Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Jeremiah 6:14

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Jeremiah 6:14. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly — Of the daughter is not in the text, and is here improperly added: it is, however, in some MSS.

Peace, peace — Ye shall have prosperity - when there was none, and when God had determined that there should be none. Here the prophets prophesied falsely; and the people continued in sin, being deceived by the priests and the prophets.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

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Destruction of Jerusalem and Judah (6:1-30)

Jeremiah warns that the enemy forces will invade from the north. The citizens of Jerusalem should therefore flee from the city to the hilly regions south of Jerusalem, where they may be able to find refuge from the invaders (6:1-2). As shepherds lead their sheep to feed in new pastures, so will the enemy commanders lead their forces to ‘devour’ Jerusalem. They will attack by day and by night (3-5). In building their siegeworks around the city, the enemy soldiers will ruin the nearby fields and forests. The reason for Jerusalem’s destruction is that the city is morally corrupt and spiritually sick (6-8).
The enemy will be as thorough in destruction as a grape-picker is in picking every grape he can find on the vine. Jeremiah hopes that some might be spared, but he can find none who will listen to his message. Therefore, he can announce only judgment (9-11a). In this judgment, no age group will be spared. All property will be seized by the plundering invaders (11b-12). Common people and religious leaders alike are shamelessly corrupt, but all they have gained through injustice will be lost. Priests and prophets assure the people that all is well, when in fact the nation is doomed (13-15).
God has urged the people to follow the ways of godly people of the past who kept his law. He has warned them of punishment if they ignore him. But it has all been without result (16-17). God therefore announces to the nations of the world that his people will now reap the fruit of their disobedience (18-19). The people offer incense and sacrifices, but God is not pleased with such offerings when the offerers do not listen to his teaching. Religious exercises will not save a disobedient people from God’s judgment (20-21).
Judah will be powerless against the invading armies of this cruel, well equipped enemy (22-24). Even innocent civilians, when fleeing to safety in the country, should be careful to keep well clear of the enemy forces (25-26).
As God’s servant, Jeremiah is like a refiner of silver who tries to remove the dross (wickedness) from the precious metal (God’s people). But the people refuse to be refined. They do not want to be separated from their evil. They are therefore rejected as worthless (27-30).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

"They have healed also the hurt of my people slightly, saying Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abominations? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall; at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith Jehovah."

"They have healed the hurt of my people slightly" This appears to be a reference to the reforms so vigorously pressed by king Josiah, but they were reforms that did not at all reach the hearts of the people. The false prophets were the ones who cried, "Peace, peace, when there was no peace."

"They were not at all ashamed" The hardened sinners of Israel had lost all sense of shame and had no feelings either of regret or remorse for their transgressions. There remained absolutely nothing else for God to do except to visit the people with divine punishment.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Healed - Rather, “tried to heal.”

Of the daughter - These words are omitted by a majority of manuscripts, but found in most of the versions.

Slightly - literally, “according to,” i. e., as if it were, a “trifle: making nothing” of it. This cry of “peace” was doubtless based upon Josiah’s reforms.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

This is to be applied to the prophets and priests alone; they not only corrupted the people by their bad example, but also shook off every fear of God, and by their impostures and false boasting took away every regard and respect for the teaching of the true prophets. He then says, that they healed to no purpose, or with levity or slightness, ⁽¹⁷⁵⁾ the wound of the people He says, by way of concession, that they had healed the wounds of the people: but it was no cure, when the evil was increasing. They were like the unskillful, who by rashly applying false remedies, cause inflammation, even when the disease is not serious; or like those who are only bent on easing pain, and cause the increase of the disease within, which is the more dangerous as it is more hidden. This is not to heal, but to kill. But the Prophet, as I have said, concedes to them the work of healing, and then states the issue, — that they were executioners and not physicians. They have healed, he says, the wound of my people: He takes the words, as it were, from their mouth, “Ye are verily good physicians! for by your flatteries ye have soothed my people: there was need not only of sharp medicine to stimulate and to cause pain, but also of caustics and of amputations; but ye have only applied lenients. This is your way of healing! ye have thus healed the wound of my people, even by plasters and ointments to drive inward the disease; but what has been the effect?”

He then immediately shews what sort of healing it was: It was saying, Peace, peace The evil we know is an old one, common almost to all ages; and no wonder, for no one wishes otherwise than to please himself; and what we observe daily as to the ailments of the body, is the same as to the diseases of the soul. No sick person willingly submits to the advice of his physician, if he prohibits the use of those things which he desires: “What am I then to do? it were better to die than to follow this advice.” And then, if the physician bids him to take a bitter dose, he will say, “I would rather a hundred times endure any pain than to drink that draught.” And when it comes to bleeding and other more painful operations, as caustics and things of this kind, O the sick man can stand it no longer, and wishes almost any evil to his physicians. What then experience proves to be true as to bodily diseases, is also true, as I have said, as to the vices of the mind. All wish to deceive themselves; and thus it happens that they wish for such prophets as promise them large vintages and an abundant harvest, according to what is said by the Prophet Micah:

“Behold,” says God, “ye wish to have prophets who will speak to you of rich provisions and of every kind of affluence; and ye do not wish them to prophesy evil; ye would not have them to denounce on you the punishment which you fully deserve.” (Micah 2:11)

As, then, the despisers of God wished to be soothed by flatteries, and reject the best and the most salutary remedies, hence God has from the beginning given loose reins to Satan, and hence impostors have gone forth, whose preaching has been, Peace, peace; but to no purpose; for there is nothing real in such healing, for the Lord says, there is no peace

The bolder any one is who professes to heal, if he be unskillful, the more disastrous will be the issue. Hence the Prophet shews that the cause of the extreme calamity of the Jews was, because they were deceived by their own priests and teachers. He does not at the same time, as it has been elsewhere observed, excuse them, as though the whole blame belonged to their false teachers. For how was it that the false prophets thus fascinated them? Even because they knowingly and willfully destroyed themselves; for they would not receive honest and skillful physicians: it was therefore necessary to give them up to such as killed them. It follows —

(175) The words על נקלה — “with what is worthless,“ or base, or contemptible, are rendered, “ἐξουθενοῦντες — regarding as nothing,” or despising, by the Septuagint; “ cum ignominia — with reproach” or contempt, by the Vulgate and Arabic; “ illusione — by illusion,” by the Syriac; and “with false words,“ by the Targum. The same phrase occurs in Jeremiah 8:11. The whole verse is there omitted by the Septuagint; the Vulgate has “ad ignominiam — to reproach;” the Arabic, “ in jocos — for sport; the Syriac, “ nugis — with trifles;” but the Targum is the same as here. None give the same version but the last. In the Complutensian Edition, which has this verse in Jeremiah 8:11, the Greek version is evidently a version of the Vulgate.

The idea of “slightly,“ or “superficially,“ as rendered by Blayney, is not countenanced by any of the foregoing versions, nor can the original words bear this meaning. The word נקלה, is found as a Niphal participle, and applied to man, as a despised, contemptible, or worthless being, — 1 Samuel 18:23; Proverbs 12:9; Isaiah 3:5; Isaiah 16:14. But here it refers to the means used for healing, which, according to all the versions, was something contemptible, worthless, useless, and which is afterwards named, being no more than saying, Peace, peace, when in fact there was no peace.

And healed have they the bruise Of the daughter of my people with what is worthless, Saying, “Peace, peace;” and there was no peace.

— Ed.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 5

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places, if you can find a man, if there be any that is executing judgment, and that is seeking truth; and I will pardon it ( Jeremiah 5:1 ).

If you can find one man. You remember when the angels were going down to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham said, "Hey, Lord, shall not the God of the earth be fair? Would you destroy the righteous with the people? What if there are fifty righteous people in that city?" The Lord said, "I'll spare for fifty righteous." "Well, Lord, what if there's forty? What if there's thirty? What if there's twenty? What if there's ten?" Lord said, "I'll spare for ten." Now God is saying of Jerusalem, "Just search. Search through the whole city. Find one man, one man that is seeking to execute judgment, that is seeking the truth."

And though they say, The LORD liveth; they swear falsely ( Jeremiah 5:2 ).

People were still mouthing the right words, but it wasn't coming from their hearts. "The Lord liveth," a popular phrase in those days. "Oh, the Lord liveth."

You remember when Elisha healed Naaman of his leprosy, the Syrian general, and he tried to give Naaman a lot of reward. A lot of silver and changes of clothes and so forth because he was healed. And Elisha said, "Aw, keep your stuff. I don't want any of it. I don't need it. You keep it." Well, Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, saw all the loot. He thought, "Oh man, if I could have just a little bit of that, I could buy a field and I could plant a vineyard and I could have servants and I could plant some olive trees. Man, I could retire. That would be nice." So as Naaman was going back, he got on his little donkey and he headed out after him. And they said to Naaman, "Hey, looks like someone's chasing us." They said, "Let's stop and see who it is. It looks like the servant of the prophet." And so as old Gehazi came up on his little donkey, he said, "Everything okay?" "Oh yeah, everything's okay, except that my master Elisha had some sudden company come in, some young men and they needed some help. So he said he'll take just a little bit of your silver and a few changes of garments and so forth." So Naaman gladly gave him the stuff and he got back and his donkey went back and he hid all this stuff. Came whistling in, you know, and the prophet said, "As the Lord liveth." You see it was a common term, spiritual term-it signified that you had it going spiritually. "As the Lord liveth, where have you been?" "As the Lord liveth, I haven't been anywhere." You see, all of the deceit and lying, but he was couching it in spiritual terms in order to sort of deceive.

And I'm afraid that many times people do couch themselves in spiritual terms for the purpose of deceiving. "Right on, brother! Praise the Lord! Bless God, man," you know. And we use this spiritual jargon to deceive, and so Gehazi, "As the Lord liveth, I didn't go anywhere." "Wait a minute," and then the prophet began to read his mind. "Is this the time to buy fields and to plant vineyards and olive trees and to hire servants?" That's just what he was thinking, you see. He said, "Did not my heart go with you when you chased after that man and took those things? And now because of that, the leprosy that was upon him is going to come upon you." And the guy turned white with leprosy and went out from the sight of the prophet. But yet he was using the spiritual. And God says, "Hey, they used the term, 'As the Lord liveth', but in that day, though they say, 'The Lord liveth,' surely they swear falsely."

Jeremiah responds,

O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? you have stricken them, but they have not grieved; you have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return. Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God. I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the LORD, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out there shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backsliding is increased. How shall I pardon thee for this? [God cries] thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses. They were as fed horses in the morning: every one was neighing after his neighbor's wife. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the LORD'S. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, saith the LORD. They have belied the LORD, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see the sword nor famine ( Jeremiah 5:3-12 ):

And it won't happen here.

And the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them. Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them. Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, neither understand what they say. Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men. And they shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, which your sons and daughters should be eating: they shall eat up your flocks and your herds: they shall eat up your vines and your figs: and they shall impoverish your cities, wherein you have trusted, with the sword. Nevertheless in those days, saith the LORD, I will not make a full end with you ( Jeremiah 5:13-18 ).

God promises He's not going to cut the people off completely.

For it shall come to pass, when you will say, Wherefore doeth the LORD our God all these things against us? then shall you answer them, Like as you have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours. Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying, Hear now this, O foolish people, you that are without understanding; which have eyes, but you see not; which have ears, but you hear not: Do you not fear me? saith the LORD: will you not tremble at my presence, for I have placed the sand for the boundaries of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass over it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves against it, and they roar, they can not prevail. But this people has revolted and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone away. Neither say any of them in their heart, Let us now reverence the LORD our God, who gives us the rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good things from you ( Jeremiah 5:19-25 ).

Oh, the good things that God wants to do for you but He is hindered because of your sins. Jude says, "Keep yourself in the love of God" ( Jude 1:21 ). What does he mean? He means to keep yourself in the place where God can do all of the good things He wants to do for you because He loves you. It doesn't mean keep yourself so sweet and beautiful that God can't help but love you. Because God's love for you is uncaused. It's in His nature. God loves you good or bad. That's just God's nature. But because God loves you He wants to bless you. He wants to do good things for you. But as with Judah, your sins have withheld the good things from you. Those good things God wants to do for you.

For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that sets a trap; and they set a trap for men to catch then. As a cage is full of birds, so are the houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and they have become very rich. They have become fat, they shine: they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, and yet they prosper; and the right of the needy they do not take care of. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on a nation like this? A [awesome] wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land ( Jeremiah 5:26-30 );

Wonderful in the sense that it causes wonder and amazement. "An amazing and horrible thing is committed in the land."

For the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests are bearing rule by their wealth; and my people love to have it that way: and what will you do in the end of such things? ( Jeremiah 5:31 )

You see, there's corruption. Those that are ruling are ruling corruptly. But the people love it that way. They'll vote for them at the next election. Every election amazes me. When I see the people that are elected into office, those kind of things absolutely. Well, as God said, you can't believe it. It's awesome; it's horrible. The priests are bearing rule by their own wealth, but the people love to have it that way. Rather than being shocked and arising in righteous indignation, people just seem to go along with it and love to have it that way. I can't understand it. And God Himself couldn't understand it. God speaks of it. It's just, how can you believe it? How can you understand it? It's just horrible.

But as we read Jeremiah, the real value of Jeremiah comes as you see a nation that is about to die and you observe the symptoms of that nation and the disease that has brought its death. And it will help you to understand very much as you look at the nation in which we live today and what's happening.

Shall we pray.

Lord, help us that we shall not go the way of the world. God, that we would stand for righteousness, for truth, for justice. Oh God, help us that we would not turn away from Thee or that we would draw away from Thee in any wise to worship our own idols and the things of our flesh. But O God, may Thy love fill our hearts that our songs might be unto Thee day by day. That we will be praising Thee and worshipping You and thinking about You, Lord, through the day as our love for Thee increases and grows. Help us, Lord, not to wane in our devotion. Help us, Lord, that our love will not grow cold. Keep us from that lukewarm state lest You spew us out of Your mouth. In Jesus' name, Lord. Amen.

May the Lord bless and give you a beautiful week. May His hand be upon your life and may the flame of love really begin to burn in your hearts towards God, that this will be a week in which you're really in tune, in harmony with Him. And that love and commitment is restored and it's just a glorious week of thinking of Him, worshipping Him, serving Him, loving Him. May God be pleased with you by your commitment and devotion to Him. In Jesus' name. "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The breadth of Judah’s guilt 6:9-15

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The leaders of the people had tried to heal the cancer of the populace with a bandage. They kept promising that everything would be all right, but there would be no peace because of Judah’s sins.

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly,.... That is, the false prophets and lying priests, who pretended to be physicians, and to heal the sickly and distempered state of the people; and they did do it, in their way, but not thoroughly; they did not search the wound to the bottom; they drew a skin over it, and made a scar of it, and called it a cure; they made light of the hurt or wound; they healed it,

making nothing of it; or "despising it", as the Septuagint: or they healed it "with reproach", as the Vulgate Latin version; in such a manner, as that it was both a reproach to them, and to the people: or, as the Targum,

"they healed the breach of the congregation of my people with their lying words;''

which are as follow:

saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace; promising them all prosperity, plenty of good things, and a continuance in their own land; when in a short time there would be none of these things, but sudden destruction would come upon them; see 1 Thessalonians 5:3.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      9 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn back thine hand as a grape-gatherer into the baskets.   10 To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.   11 Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days.   12 And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD.   13 For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.   14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.   15 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.   16 Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.   17 Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.

      The heads of this paragraph are the very same with those of the last; for precept must be upon precept and line upon line.

      I. The ruin of Judah and Jerusalem is here threatened. We had before the haste which the Chaldea army made to the war (Jeremiah 6:4; Jeremiah 6:5); now here we have the havoc made by the war. How lamentable are the desolations here described! The enemy shall so long quarter among them, and be so insatiable in their thirst after blood and treasure, that they shall seize all they can meet with, and what escapes them at one time shall fall into their hands another (Jeremiah 6:9; Jeremiah 6:9): They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine; as the grape-gatherer, who is resolved to leave none behind, still turns back his hand into the baskets, to put more in, till he has gathered all, so that they be picked up by the enemy, though dispersed, though hid, and none of them shall escape their eye and hand. Perhaps the people, being given to covetousness (Jeremiah 6:13; Jeremiah 6:13), had not observed that law of God which forbade them to glean all their grapes (Leviticus 19:10), and now they themselves shall be in like manner thoroughly gleaned and shall either fall by the sword or go into captivity. This is explained Jeremiah 6:11; Jeremiah 6:12, where God's fury and his hand are said to be poured out and stretched out, in the fury and by the hand of the Chaldeans; for even wicked men are often made use of as God's hand (Psalms 17:14), and in their anger we may see God angry. Now see on whom the fury is poured out in full vials--upon the children abroad, or in the streets, where they are playing (Zechariah 8:5) or whither they run out innocently to look about them: the sword of the merciless Chaldeans shall not spare them, Jeremiah 9:21; Jeremiah 9:21. The children perish in the calamity which the fathers' sins have procured. The execution shall likewise reach the assembly of young men, their merry meetings, their clubs which they keep up to strengthen one another's hands in wickedness; they shall be cut off together. Nor shall those only fall into the enemies' hands who meet for lewdness (Jeremiah 5:7; Jeremiah 5:7), but even the husband with the wife shall be taken, these two in bed together, and neither left, but both taken prisoners. And, as they have no compassion for the weak but fair sex, so they have none for the decrepit but venerable age: The old with the full of days, whose deaths can contribute no more to their safety than their lives to their service, who are not in a capacity to do them either good or harm, shall be either cut off or carried off. Their houses shall then be turned to others (Jeremiah 6:12; Jeremiah 6:12); the conquerors shall dwell in their habitations, use their goods, and live upon their stores; their fields and vines shall fall together into their hands, as was threatened, Deuteronomy 28:30, c. For God stretches out his hand upon the inhabitants of the land, and none can go out of the reach of it. Now as to this denunciation of God's wrath, 1. The prophet justifies himself in preaching thus terribly, for herein he dealt faithfully (Jeremiah 6:11; Jeremiah 6:11): "I am full of the fury of the Lord, full of the thoughts and apprehensions of it, and am carried out with a powerful impulse, by the spirit of prophecy, to speak of it thus vehemently." He took no delight in threatening, nor was it any pleasure to him with such sermons as these to make those about him uneasy; but he could not contain himself; he was weary with holding in; he suppressed it as long as he could, as long as he durst, but he was so full of power by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts that he must speak, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear. Note, When ministers preach the terrors of the Lord according to the scripture we have no reason to be displeased at them; for they are but messengers, and must deliver their message, pleasing or unpleasing. 2. He condemns the false prophets who preached plausibly, for therein they flattered people and dealt unfaithfully (Jeremiah 6:13; Jeremiah 6:14): The priest and the prophet, who should be their watchmen and monitors, have dealt falsely, have not been true to their trust not told the people their faults and the danger they were in; they should have been their physicians, but they murdered their patients by letting them have their will, by giving them every thing that had a mind to, and flattering them into an opinion that they were in no danger (Jeremiah 6:14; Jeremiah 6:14): They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, or according to the cure of some slight hurt, skinning over the wound and never searching it to the bottom, applying lenitives only, when there was need of corrosives, soothing people in their sins, and giving them opiates to make them easy for the present, while the disease was preying upon the vitals. They said, "Peace peace--all shall be well." (if there were some thinking people among them, who were awake, and apprehensive of danger, they soon stopped their mouths with their priestly and prophetical authority, boldly averring that neither church nor state was in any danger), when there is no peace, because they went on in their idolatries and daring impieties. Note, Those are to be reckoned our false friends (that is, our worst and most dangerous enemies) who flatter us in a sinful way.

      II. The sin of Judah and Jerusalem, which provoked God to bring this ruin upon them and justified him in it, is here declared. 1. They would by no means bear to be told of their faults, nor of the danger they were in. God bids the prophet give them warning of the judgment coming (Jeremiah 6:9; Jeremiah 6:9), "but," says he, "to whom shall I speak and give warning? I cannot find out any that will so much as give me a patient hearing. I may give warning long enough, but these is nobody that will take warning. I cannot speak that they may hear, cannot speak to any purpose, or with any hope of success; for their ear is uncircumcised, it is carnal and fleshly, indisposed to receive the voice of God, so that they cannot hearken. They have, as it were, a thick skin grown over the organs of hearing, so that divine things might to as much purpose be spoken to a stone as to them. Nay, they are not only deaf to it, but prejudiced against it; therefore they cannot hear, because they are resolved that they will not: The word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; both the reproofs and the threatenings of the word are so;" they reckoned themselves wronged and affronted by both, and resented the prophet's plain-dealing with them as they would the most causeless slander and calumny. This was kicking against the pricks (Acts 9:5), as the lawyers against the word of Christ, Luke 11:45, Thus saying, thou repoachest us also. Note, Those reproofs that are counted reproaches, and hated as such, will certainly be turned into the heaviest woes. When it is here said, They have no delight in the word, more is implied than is expressed; "they have an antipathy to it; their hearts rise at it; it exasperates them, and enrages their corruptions, and they are ready to fly in the face and pull out the eyes of their reprovers." And how can those expect that the word of the Lord should speak any comfort to them who have no delight in it, but would rather be any where than within hearing of it? 2. They were inordinately set upon the world, and wholly carried away by the love of it (Jeremiah 6:13; Jeremiah 6:13): "From the least of them even to the greatest, old and young, rich and poor, high and low, those of all ranks, professions, and employments, every one is given to covetousness, greedy of filthy lucre, all for what they can get, per fas per nefas--right or wrong;" and this made them oppressive and violent (Jeremiah 6:6; Jeremiah 6:7), for of those evils, as well as others, the love of money is the bitter root. Nay, and this hardened their hearts against the word of God and his prophets. It was the covetous Pharisees that derided Christ, Luke 16:14. 3. They had become impudent in sin and were past shame. After such a high charge of flagrant crimes proved upon them, it was very proper to ask (Jeremiah 6:15; Jeremiah 6:15), Were they ashamed when they had committed all these abominations, which are such a reproach to their reason and religion? Did they blush at the conviction, and acknowledge that confusion of face belonged to them? If so, there is some hope of them yet. But, alas! there did not appear so much as this colour of virtue among them; their hearts were so hardened that they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush, they had so brazened their faces. They even gloried in their wickedness, and openly confronted the convictions which should have humbled them and brought them to repentance. They resolved to face it out against God himself and not to own their guilt. Some refer this to the priests and prophets, who had healed the people slightly and told them that they should have peace, and yet were not ashamed of their treachery and falsehood, no, not when the event disproved them and gave them the lie. Those that are shameless are graceless and their case is hopeless. But those that will not submit to a penitential shame, nor take that to themselves as their due, shall not escape an utter ruin; for so it follows: Therefore they shall fall among those that fall; they shall have their portion with those that are quite undone; and, when God visits the nation in wrath, they shall be sure to be cast down and be made to tremble, because they would not blush. Note, Those that sin and cannot blush for it are in an evil case now, and it will be worse with them shortly. At first they hardened themselves and would not blush, afterwards they were so hardened that they could not. Quod unum habebant in malis bonum perdunt, peccandi verecundiam--they have lost the only good property which once blended itself with many bad ones, that is, shame for having done amiss.--Senec. De Vit. Beat.

      III. They are put in mind of the good counsel which had been often given them, but in vain. They had a great deal said to them to little purpose,

      1. By way of advice concerning their duty, Jeremiah 6:16; Jeremiah 6:16. God had been used to say to them, Stand in the ways and see. That is, (1.) He would have them to consider, not to proceed rashly, but to do as travellers in the road, who are in care to find the right way which will bring them to their journey's end, and therefore pause and enquire for it. If they have any reason to think that they have missed their way, they are not easy till they have obtained satisfaction. O that men would be thus wise for their souls, and would ponder the path of their feet, as those that believe lawful and unlawful are of no less consequence to us than the right way and the wrong are to a traveller! (2.) He would have them to consult antiquity, the observations and experiences of those that went before them: "Ask for the old paths, enquire of the former age (Job 8:8), ask thy father, thy elders (Deuteronomy 32:7), and thou wilt find that the way of godliness and righteousness has always been the way which God has owned and blessed and in which men have prospered. Ask for the old paths, the paths prescribed by the law of God, the written word, that true standard of antiquity. Ask for the paths that the patriarchs travelled in before you, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; and, as you hope to inherit the promises made to them, tread in their steps. Ask for the old paths, Where is the good way?" We must not be guided merely by antiquity, as if the plea of prescription and long usage were alone sufficient to justify our path. No; there is an old way which wicked men have trodden,Job 22:15. But, when we ask for the old paths, it is only in order to find out the good way, the highway of the upright. Note, The way of religion and godliness is a good old way, the way that all the saints in all ages have walked in. (3.) He would have them to resolve to act according to the result of these enquiries: "When you have found out which is the good way, walk therein, practise accordingly, keep closely to that way, proceed, and persevere in it." Some make this counsel to be given them with reference to the struggles that were between the true and false prophets, between those that said they should have peace and those that told them trouble was at the door; they pretended they knew not which to believe: "Stand in the way," says God, "and see, and enquire, which of these two agrees with the written word and the usual methods of God's providence, which of these directs you to the good way, and do accordingly." (4.) He assures them that, if they do thus, it will secure the welfare and satisfaction of their own souls: "Walk in the good old way and you will find your walking in that way will be easy and pleasant; you will enjoy both your God and yourselves, and the way will lead you to true rest. Though it cost you some pains to walk in that way, you will find an abundant recompence at your journey's end." (5.) He laments that this good counsel, which was so rational in itself and so proper for them, could not find acceptance: "But they said, We will not walk therein, not only we will not be at the pains to enquire which is the good way, the good old way; but when it is told us, and we have nothing to say to the contrary but that it is the right way, yet we will not deny ourselves and our humours so far as to walk in it." Thus multitudes are ruined for ever by downright wilfulness.

      2. By way of admonition concerning their danger. Because they would not be ruled by fair reasoning, God takes another method with them; by less judgments he threatens greater, and sends his prophets to give them this explication of them, and to frighten them with an apprehension of the danger they were in (Jeremiah 6:17; Jeremiah 6:17); Also I set watchmen over you. God's ministers are watchmen, and it is a great mercy to have them set over us in the Lord. Now observe here, (1.) The fair warning given by these watchmen. This was the burden of their song; they cried again and again, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. God, in his providence, sounds the trumpet (Zechariah 9:14); the watchmen hear it themselves and are affected with it (Jeremiah 4:19), and they are to call upon others to hearken to it too, to hear the Lord's controversy, to observe the voice of Providence, to improve it, and answer the intentions of it. (2.) This fair warning slighted: "But they said, We will not hearken; we will not hear, we will not heed, we will not believe; the prophets may as well save themselves and us the trouble." The reason why sinners perish is because they do not hearken to the sound of the trumpet; and the reason why they do not is because they will not; and they have no reason to give why they will not but because they will not, that is, they are herein most unreasonable. One may more easily deal with ten men's reasons than one man's will.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

A Blast of the Trumpet Against False Peace

February 26th, 1860 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"Peace, peace, when there is no peace." Jeremiah 6:14 .

Ministers ate fearfully guilty if they intentionally build up men in a false peace. I cannot imagine any man more greatly guilty of blood than he who plays jackal to the lion of hell, by pandering to the depraved tastes of vain, rebellious man. The physician who should pamper a man in his disease, who should feed his cancer, or inject continual poison into the system, while at the same time he promised sound health and long life such a physician would not be one half so hideous a monster of cruelty as the professed minister of Christ who should bid his people take comfort, when, instead thereof, he ought to be crying, "Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion: be troubled, ye careless ones." The work of the ministry is no child's play; it is a labor which might fill an angel's hands did fill the Savior's heart. Much prayer we need that we may be kept honest, and much grace that we may not mislead the souls whom we are bound to guide The pilot who should pretend to steer a ship toward its proper haven, but who should meanwhile occupy himself below with boring holes in her keel that she might sink, would not be a worse traitor than the man who takes the helm of a church, and professes to be steering it towards Christ, while all the while he is ruining it by diluting the truth as it is in Jesus, concealing unpalatable truths, and lulling men into security with soft and flattering words. We might sooner pardon the assassin who stretches forth his hand under the guise of friendship, and then stabs us to the heart, than we could forgive the man who comes towards us with smooth words, telling us that he is God's ambassador, but all the while foments rebellion in ours hearts, and pacifies us while we are living in revolt against the majesty of heaven. In the great day when Jehovah shall launch his thunderbolts, methinks he will reserve one more dread and terrible than the rest, for some arch-traitor to the cross of Christ, who has not only destroyed himself, but led others into hell. The motive with these false prophets is an abominable one. Jeremiah tells us it was an evil covetousness. They preached smooth things because the people would have it so, because they thus brought grist to their own mill, and glory to their own names. Their design was abominable, and without doubt, their end shall be desperate cast away with the refuse of mankind. These who professed to be the precious sons of God, comparable to fine gold, shall be esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter. But, my dear hearers, it is a lamentable fact, that without any hireling-shepherd to cry, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace," men will cry that for themselves. They need not the syren song to entice them to the rocks of presumption and rash confidence. There is a tendency in their own hearts to put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter to think well of their evil estate and foster themselves in proud conceit. No man is ever too severe with himself. We hold the scales of justice with a very unsteady hand when our character is in the balance. We are too ready to say, "I am rich and increased in goods," when at the game time we are naked, and poor, and miserable. Let men alone, let no deluder seek to deceive them, hush for ever every false and tempting voice, they will themselves, impelled by their own pride; run to an evil conceit, and make themselves at ease, though God himself is in arms against them. My solemn business this morning shall be, and O may God help me in it, drag forth to the light some of you who have been pacifying your own consciences, and have been crying, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace." It is no uncommon thing with me to meet with people who say, "Well, I am happy enough. My conscience never troubles me. I believe if I were to die I should go to heaven as well as anybody else." I know that those men are living in the commission of glaring acts of sin, and I am sure they could not prove their innocence even before the bar of man; yet will these men look you in the face and tell you that they are not at all disturbed at the prospect of dying. They laugh at death as though it were but a scene in a comedy, and joke at the grave as if they could leap in and out of it at their pleasure. Well, gentlemen, I will take you at your word, though I don't believe you. I will suppose you have this peace, and I will endeavor to account for it on certain grounds which may render it somewhat more difficult for you to remain in it. I do pray that God the Holy Spirit may destroy these foundations, and pull up these bulwarks of yours, and make you feel uneasy in your consciences and troubled in your minds; for unease is the road to ease and disquiet in the soul is the road to the true quiet. To be tormented on account of sin is the path to peace, and happy shall I be if I can hurl a fire-brand into your hearts this morning; if I shall be able, like Samson, to turn at least some little foxes loose into the standing corn of your self-conceit and set your heart in a blaze. 1. The first person I shall have to deal with this morning, is the man who has peace because he spends his life in a ceaseless round of gaiety and frivolity. You have scarcely come from one place of amusement before you enter another. You are always planning some excursion, and dividing the day between one entertainment and another. You know that you are never happy except you are in what you call gay society, where the frivolous conversation will prevent you from hearing the voice of your conscience. In the morning you will be asleep while God's sun is shining, but at night you will be spending precious time in some place of foolish, if not lascivious mirth. Like Saul, the deserted king, you have an unquiet spirit and therefore you can for music, and it hath its charms, doubtless, charms not only to soothe the stubborn breast, but to still a stubborn conscience for awhile, but while its notes are carrying you upwards towards heaven, in some grand composition of a master author, I beseech you never to forget that your sins are carrying you down to hell. If the harp should fail you, then you call for Nabal's feast. There shall be a sheep shearing, and you shall be drunken with wine, until your souls becomes as stolid as a stone. And then you wonder that you have peace. What wonder! Surely any man would have peace when his heart has become as hard as a stone. What weathers shall it feel? What tempests shall move the stubborn bowels of a granite rock? You sear your consciences, and then marvel that they feel not. Perhaps too, when both wine and the viol fail you, you will call for the dance, and the daughter of Herodias shall please Herod, even though John the Baptist's head should pay its deadly price. Well, well, if you go from one of these scenes to another, I am at no loss to solve the riddle that there should be with you, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace." And now sit for your portraits, and I will paint you to the life. A company of idolaters are gathered together around an hideous image. There sits the blood-delighting Moloch. He is heated hot. The fire blazes in his brazen center, and a child is about to be put into his arms to be burnt to ashes. The mother and father are present when the offspring of their own loins is to be immolated. The little one shrieks with terror; its little body begins to consume in this desperate heat. Will not the parents hear the cry of their own flesh, and listen to the wailings of the fruit of their own bowels? Ah, no, the priests of Moloch will prevent the appeal of nature! Sounding their drums and blowing their trumpets with all their might they drown the cries of this poor immolated victim. It is what you are doing! Your soul is the victim to Satan! It is being destroyed now; and if you would but listen to its cries, if you would give yourself a little quiet, you might hear your poor soul shrieking, "Oh! do not destroy me; put not away from me the hope of mercy; damn me not; send me not down to hell." These are shrieks that might penetrate your spirit, and startle you into wisdom. But no, you beat your drums, and sound your trumpets, and you have your dance and your merriment, that the noise of your poor soul may be hushed. Ah, sirs! there will be a day when you will have to hear your spirit speak. When your cups are empty, and not a drop of water can be given to your burning tongue when your music has ceased, and the doleful "Miserere" of wailing souls shall be your Black Sanctus, when you shall be launched for ever into a place where merriment and mirth are strangers then you will hear the cries of your soul, but hear too late. Then shall each voice be as a dagger sticking in your souls. When your conscience shall, "Remember, thou hadst thy day of mercy; thou hadst thy day of the proclamation of the gospel, but thou didst reject it," then thou wilt wish, but wish in vain, for thunders to come and drown that still small voice, which shall be more terrible in the ears than even the rumbling of the earthquake or the fury of the storm. Oh that ye would be wise and not fritter away your souls for gaiety. Poor sirs, poor sirs! There are nobler things for souls to do than to kill time a soul immortal spending all its powers on these frivolities. Well might Young say of it, it resembles ocean into tempest tossed, to waft a feather or to drown a fly. These things are beneath you; they do no honor to you. Oh that you would begin to live! What a price you are paying for your mirth eternal torment for an hour of jollity separation from God for a brief day or two of sin! Be wise, men, I beseech you; open your eyes and look about you. Be not for ever madmen. Dance not for ever on this precipice, but stop and think. O Spirit of the loving God! stay thou the frivolous, and dart a burning thought into his soul that will not let him rest until he has tasted the solid joy, the lasting pleasure which none but Zion's children know. 2. Well, now I turn to another class of men. Finding that amusement at last has lost al its zest, having drained the cup of worldly pleasure till they find first satiety, and then disgust lying at the bottom, they want some stronger stimulus, and Satan who has drugged them once, has stronger opiates than mere merriment for the man who chooses to use them. If the frivolity of this world will not suffice to rock a soul to sleep, he hath a yet more hellish cradle for the soul. He will take you up to his own breast, and bid you suck therefrom his own devilish and Satanic nature that you may then be still and calm. I mean that he will lead you to imbibe infidel notions, and when this is fully accomplished, you can have "Peace, peace, when there is no peace." When I hear a man saying, "Well, I am peaceful enough, because I am not fool enough to believe in the existence of a God, or in a world to come, I cannot imagine that this old story book of yours this Bible is true," I feel two thoughts within my soul, first, a disgust of the man for his dishonesty, and secondly, a pity for the sad disquietude that needs such dishonesty to cover it. Do not suspect the man of being honest. There are two sorts of infidels, one sort are such fools that they know they never could distinguish themselves by anything that was right, so they try and get a little fictitious glory by pretending to believe and defend a lie. There are another set of men who are unquiet in their consciences; they do not like the Bible because it does not like them; it will not let them be comfortable in their sins, it is such an uneasy book to them; they did put their heads upon it once, but it was like a pillow stuffed with thorns, so they have done with it, and they would be very glad if they could actually prove it to be untrue, which they know they cannot. I say then, I at once despise his falsehood, and pity the uneasiness of his conscience that could drive him to such a paltry shift as this, to cover his terrors from the eyes of others. The more the man brags, the more I feel he does not mean it; the louder he is in his blasphemies, the more he curses, the better he argues, the more sure I am that he is not sincere, except in his desire to stifle the groans of his uneasy spirit. Ah, you remind me with your fine arguments, of the Chinese soldiers. When they go out to battle, they carry on their arm a shield with hideous monsters depicted upon it, and making the loudest noise they can, they imagine their opponents will run away instantly, alarmed by these amazing manifestations. And, so you arm yourself with blasphemies and come out to attack God's ministers, and think we will run away because of your sophistries. No, we smile upon them contemptuously. Once, we are told, the Chinese hung across their harbour, when the English were coming to attack them, a string of tigers' heads. They said: "These barbarians will never dare to pass these ferocious heads." So do these men hang a string of old, worn-out blasphemies and impieties and then they imagine that conscience will not be able to attack them, and that God himself will let them live at peace. Ah sir, you shall find the red-hot bullets of divine justice too many and too terrible for your sophisms. When you shall fall under the Arm of the Eternal God, vain will be your logic then. Dashed to shivers, you will believe in the omnipotence, when you are made to feel it; you will know his justice when it is too late to escape from its terror. Oh, be wise, cast away these day dreams. Cease to shut thy soul out of heaven; be wise, turn thee unto God whom thou hast abused. For "All manner of sin and blasphemy, shall be forgiven unto man." He is ready to forgive you, ready to receive you, and Christ is ready to wash your blasphemy away. Now, to-day, if grace enable you, you may be an accepted child of that God whom you have hated, and pressed to the bosom of that Jehovah whose very existence you have dared to deny. God bless these words to you: if they have seemed hard, they were only meant to come home to your conscience; an affectionate heart has led me to utter them. Oh, do not this evil thing. Suck not in these infidel notions; destroy not your soul, for the sake of seeming to be wise, stop not the voice of your conscience by those arguments which you know in your inmost soul are not true, which you only repeat in order to keep up a semblance of consistency. 3. I shall come now to a third class of men. These are people not particularly addicted to gaiety, nor especially given to infidel notions; but they are a sort of folk who are careless, and determined to let well alone. Their motto is, "Let tomorrow take care for the things of itself; let us live while we live; let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." If their conscience cries out at all, they bid it lie still. When the minister disturbs them, instead of listening to what he says, and so being brought into a state of real peace, they cry, "Hush! be quiet! there is time enough yet; I will not disturb myself with these childish fears: be still, sir, and lie down." Ah! and you have been doing this for years, have you? Whenever you have heard an earnest powerful sermon, you have gone home and labored to get rid of it. A tear has stolen down your cheek now and then, and you have despised yourself for it. "Oh!" you say, "it is not manly for me to think of these things." There have been a few twitches at times which you could not help, but the moment after you have your heart like a flint, impenetrably hard and stony. Well sir, I will give you a picture of yourself. There is a foolish farmer yonder in his house. It is the dead of night: the burglars are breaking in men who will neither spare his life nor his treasure. There is a dog down below chained in the yard, it barks and barks, and howls again. "I cannot be quiet," says the farmer, "my dog makes too much noise." Another howl, and yet another yell. He creeps out of bed, gets his loaded gun, opens the window, fires it, and kills the dog. "Ah! it is all right now," he mutters; he goes to bed, lies down, and quietly rests. "No hurt will come," he says, "now; for I have made that dog quiet. Ah! but would that he could have listened to the warning of the faithful creature. Ere long he shall feel the knife, and rue his fatal folly. So you, when God is warning you when your faithful conscience is doing its best to save you you try to kill your only friend, while Satan and Sin are stealing up to the bedside of your slothfulness, and are ready to destroy your soul for ever and ever. What should we think of the sailor at sea who should seek to kill all the stormy petrels, that there might be an end to all storms? Would you not say, "Poor foolish man! why those birds are sent by a kind providence to warn him of the tempest. Why needs he injure them? They cause not the tumult; it is the raging sea." So it is not your conscience that is guilty of the disturbance in your heart, it is your sin, and your conscience, acting true to its character, as God's index in your soul, tells you that all is wrong. Would that ye would arise, and take the warning, and fly to Jesus while the hour of mercy lasts. To use another picture. A man sees his enemy before him. By the light of his candle he marks his insidious approach. His enemy looks fierce and black upon him, and is seeking his life. The man puts out the candle, and then exclaims, "I am now quite at peace." This is what you do. Conscience is the candle of the Lord, it shows you your enemy; you try to put it out by saying, "Peace, peace." Put the enemy out, sir I put the enemy out! God give you grace to thrust sin out! Oh may the Holy Spirit enable you to thrust your lusts out of doors! Then let the candle burn; and the more brightly its light shall shine, the better for your soul, now and hereafter. Oh! up ye sleepers, ye gaggers of conscience, what mean you? Why are you sleeping when death is hastening on, when eternity is near, when the great white throne is even now coming on the clouds of heaven when the trumpet of the resurrection is now being set to the mouth of the archangel why do ye sleep! why will ye slumber? Oh that the voice of Jehovah might speak and make ye wake, that ye may escape from the wrath to come! 4. A fourth set of men have a kind of peace that is the result of resolutions which they have made, but which they will never carry into effect. "Oh," saith one, "I am quite easy enough in my mind, for when I have got a little more money I shall retire from business, and then I shall begin to think about eternal things." Ah, but I would remind you that when you were an apprentice, you said you would reform when you became a journeyman; and when you were a journeyman, you used to say you would give good heed when you became a master. But hitherto these bills have never been paid when they became due. They have every one of them been dishonored as yet, and take my word for it, this new accommodation bill will be dishonored too. So you think to stifle conscience by what you will do by-and-bye. Ah, but will that by-and-bye ever come? And should it come, what reason is there to expect that you will then be any more ready than you are now. Hearts grow harder, sin grows stronger, vice becomes more deeply rooted by the lapse of years. You will find it certainly no easier to turn to God then than now. Now it is impossible to you, apart from divine grace; then it shall be quite as impossible, and if I might say so, there shall be more difficulties in the way then than even there are now. What think you is the value of these promises which you have made in the court of heaven? Will God take your word again, and again, and again, when you have broken it just as often as you have given it? Not long ago you were lying on your bed with fever, and if you lived you vowed you would repent. Have you repented? And yet you are fool enough to believe that you will repent by-and-bye, and on the strength of this promise, which is not worth a single straw, you are crying to yourself "peace, peace when there is no peace." A man that waits for a more convenient season for thinking about the affairs of his soul, is like the countryman in Aesop's fable, who sat down by a flowing river, saying, "If this steam continues to flow as it does now for a little while it will empty itself, and then I shall walk over dry-shod." Ah, but the stream was just as deep when he had waited day after day as it was before. And so shall it be with you. You remind me by your procrastination of the ludicrous position of a man who should sit upon a lofty branch of some tree with a saw in his hand, cutting away the branch on which he was sitting. This is what you are doing. Your delay is cutting away your branch of life. No doubt you intend to cover the well when the child is drowned and to lock the stable door after the horse is stolen. These birds in the hand you are losing, because their may be some better hour, some better bird in the bush. You are thus getting a little quiet, but oh, at what a fatal cost! Paul was troublesome to you, and so you played the part of Felix, and said, "Go thy way for this time, when I have a more convenient season I will send for thee." Conscience was unquiet, so you stopped his mouth with this sop for Cerberus; and you have gone to your bed with this lie under your pillow, with this falsehood in your right hand that you will be better by-and-bye. Ah, sir, let me tell you once for all, you live to grow worse and worse. While you are procrastinating, time is not staying, nor is Satan resting. While you are saying, "Let things abide," things are not abiding, but they are hastening on. You are ripening for the dread harvest, the sickle is being sharpened that shall cut you down, and the fire is even now blazing into which your spirit shall be cast for ever. 5. Now I turn to another class of men, in order that I may miss none here who are saying, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace." I do not doubt but that many of the people of London enjoy peace in their hearts, because they are ignorant of the things of God. It would positively alarm many of our sober orthodox Christians, if they could once have an idea of the utter ignorance of spiritual things that reigns throughout this land. Some of us, when moving about here and there, in all glasses of society, have often been led to remark, that there is less known of the truths of religion than of any science, however recondite that science may be. Take as a lamentable instance, the ordinary effusions of the secular press, and who can avoid remarking the ignorance they manifest as to true religion. Let the papers speak on politics, it is a matter they understand, and their ability is astonishing, but, once let them touch religion, and our Sabbath-school children could convict them of entire ignorance. The statements they put forth are so crude, so remote from the fact, that we are led to imagine that the presentation of a fourpenny testament to special correspondents, should be one of the first efforts of our societies for spreading the gospel among the heathen. As to theology, some of our great writers seem to be as little versed in it as a horse or a cow. Go among all ranks and classes of men, and singe the day we gave up our catechism, and old Dr. Watts' and the Assemblies ceased to be used, people have not a clear idea of what is meant by the gospel of Christ. I have frequently heard it asserted, by those who have judged the modern pulpit without severity, that if a man attended a course of thirteen lectures on geology, he would get a pretty clear idea of the system, but that you might hear not merely thirteen sermons, but thirteen hundred sermons and you would not have a clear idea of the system of divinity that was meant to be taught. I believe that to a large extent that has been true. But the great change which has passed over the pulpit within the last two years, is a cause of the greatest thankfulness to God; and we believe will be a boon to the church and to the world at large. Ministers do preach more boldly than they did. There is more evangelical doctrine I believe preached in London now, in any one Sunday, than there was in a month before. But still there is in many quarters a profound ignorance as to the things of Christ. Our old Puritans what masters they were in divinity! They knew the difference between the old covenant and the new; they did not mingle works and grace together. They penetrated into the recesses of gospel truth; they were always studying the Scriptures, and meditating on them both by day and night, and they shed a light upon the villages in which they preached, until you might have found in those days as profound theologians working upon stone heaps, as you can find in colleges and universities now a days. How few discern the spirituality of the law, the glory of the atonement, the perfection of justification, the beauty of sanctification, and the preciousness of real union to Christ. I do not marvel that we have a multitude of men who are mere professors and mere formalists, who are nevertheless quite as comfortable in their minds as though they were possessors of vital godliness, and really walked in the true fear of God. There was not I speak of things that were there was not in the pulpit a little while ago, a discernment between things that differ; there was not a separating between the precious and the vile. The grand cardinal points of the Gospel, if not denied, were ignored. We began to think that the thinkers would overwhelm the believers, that intellectuality and philosophy would overthrow the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ. It is not so now, I do, therefore, hope, that as the Gospel shall be more fully preached, that as the words of Jesus shall be better understood, that as the things of the kingdom of heaven shall be set in a clearer light, this stronghold of a false peace, namely, ignorance of Gospel doctrines, shall be battered to its foundations, and the foundation-stones themselves dug up and cast away for over. If you have a peace that is grounded on ignorance, get rid of it; ignorance is a thing, remember, that you are accountable for. You are not accountable for the exercise of your judgment to man, but you are accountable for it to God. There is no such thing as toleration of your sentiments with Jehovah; I have no right to judge you; I am your fellow-creature. No State has any right to dictate what religion I will believe; but nevertheless, there is a true gospel, and there are thousands of false ones. God has given you judgment, use it. Search the Scriptures, and remember that if you neglect this Word of God, and remain ignorant, your sins of ignorance will be sins of wilful ignorance, and therefore ignorance shall be no excuse. There is the Bible, you have it in your houses; you can read it. God the Holy Spirit will instruct you in its meaning; and if you remain ignorant, charge it no more on the minister; charge it on no one but yourself, and make it no cloak for your sin. 6. I now pass to another and more dangerous form of this false peace. I may have missed some of you, probably; I shall come closer home to you now. Alas, alas, let us weep and weep again, for there is a plague among us. There are members of our churches who are saying, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace." It is the part of candour to admit that with all the exercise of judgment, and the most rigorous discipline, we cannot keep our churches free from hypocrisy. I have had to hear, to the very breaking of my heart, stories of men and women who have believed the doctrines of election, and other truths of the gospel, and have made them a sort of cover for the most frightful iniquity. I could, without uncharitableness, point to churches that are hot-beds of hypocrisy, because men are taught that it is the belief of a certain set of sentiments that will save them, and not warned that this is all in vain without a real living faith in Christ. The preacher does as good as say, if not in so many words: "If you are orthodox, if you believe what I tell you, you are saved; if you for a moment turn aside from that line which I have chalked out for you, I cannot be accountable for you; but if you will give me your whole heart, and believe precisely what I say, whether it is Scripture or not; then you are a saved man." And we know persons of that cast, who can have their shop open on a Sunday, and then go to enjoy what they call a savoury sermon in the evening; men who mix up with drunkards, and yet say they are God's elect; men who live as others live, and yet they come before you, and with brazen impudence, tell you that they are redeemed by the blood of Christ. It is true they have had a deep experience, as they say. God save us from such a muddy experience as that! They have had, they say, a great manifestation of the depravity of their hearts, but still they are the precious children of God. Precious, indeed! Dear at any price that any man should give for them. If they be precious to anybody, I am sure I wish they were taken to their own place, for they are not precious to any one here below, and they are not of the slightest use to either religion or morality. Oh! I do not know of a more thoroughly damnable delusion than for a man to get a conceit into his head, that he is a child of God, and yet live in sin to talk to you about grace, while he is living in sovereign lust to stand up and make himself the arbiter of what is truth, while he himself contemns the precept of God, and tramples the commandment under foot. Hard as Paul was on such man in his time when he said their damnation is just he spoke a most righteous sentence. Surely, the devil gloats over men of this kind. A Calvinist I am, but John Calvin never taught immoral doctrine. A more consistent expositor of Scripture than that great reformer I believe never lived, but his doctrine is not the Hyper-Calvinism of these modern times, but is as diametrically opposed to it as light to darkness. There is not a word in any one of his writings that would justify any man in going on in iniquity that grace might abound. If you do not hate sin, it is all the same what doctrine you may believe. You may go to perdition as rapidly with High-Calvinistic doctrine as with any other. You are just as surely destroyed in an orthodox as in a heterodox church unless your life manifests that you have been "begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 7. I have but one other class of persons to describe, and then I shall have done when I have addressed a few solemn sentences of warning to you all. There remains yet another class of beings who surpass all these in their utter indifference to everything that might arouse them. They are men that are given up by God, justly given up. They have passed the boundary of his longsuffering. He has said, "My spirit shall no more strive with them;" "Ephraim is given unto idols, let him alone." As a judicial punishment for their impenitence, God has given them up to pride and hardness of heart. I will not say that there is such an one here God grant there may not be such a man but there have been such to whom there has been given a strong delusion, that they might believe a lie, that they might be damned because they received not the gospel of Christ. Brought up by a holy mother, they perhaps learned the gospel when they were almost in the cradle. Trained by the example of a holy father, they went aside to wantonness, and brought a mother's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Nevertheless, conscience still pursued them. At the funeral of that mother, the young man paused and asked himself the question, "Have I killed her! have I brought her here?" He went home was sober for a day, was tempted by a companion, and became as bad as ever. Another warning came. He was seized with sickness; he lay in the jaws of the grave; he woke up; he lived, and lived as vilely as he had lived before. Often did he hear his mother's voice though she was in the grave, she being dead yet spoke to him. He put the Bible on the top shelf hid it away; still, sometimes a text he had learned in infancy used to thrust itself in on his mind. One night as he was going to some haunt of vice, something arrested him, conscience seemed to say to him, "Remember all that you have learned of her." He stood still, bit his lip a moment, considered, weighed chances. At last he said, "I will go if I am lost." He went, and from that moment it has often been a source of wonder to him that he has never thought of his mother nor of the Bible. He hears a sermon, which he does not heed. It is all the same to him. He is never troubled. He says, "I don't know how it is; I am glad of it; I am as easy now and as frolicsome as ever a young fellow could be." Oh I I tremble to explain this quietude; but it may be God grant I may not be a true prophet it may be that God has thrown the reins on your neck, and said, "Let him go, let him go, I will warn him no more; he shall be filled with his own ways; he shall go the length of his chain; I will never stop him." Mark! if it be so, your damnation is as sure as if you were in the pit now. O may God grant that I may not have such a hearer here. But that dread thought may well make you search yourselves, for it may be so. There is that possibility; search and look, and God grant that you may no more say, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace." Now for these last few solemn words. I will not be guilty this morning, of speaking any smooth falsehoods to you, I would be faithful with each man, as I believe I shall have to face you all at God's great day, even though you heard me but once in your lives. Well, then, let me tell you that if you have a peace to-day which enables you to be at peace with your sins as well as with God, that peace is a false peace. Unless you hate sin of every sort, with all your heart, you are not a child of God, you are not reconciled to God by the death of his Son. You will not be perfect; I cannot expect you will live without sin, but if you are a Christian you will hate the very sin into which you have been betrayed, and hate yourself because you should have grieved your Savior thus. But if you love sin, the love of the Father is not in you. Be you who you may, or what you may, minister, deacon, elder, professor, or non-professor the love of sin is utterly inconsistent with the love of Christ. Take that home, and remember it. Another solemn thought. If you are at peace to-day through a belief that you are righteous in yourself, you are not at peace with God. If you are wrapping yourself up in your own righteousness and saying, "I am as good as other people, I have kept God's law, and have no need for mercy," you are not at peace with God. You are treasuring up in your impenitent heart wrath against the day of wrath; and you will as surely be lost if you trust to your good works, as if you had trusted to your sins. There is a clean path to hell as well as a dirty one. There is as sure a road to perdition along the highway of morality, as down the slough of vice. Take heed that you build on nothing else but Christ; for if you do, your house will tumble about your ears, when most you need its protection. And, yet again, my hearer, if thou art out of Christ, however profound may be thy peace, it is a false one; for out of Christ there is no true peace to the conscience and no reconciliation to God. Ask thyself this question, "Do I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart? Is he my only trust, the simple, solitary rock of my refuge?" For if not, as the Lord my God liveth, before whom I stand, thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bonds of iniquity, and dying as thou art, out of Christ, thou wilt be shut out of heaven; where God and bliss are found, thy soul can never come. And now, finally, let me beseech you, if you are at peace in your own mind this morning, weigh your peace thus: "Will my peace stand me on a sick bed?" There are many that are peaceful enough when they are well, but when their bongs begin to ache, and their flesh is sore vexed, then they find they want something more substantial than this dreamy quietness into which their souls had fallen. If a little sickness makes you shake, if the thought that your heart is affected, or that you may drop down dead in a fit on a sudden if that startles you, then put that question of Jeremy to yourself, "If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, what wilt thou do when thou contendest with horses? and if in the land of peace wherein thou hadst trusted they have wearied thee, what wilt thou do in the swellings of Jordan? If sickness make thee shake what will destruction make thee do?" Then again, put the question in another light. If your peace is good for anything, it is one that will bear you up in a dying hour. Are you ready to go home to your bed now to lie there and never rise again? For remember, that which will not stand a dying bed will never stand the day of judgment. If my hope begins to quiver, even when the skeleton hand of Death begins to touch me, how will it shake, "When God's right arm is nerved for war, and thunders clothe his cloudy ear?" If death makes me startle, what will the glory of God do? How shall I shrink into nothing, and fly away from him in despair! Then often put to thyself this question, "Will my peace last me when the heavens are in a blaze, and when the trembling universe stands to be judged?" Oh my dear hearers, I know I have spoken feebly to you this morning; not as I could have wished, but I do entreat you if what I have said be not an idle dream, if it be not a mere myth of my imagination; if it be true, lay it to heart, and may God enable you to prepare to meet him. Do not be wrapping yourselves up, and slumbering, and sleeping. Awake, ye sleepers, awake! Oh! that I had a trumpet voice to warn you. Oh! while you are dying, while you are sinking into perdition, may I not cry to you; may not these eyes weep for you! I cannot be extravagant here, I am acquitted of being enthusiastic or fanatical on such a matter as this. Take to heart, I beseech you, the realities of eternity. Do not for ever waste your time. "Oh, turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die, O house of Israel." Listen, now, to the word of the Gospel, which is sent to you. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall be saved." For "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," while the solemn sentence remains, "He that believeth not shall be damned."