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 In case of sadness of spirit, when God seems to cast off the soul in dejection (Song of Solomon 5:6), "My beloved had withdrawn himself;" yet God is unchangeable.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

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…

(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.

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…

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…

Therefore dig deep, and sweat, and labor, and take pains for him, and set by so much time in the day for him as you can; he will be won with labor. I, his exiled prisoner, sought him, and he has had compassion upon me, and has made a moan for me as he does for his own (Jeremiah…

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;…