Jeremiah 18

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…

And that is, that repentance from sin, will free from the punishment of sin; so that the prediction had this limitation by an antecedent rule, unless they repent. And God declares that this rule puts a condition into all his threatenings (Jeremiah 18:7, 8). And this was the cour…

In the sadder providences, though there be misery at the top, yet there is mercy at the bottom. Many times God threatens, but 'tis to reclaim; though he does not change his counsel, yet he does often change his sentence (Jeremiah 18:7, 8). When the message is nothing but pluckin…

But even these Prophets as faithful as they were, yet they were accounted no other than a snare of a Fowler, and are even hatred in the house of their God, they are accused of being politick subtil men, who have cunning plots and reaches to set up their own way, that they are as…

Truly at this time it seems it was: Oh! the Lord smites us this day, he smites us sorely by giving us up to smite one another. We smite one another with the tongue, in Jeremiah 18:18, Come, let us smite with the tongue, say they. When was there ever such smiting with the tongue…

And that in (Romans 2:9), Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first, and also the Gentile. And we have these two excellent texts in Jeremiah 18:13, Ask you now among the heathen, who has heard such things? the Virgin of Israel has done a ver…

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…

1. Satan can send in posts with letters, and write his [illegible], his wiles to the heart. This is one way of putting it in the heart of Judas to betray Christ, by sending his mind and will through the fancy to the heart, and the fancy being set on work by the will and understa…

But as to the lazy despairing, 1. It was the people's way, when they are exhorted to repent (Jeremiah 18:12), There is no hope, but we will walk after our own devices; and they were far from doing all, that men can do, and praying night and day; they were stealing, murdering, wh…

(Isaiah 45:9) Woe to him that strives with his Maker: let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth: shall the clay say to him that fashions it, What do you make? or your work, He has no hands? (Jeremiah 18:6) O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as the potter, says…

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…

In the time of their prosperity see how the Jews turn their backs and shake off the authority of the Lord: we are Lords (say [illegible]) we will come no more at you (Jeremiah 2:31), and our tongues are our own — who shall be Lords [illegible] us? (Psalm 12:4). So for the wisdom…

If yet the [illegible] that's rivetted in his resolution to hold his own, cannot [illegible] the Truth, then he falls to flat opposing of it (Jeremiah 44:16). As for the word which you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to it — that is the short and th…

It is true, repentance cannot properly be in God, because it argues something rash, imprudent, inconsiderate in him that acts it, of which the infinitely wise God is incapable: but it is ascribed to him on the account of his providence. God sometimes threatens sinners, and in th…

And therefore from this and all the premises, yes upon serious searching into all places of Scripture that speak of Vrim and Thummim and of those who enquired of the Lord in that way, and comparing them together with the help of many judicious and learned Interpreters, besides c…

Now if the Lord help us to reform whatever is amiss, he will still do us good, notwithstanding all our sins, which have provoked him, and caused him to frown upon us. We have a plain text for this (Jeremiah 18:7–8): At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerni…

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…

And in verse 101. he says, I have refrained my feet from every evil way. Hence sin is said to be to the Lord's people, a way not cast up (that is, not frequented) (Jeremiah 18:15). Never since the world began did a godly man walk in that way.

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.

(1.) Let it be granted, that a bare threatening does not necessarily infer the certainty of the event, and that the thing threatened shall infallibly come to pass; no person is obliged to perform his threatenings, as he is his promises; the threatenings of God declare what sin d…

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…

2. Like sins bring like judgments; Sodom's sins are followed with Sodom's plagues; and therefore if our sins answer former times, we may expect our sufferings to be like theirs. 3. The prophecies of the prophets were cautioned with the condition of repentance, either explicit, a…