mh_parser/vol_split/24 - Jeremiah/0 - Introduction.xml

<div2 id="Jer.i" n="i" next="Jer.ii" prev="Jer" progress="26.91%" title="Introduction">
<h2 id="Jer.i-p0.1">Jeremiah</h2>
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<p id="Jer.i-p1" shownumber="no"><b>AN</b></p>
<h3 id="Jer.i-p1.1">EXPOSITION,</h3>
<h4 id="Jer.i-p1.2">W I T H   P R A C T I C A L   O B S E
R V A T I O N S,</h4>
<h5 id="Jer.i-p1.3">OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET</h5>
<h2 id="Jer.i-p1.4">J E R E M I A H.</h2>
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<p class="indent" id="Jer.i-p2" shownumber="no"><span class="smallcaps" id="Jer.i-p2.1">The</span>
Prophecies of the Old Testament, as the Epistles of the New, are
placed rather according to their bulk than their seniority—the
longest first, not the oldest. There were several prophets, and
writing ones, that were contemporaries with Isaiah, as Micah, or a
little before him, as Hosea, and Joel, and Amos, or soon after him,
as Habakkuk and Nahum are supposed to have been; and yet the
prophecy of Jeremiah, who began many years after Isaiah finished,
is placed next to his, because there is so much in it. Where we
meet with most of God's word, there let the preference be given;
and yet those of less gifts are not to be despised nor excluded.
Nothing now occurs to be observed further concerning prophecy in
general; but concerning this prophet Jeremiah we may observe, I.
That he was betimes a prophet; he began young, and therefore could
say, from his own experience, that it is good for a man to <i>bear
the yoke in his youth,</i> the yoke both of service and of
affliction, <scripRef id="Jer.i-p2.2" osisRef="Bible:Lam.3.27" parsed="|Lam|3|27|0|0" passage="La 3:27">Lam. iii. 27</scripRef>.
Jerome observes that Isaiah, who had more years over his head, had
his tongue touched with a coal of fire, to purge away his iniquity
(<scripRef id="Jer.i-p2.3" osisRef="Bible:Jer.6.7" parsed="|Jer|6|7|0|0" passage="Jer 6:7"><i>ch.</i> vi. 7</scripRef>), but that
when God touched Jeremiah's mouth, who was yet but young, nothing
was said of the purging of his iniquity (<scripRef id="Jer.i-p2.4" osisRef="Bible:Jer.1.9" parsed="|Jer|1|9|0|0" passage="Jer 1:9"><i>ch.</i> i. 9</scripRef>), because, by reason of his
tender years, he had not so much sin to answer for. II. That he
continued long a prophet, some reckon fifty years, others above
forty. He began in the thirteenth year of Josiah, when things went
well under that good king, but he continued through all the wicked
reigns that followed; for when we set out for the service of God,
though the wind may then be fair and favourable, we know not how
soon it may turn and be tempestuous. III. That he was a reproving
prophet, was sent in God's name to tell Jacob of their sins and to
warn them of the judgments of God that were coming upon them; and
the critics observe that therefore his style or manner of speaking
is more plain and rough, and less polite, than that of Isaiah and
some others of the prophets. Those that are sent to discover sin
ought to lay aside the enticing words of man's wisdom.
Plain-dealing is best when we are dealing with sinners to bring
them to repentance. IV. That he was a weeping prophet; so he is
commonly called, not only because he penned the Lamentations, but
because he was all along a mournful spectator of the sins of his
people and of the desolating judgments that were coming upon them.
And for this reason, perhaps, those who imagined our Saviour to be
one of the prophets thought him of any of them to be most like to
Jeremiah (<scripRef id="Jer.i-p2.5" osisRef="Bible:Matt.16.14" parsed="|Matt|16|14|0|0" passage="Mt 16:14">Matt. xvi. 14</scripRef>),
because he was <i>a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.</i>
V. That he was a suffering prophet. He was persecuted by his own
people more than any of them, as we shall find in the story of this
book; for he lived and preached just before the Jews' destruction
by the Chaldeans, when their character seems to have been the same
as it was just before their destruction by the Romans, when they
<i>killed the Lord Jesus, and persecuted</i> his <i>disciples,
pleased not God, and were contrary to all men, for wrath had come
upon them to the uttermost,</i> <scripRef id="Jer.i-p2.6" osisRef="Bible:1Thess.2.15-1Thess.2.16" parsed="|1Thess|2|15|2|16" passage="1Th 2:15,16">1
Thess. ii. 15, 16</scripRef>. The last account we have of him in
his history is that the remaining Jews forced him to go down with
them into Egypt; whereas the current tradition is, among Jews and
Christians, that he suffered martyrdom. Hottinger, out of Elmakin,
an Arabic historian, relates that, continuing to prophesy in Egypt
against the Egyptians and other nations, he was stoned to death;
and that long after, when Alexander entered Egypt, he took up the
bones of Jeremiah where they were buried in obscurity, and carried
them to Alexandria, and buried them there. The prophecies of this
book which we have in the first nineteen chapters seem to be the
heads of the sermons he preached in a way of general reproof for
sin and denunciation of judgment; afterwards they are more
particular and occasional, and mixed with the history of his day,
but not placed in due order of time. With the threatenings are
intermixed many gracious promises of mercy to the penitent, of the
deliverance of the Jews out of their captivity, and some that have
a plain reference to the kingdom of the Messiah. Among the
Apocryphal writings an epistle is extant said to be written by
Jeremiah to the captives in Babylon, warning them against the
worship of idols, by exposing the vanity of idols and the folly of
idolaters. It is in Baruch, <scripRef id="Jer.i-p2.7" osisRef="Bible:Jer.6.1-Jer.6.30" parsed="|Jer|6|1|6|30" passage="Jer 6:1-30"><i>ch.</i> vi.</scripRef> But it is supposed not to be
authentic; nor has it, I think, any thing like the life and spirit
of Jeremiah's writings. It is also related concerning Jeremiah
(<scripRef id="Jer.i-p2.8" osisRef="Bible:2Macc.2.4" parsed="|2Macc|2|4|0|0" passage="2 Mac. ii. 4">2 Mac. ii. 4</scripRef>) that, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the
Chaldeans, he, by direction from God, took the ark and the altar of
incense, and, carrying them to Mount Nebo lodged them in a hollow
cave there and stopped the door; but some that followed him, and
thought that they had marked the place, could not find it. He
blamed them for seeking it, telling them that the place should be
unknown till the time that God should gather his people together
again. But I know not what credit is to be given to that story,
though it is there said to be found in the records. We cannot but
be concerned, in the reading of Jeremiah's prophecies, to find that
they were so little regarded by the men of that generation; but let
us make use of that as a reason why we should regard them the more;
for they are written for our learning too, and for warning to us
and to our land.</p>
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