Jeremiah 31

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 In case of sadness of spirit, when God seems to cast off the soul in dejection (Song of Solomon 5:6), "My beloved had withdrawn himself;" yet God is unchangeable.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…

(3) The power of God is engaged in the preservation of it (2 Peter 1:3; 1 Peter 1:5; Ephesians 1:19, 20). (4) The promises of the covenant are expressly multiplied to this purpose (Jeremiah 31:32, 33; chap. 32:38, 39, 40). And the like may be said of all other saving graces.

Thus he is said to be without Father, and without Mother, (no mention is made of them) because the Lord Christ was in some sense so also. He was without Father on Earth as to his human nature, with respect whereunto God says that he will create a new thing in the Earth, that a W…

3. The third thing wherein this [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] or perfection does consist, is spiritual light and knowledge, with respect to the mysteries of the wisdom and grace of God. God had designed for the Church a measure of spiritual light and knowledge which was not attainab…

The one is mentioned and described, Exodus 24, ver. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; Deuteronomy 5:2, 3, 4, 5; namely, the Covenant that God made with the people of Israel in Sinai; and which is commonly called the Covenant where the people under the Old Testament are said to keep or break God…

For although the substance of his Humane Nature were of the same kind with ours, yet the production of it in the World was such an act of divine power, as excels all other divine operations whatever. Therefore God speaking of it, says, The Lord has created a new thing in the ear…

2. If a parent in Israel was for his sin cut off from his people, were the children that he left behind him therefore excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel? To be sure, in crimes capitally punished (of which cutting off from their people is sometimes plainly meant, Exodus 31:…

4. Again, you may know your calling by the concomitant dispositions of the soul that go along with such a return and answer: wherever Christ is received, he is received with worthy and suitable affections; these are most notable. 1. Godly sorrow (Jeremiah 31:9): They shall come…

God says to the Prophet in the former verse, Shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities. And (Jeremiah 31:19) Ephraim is first instructed, then ashamed. And here it is quite turned over in my Text; If they be ashamed, shew them the House.

4. In all means look to and lie under a power above and beyond means to create faith in you; even the power of God in Christ Jesus. 5. Pray and cry to the Lord for faith, for sound and saving and effectual faith (Jeremiah 31:18). Faith is the gift of God: ask it of Him (Ephesian…

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…

But the inference is not good, that therefore it should be unlawful to enter into Church-Covenant: for, first, by the same reason, all promises are unlawful, and all covenants whatever; as the covenant of marriage, the covenant of service, yes and the personal covenant of Grace,…

The Gentiles did mourn for their dead in an inordinate manner, exceedingly; and God would have a difference between his people's mourning for the dead, and their mourning, because that he would keep up his people's faith, and the hope of resurrection from the dead, whereas had t…

A time, wherein both God will be greatly glorified, and his saints made unspeakably happy in the view of his glory; a time, wherein God's people should not only once see the light of God's glory, as Moses, or see it once a year with the High Priest, but should dwell and walk con…

We showed previously that all true theology rests upon some divine covenant. Now, although the Hebrew word sometimes signifies a bare promise, and is used in that sense first in the Scriptures (Genesis 6:18, Exodus 34:10, Isaiah 59:21), yet, since a promise of this kind exhibits…

2 Pet. 3:5-7, The new heaven and new earth — What the old world was — The new world, (Isaiah 51:15, 16; 65:17; 66:22) — The age to come — The future world — Noah a just man — The antediluvian had faith — Theology restored and enlarged in his family after the flood — The first ex…

See (1 Corinthians 13:2). Furthermore, this knowledge of Himself that God demands, He Himself also promises (Jeremiah 31:33, 34; John 6:45). But that disciplinary science of heavenly truth is by no means promised in the covenant of grace, nor is it communicated to men by the pow…

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…

(John 16:13) He will guide you in all truth — he will show you things to come. So there is a Spirit of grace poured on the family of David (Zechariah 12:10), on the thirsty ground (Isaiah 44:3), a new heart, put in the midst of the covenanted people (Ezekiel 36:26), fear of God…

Christ drives such as will not be led. 2. And those who will not be invited, he must draw them, rather than want them: he draws with compassion, as being overcome with love; for his bowels are moved for Ephraim (Jeremiah 31), he draws while his arms bleed. 3. And does not only k…

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.

These heavenly bodies by their setting and rising, cause light and darkness, and consequently are the authors of the successive returns of day and night to us. This is set them as an immoveable and never failing constitution, and therefore is styled the Covenant of the Day and N…

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?

Yea, God has declared this expresly in his Covenant, Ezek. 36. 25, 26, 27. Jer. 31. 33. Chap. 32. 39, 40.

God promises to work in us that holiness which he commands us to have — it is a fond imagination that defiled nature can cleanse itself or depraved nature rectify itself; those who lost the image of God cannot re-create it in themselves by their own endeavors, and therefore what…

If you find this temper of spirit in you, this is a very ready way to bring on your comforts, and restore the joys of your salvation to you. Secondly, set upon humbling work: the only way to gain what you have lost is to mourn over your losses (Jeremiah 31:18-20). See how Ephrai…