spare no cost in their idolatrous worship (Isaiah 46:6): They lavish gold out of the bag. So fiercely were they bent upon idolatry, that they would sacrifice their sons and daughters to their idol god (Jeremiah 32:35): They built the hig…

"And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one." Then shall be abolished all superstitious ways of worship, and all shall agree in worshipping God in his own ways: Jeremiah 32:39. "And I will give them one heart, and one way…

The first I shall dispatch in these twenty particulars following. The Husbandman purchases his fields, and gives a valuable consideration for them (Jeremiah 32:9-10). So has God purchased his church with a full valuable price, even the precious blood of his own Son (Acts 20:28):…

Learned Perkins said of his times Non sunt ista litigandi tempora, sed orandi, prayers are fitter for these times than disputes, carnal zeal may put us upon disputes it is true, zeal that puts us upon prayer when we are so tenderly affected for God's glory, as that in that respe…

It is upon the matter, the great promise of the new covenant (Ezekiel 11:19). I will put a new Spirit within you: So also (chapter 36, verse 27; Jeremiah 32:39-40) and in sundry other places, whereof afterwards. Christ is the Mediator and Surety of this new covenant (Hebrews 7:2…

The Fear of God is a, a preservative against Apostacy. Jeremiah 32:40. I will put my Fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Against Apostasy they have that promise (Jeremiah 32:40). I will put my fear in their hearts, tha…

For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; which text implies that salvation is by the knowledge of the truth, or knowledge of the true way, others tend to destruction. And so God promises (Jeremiah 32:39), that he will give all the elect o…

This fear has torment in it to the creature, and hatred of God: because by the fear of his curse and the flames of hell he seeks to drive them from sin. 2. Filial fear, as children fear to offend their dear parents; and thus the godly do so fear God, that they do also love him,…

This is a covenant that keeps us as well as we keep it. (Jeremiah 32:40-41): I will put my fear into their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. So (Ezekiel 36:27): There is a promise of influence; I will put my Spirit into you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and yo…

So (Philippians 4:8) whatever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely; whatever is of good report, if there be any virtue, any praise, these things think on and do: Now sin comes under none of these names, but is contrary to them all, and therefore forbidden: God has not for…

Unity in faith and discipline is a mercy we cannot prize enough. This is what God has promised (Jeremiah 32:39) and what we should pursue (Zechariah 8:19). Ambrose said of Emperor Theodosius that when he lay sick, he took more care for the church's peace than for his own recover…

The saints' graces of themselves may break as glasses, but these glasses in the hand of God shall never break. God's solemn engagement: the Lord has passed it under hand and seal, giving bond for the saints' perseverance (Jeremiah 32:40): I will make an everlasting covenant with…

(4.) The same Covenant made with Abraham is made with the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 6:16): I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Which is prophesied of the Gentiles under the New Testament in Ezekiel 11:17-20, Ezekiel 34:23-25, Jeremiah 31:31-36, Jeremiah 32:36-40,…

4. He is a God to his Elect that he may engrave his law in their heart and inward parts; so that the promising to be a God tali modo, is the cause, and the engraving of a new heart is the effect. (Jeremiah 31:33; Jeremiah 32:38) And they shall be my people, and I will be their G…

5. The real personal covenant is everlasting, like that covenant with the Moon and Stars; second, the night and the day; third, of the motion of the Sea (Jeremiah 31:35-37). There is perseverance absolutely promised (Jeremiah 32:40): I will make an everlasting covenant with them…

3. What outward marks the word gives of outward regeneration, and consequently of predestination to glory, justification, effectual calling, made visible, which we must see in others, before pastors can feed them as pastors, for the word is in all the like a perfect rule. Questi…

But when actual influences fall upon a heavenly habit, as the Lord can cast in a coal, or a lump and flood of love (Song of Solomon 2:5-6; Luke 24:32; Song of Solomon 6:12), there are most heavenly actings of the soul. 3. He bows and inclines the heart to the Lord's testimonies,…

Otherwise Christ could not have pronounced Peter blessed [reconstructed: in Greek] (Matthew 16:17) in the present, for believing in the present: for he should not have been blessed to the end: as Solon said of his blessed man. And this cannot but subvert our faith, crush the pea…

3. But persevering grace and so influence of grace to persevere is promised in the Covenant of Grace (Jeremiah 31:35), that they shall continue in Covenant, more sure than the night and the day. (Jeremiah 32:40) I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from…

What says then Christ (Matthew 9:22; Mark 5:34; Mark 10:52; Luke 8:58; Luke 5:20, 24; Mark 5:34; Mark 9:24) indeed and much more says the Holy Ghost of our case, even of everlasting consolation (2 Thessalonians 2:16), strong consolation (Hebrews 6:18), all comfort (2 Corinthians…

Only there is a warrant to say that the Covenant is everlasting: first, because it goes beyond time and stands with the dead in Christ (Matthew 22:32); second, because two great promises of the Covenant — the rising of the body and life everlasting — are fulfilled after time is…

1. If they cannot fall away, who are thus seated in the covenant, is not free will left to much looseness of security? Answ. Not at all: For a principle of godly fear is fixed in the heart, and so in free will, never to depart from God (Jeremiah 32:39-40). And where this godly a…

Nor that he wills that they should believe either their eternal damnation, or their final and total falling away, which inevitably leads to that. For they, knowing that they are in Christ (2 Corinthians 13:5; Romans 8:16-17) and freed from condemnation (Romans 8:1), are to belie…

God never said that he would be Adam's God by giving him influences to obey, and to obey to the end, all influences granted to Adam, to will and to do, were granted to him. 1. By God Creator, not by the grace of a Redeemer, as in the Covenant of Grace, to walk (Ezekiel 36:27), t…

Q. What way is God ours? A. By Covenant (Ezekiel 34:24; Genesis 17:7; Jeremiah 32:38; Zechariah 13:9). But he is not ours as if we had some gifted right and dominion over him, as we have over the creatures.

The Lord speaks often of the Covenant of Grace not so much as preached, qua foedus ennunciatum (though it so also must be preached) but as fulfilled by God, and acted in an effectual powerful way, upon the hearts of the elect only, and that according to the Lord's decree of elec…

No doubt, Christ God-Man is in Covenant with God, being a person designed from eternity, with his own consent, and in time yielding to that, and yet he stands not in that covenant-relation that we stand in: as we shall hear. Argument 1. What argument does prove that there is a p…

This is a part of his reign (Psalm 110:2): The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion: rule in the midst of your enemies. 3. Your people shall be willing in the day of your power (Deuteronomy 30:6; Ezekiel 11:19-20; Ezekiel 36:26-27; Jeremiah 31:31-35; Jeremiah 32:…

Isaiah 46:6: They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. The Jews did spare no cost in their idolatrous worship, nay, Jeremiah 32:35: They cause their Sons and Daughters to pass through the fire to Molech. They were so zealous in their idol-worship, that th…

2 Keep up friendly meetings; Christians should not be shy one of another, as if they had the Plague. 3 Let us plead that promise, Jeremiah 32. 39. I will give them one heart, and one way:

The promises are mulctralia Evangelii, the breasts of the Gospel milking out consolation; and who are to suck of these breasts but God's children. The promise of pardon is for them; (Jeremiah 33:8). I will pardon all their iniquity whereby they have sinned against me. The promis…

When a poor sinner looks upon himself, and sees his guilt, and when he looks upon God's justice and holiness, he falls down confounded, but here is that may be as cork to the net, to keep him from despair, if you will leave your sins and come to Christ, mercy can seal your pardo…

2. From whom it comes, it's from him, her being his love, makes her like the lily. 3. The nearness of the mystical union, that is between Christ and his Bride; it is such, that thereby they some way share names (Jeremiah 23:6 and Jeremiah 33:16). 3. He intermixes her beauty and…

In the exhortation or invitation, consider: 1. the party invited, or called. 2. The duty called for. 3. Its repetition. The party called, is a Shulamite: this word comes either from Solomon, as the husband's name is named over the wife (Isaiah 4:1), and it is from the same root…

See also Jeremiah 31:12, 13 and Amos 9:13. Yea then they shall receive all manner of tokens of God's presence, and acceptance, and favor Jeremiah 33:9. "And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and an honor before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good…

2. That in heaven there is an emblem of it: it is usual in Scripture to set forth the stability and constancy of God's word by this similitude; as (Psalm 89:2): Mercy shall be built up forever, your faithfulness have you established in the very heavens. So when it is compared wi…

We see how by his mercy the Lord reconciles us to himself. And so in another place, when he foretells that the people shall be gathered together again, whom he had scattered abroad in his wrath, he says, I will cleanse them from all wickedness with which they have sinned against…

Jeremiah 33:16. "And this is the name with which he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness." Whoever is but a little acquainted with the nature of man in general, and the impurity of his own heart in particular, I am persuaded he must acknowledge that self-righteousness is…

2. Meditate upon promises of Sanctification. The earth is not so apt to be overgrown with weeds and thorns, as the heart is to be overgrown with lusts; now, God has made many promises of healing, Hosea 14:4, and purging, Jeremiah 33:8. Promises of sending his Spirit; which for i…

Thirdly and lastly, promises are arguments to infer our purification, because in many of them that is the very matter of which they consist, and so the power and fidelity of God is engaged for our purification. I will cleanse them from all their iniquity whereby they have sinned…

This is like a man that holds his breath under water, and then takes breath again. (Jeremiah 34:15-16) You were now turned, and had done right in my sight; but you turned and polluted my holy name. 3. Men may leave gross sin, and yet live in more spiritual sins; leave drunkennes…

Thus it fell out with David, whose last ways were not like his first; and yet by this, these holy fruits are not utterly destroyed, because it is the seed of God; and so is immortal (1 John 5:4-5). And also because the promises of perseverance and victory made to it, cannot be f…

When they pollute and shame themselves, the Lord is polluted in them (Ezekiel 13:19): "Will they pollute me among my people?" And (Jeremiah 34:16): "You have polluted my name." Christ, that will hereafter be admired in his saints, will now be glorified in them.

Ergo, now neither testament nor covenant was confirmed by blood simply, but by the blood of a living creature slain. Hence the making of a covenant was by cutting a calf or a beast in two, and passing between the parts thereof (Jeremiah 34:18), and so they entered into a curse (…

Well then, let us try if we are the adopted sons and daughters of God. First Sign of Adoption, Obedience; a son obeys his father (Jeremiah 35:5). I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites pots full of wine, and cups, and said to them, Drink wine.

A child should be the parents' echo: when the father speaks, the child should echo back obedience. The Rechabites were forbidden by their father to drink wine, and they did obey him, and were commended for it (Jeremiah 35:6). And children must obey their parents [〈 in non-Latin…

A man cannot live in the Ethiopian climate, but he will be discolored with the sun; nor can he be in bad company, but he will partake of their evil. One drunkard makes another; as the prophet speaks in another sense (Jeremiah 35:5), I set before them pots full of wine and cups,…

The stranger refusing and professing himself to be a Christian, Spyridon said: For that reason the rather must you do it, for to the pure all things are pure, as the word of God teaches us. But they object Jeremiah 35, where Jonadab commanded the Rechabites to abstain from wine,…

This vow, if made accordingly, is lawful and belongs both to the Church of the Old and New Testament. In the Old Testament we have the example of the Rechabites (Jeremiah 35), who by the appointment of Jonadab their father abstained from strong drink and wine, from planting vine…

Indeed, he so manifests his fatherly love, and so willingly accepts of us, that if we yield not obedience to his voice, we ought justly to impute the same to our own frowardness. Moreover, the clause, all the day long, aggravates the fault greatly, namely, that God ceased not fo…

(3.) By a child-like reverence and dread of God; when we are afraid to offend God. (Jeremiah 35:5-6) The sons of Rechab, their father had commanded them that they should drink no wine; now says God by the prophet, "Set pots full of wine, and cups, and say to them, Drink wine": T…

(1.) That God takes notice of it; he observes whether his will be done, yes or no. The Rechabites were tender of the commandment of their dead father, which could not take cognizance of their actions; but it was the will of their father, and they would keep to the will of the de…

It is not he that fears wrath, punishment, inconveniencies, troubles of the world, molestations of the flesh; no, but he that dares not make bold with a commandment. As (Jeremiah 35:6) Go bring a temptation, set pots of wine before the Rechabites, O they dared not drink of them;…

Your sins are like Absalom's treason against his father. The Rechabites are commended for keeping their father's command (Jeremiah 35): "Set pots before them," etc. — no, our father has forbidden us to drink wine. Their fathers were dead, but ours is living; will you that are so…

3. He is neither ignorant nor forgetful of our prevarications and disobedience. The Rechabites were tender of the commandment of their dead father (Jeremiah 35), who could not take cognizance of their actions; Our father commanded us: certainly we should be tender of the command…

If a stranger bids a child do a thing, he regards him not; but if his father commands, he presently obeys: obey God out of love, obey him readily, obey every command. If he bids you part with your bosom-sin, leave and loathe it (Jeremiah 35:5). I set before the sons of the house…

Christ has set all Children a pattern of obedience to their Parents, Luke 2. 51. He was subject unto them. The Rechabites were eminent for this, Jeremiah 35. 5. I set before the Rechabites pots full of wine, and said to them drink wine, but they said we will drink no wine, for J…

The sinner finds Match and Powder, and the Devil finds fire. The wicked are ever setting snares, and temptations before others; as the Prophet speaks in another sense, Jeremiah 35 verse 5. I set pots full of wine, and cups, and said unto them drink.

3. His greatness and majesty is such, that we cannot comprehend it (Job 36:26): Behold God is great and we know him not, nor can the number of his years be searched out. The greatness of God cannot be known, but only by way of negation, that he has none of those infirmities, whi…

The not renting the garment is charged as a conviction of an un-rent heart. When the roll of curses that Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah was read before Jehojakim and his courtiers, the King cut the roll with a penknife and cast it into the fire; their impenitence is thu…

The Lord speaks of some who when they hear the words of the curse, yet bless themselves, and say they shall have peace; Deuteronomy 29:19. Let men preach, and say what they please of the terror of the Lord, they will despise it; which God threatens with utter extermination: And…

It is impossible that any one should be really convinced of sin in the way before declared, but that a dislike of sin, and of himself that he has sinned, shame of it, and sorrow for it, will ensue thereon. And it is a sufficient evidence that he is not really convinced of sin, w…

2. By contemptible means: The blowing of Trumpets, and blazing of Lamps, made the walls of Hiericho fall down, Judg. 7. 20. Ieremy was drawn out to the Dungeon by rotten rags, Jer. 37. 11. God often saves his Church by despicable instruments, he makes use of rotten rags.

Do they with upright Jehoshaphat say, 'Our eyes are upon you'? No, their eyes were upon Egypt for succor, not upon heaven: 'Well, Pharaoh and his aids are left still, all hope is not gone' (Jeremiah 37:9). See the like in Ahaz in a sore plunge and distress; he courts the king of…

God is my witness, I never drove a malignant design, I never carried on a malignant interest, I detest both; I still retain my old covenanting principles, from which through the grace of God I will never depart for any terror or persuasion whatever. When I look upon all the vows…