Jeremiah 5:1-9 Run you to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can find a man… Two things, according to this text, are needed to make a man: practice and principle — principle sought out with a view to practice, practice conform to principle, and both according to what is right and true; both are morally, mutually helpful, both are necessary. You may be as strong as a lion, fleet as a deer, brave as a bulldog, beautiful as a gazelle, clever as Satan, but unless you seek the truth, and do the right first and foremost in the face of day, you have not yet come up to the mark of a man. Is that what the world says and thinks? Oh no. Its heroes, perhaps yours, are too often not the morally good, but daring adventurers, successful soldiers, lithe athletes, quick-witted speculators, fortune-making merchants, subtle-tongued declaimers, gifted writers, skilful artists, politic statesmen, wearers of titles, and so on. These are the men that too often the world takes its praises and its prizes to, heedless of character and principles, pleading its own large-mindedness in putting truthful and righteous men behind and below mere physical and intellectual power and agility. These are the favourites that the base and meaner sort go gaping after and copying, and thus it is that it often happens that real men are comparatively rare and hard to find. (J. S. Drummond.) Parallel Verses KJV: Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it. |
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