Jeremiah 4

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…

They ought to profess that all their hearts and souls are in these engagements to be the Lord's, and forever to serve him; 2 Chronicles 15:12-14. God's people's swearing to God, and swearing by his name, or to his name, as it might be rendered, (by which seems to be signified th…

So are all Men towards what they do not like but have an aversation from. This God complains of in the People of old; My People are foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish Children, and have none understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no know…

Wash you, make you clean, Isa. 1. 16. O Jerusalem wash your Heart from wickedness that you mayest be saved, Jer. 4. 14. Having therefore these promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and the spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, 2 Cor. 7. 1.

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…

But these texts speak of a gracious sincerity. Those spoken of Jeremiah 4:2, that swore, The Lord liveth, in Truth, in Judgment, and Righteousness, were gracious persons, who had a thorough conversion to God, as appears by the preceding verse, If thou wilt return, O Israel, Sait…

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,…

Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backslidings shall reprove you, know therefore that it is an evil, and bitter thing that [reconstructed: you have] forsaken the Lord. Jeremiah 4:18. Your ways and doings have procured these things to you, [reconstructed: this is yo…

The last reason is taken from the naturalness and near alliance there is between our hearts and our lusts, that we count it death to part with them; no, we cannot be without them: hence in Scripture they are called as the members of our body (Colossians 3:5, mortify your members…

I say, look at it as in its own nature considered, both these in a right order, and according to a rule of right [illegible] may be in it successively: as the same vessel is capable of puddle and pure water, the same eye is capable of sight and blindness: so the will at several…

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.