CONTENTS The Prophet in this Chapter is teaching by signs, as he had before been instructing by plain discourse. Under the similitude of a girdle made rotten, and of bottles perishing with wine; the Prophet showeth the sad Consequences of the children of his people, consuming in their captivity. Th... [ Continue Reading ]
Jeremiah spared no pains, and thought nothing of his trouble to follow up the Lord's commissions. Euphrates was no small distance from Jerusalem: but yet we find thither the Prophet went both to carry the girdle thither and to go for it again. Some have thought, however, that this was rather a visio... [ Continue Reading ]
The signs and types are doubly beautiful, and interesting, which God the Holy Ghost himself explains. And here we have the Lord's own illustration of it. Our whole nature was marred by sin; and when the Lord gathered from the mass, his people Israel, and chose them for his portion; how did he cause... [ Continue Reading ]
Here we have another similitude, and it should seem, it was highly suited to the people, to whom the Prophet delivered it. In wine countries, such as Judea, all orders of the people knew the use of it. But alas! they knew also the abuse of it. The Prophet therefore, by this figure, seems to have int... [ Continue Reading ]
Who can read this account of the mournful prophet, but must revere his memory? Oh! how delightful is it to behold a faithful pastor, taking interest in all that concerns his people! But while the memory of Jeremiah on this account is blessed, and that of all faithful ministers in the Church; with wh... [ Continue Reading ]
I interrupt not the reading of those verses, because they are connected. They contain the solemn expostulation of the Lord, in the view of their sins. They point out also the utter impossibility of the sinner's recovery by any efforts of his own, under the strong figure of the black hue of the Ethi... [ Continue Reading ]
REFLECTIONS MY soul! while reading the sad history of the Church, in this period of it, and beholding Jerusalem as a marred girdle and a bottle spoiled; oh learn from hence what nature is in itself in all ages; when the preventing and restraining grace of God is withheld! How poor, and weak, and bl... [ Continue Reading ]