Jeremiah 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, said the LORD… I. WHAT INSTRUMENT WILL BE EMPLOYED TO BRING ABOUT THE BLESSED CONDITION OF THE HUMAN FAMILY PREDICTED IN THE TEXT. This instrument is Divine truth, most expressively called in the text, knowledge of the Lord: that is, the exhibition of the Divine character, more than any other truth, before all consciences, is to be the mighty engine by which heaven will work out the moral revolution of the world. What is the moral law itself, but God's character — a catalogue of His perfection, written out in the form of precepts? The soul that knows what God is, sees intuitively what itself ought to be. To know Him, is to know His character, His government, His rights, His claims on us, and our duties to Him. It is to know His plan of mercy, — His Son, and His Spirit — His pardoning and sanctifying grace. II. BY WHAT METHODS AND AGENCY IS THIS GRAND INSTRUMENT TO BE APPLIED TO THE RENOVATION OF THE WORLD? How is this knowledge of the Lord to be spread all over the earth, and to be brought in contact with every human heart? In this stage of the Church's history at least, it is evidently the Divine arrangement that men shall be themselves the instruments of saving their own race. That this is the way to do a great work, we learn from the analogies of the natural world. How are the coral isles of the ocean made? Not by being upheaved, by some great convulsion, from the bosom of the deep; but by the ceaseless labours of little insects, each of which works in its own place, and adds its mite to the accumulated mass. It stops not to form combinations and lay plans, but labours in its sphere. How is the huge globe watered, and made productive? Not by great seas, but by little streams, or, rather, by single drops of rain and dew, each refreshing a single leaf, or blade of grass. How is bread produced for the millions of mankind? Each stalk of corn becomes responsible for a limited number of grains. And, in the moral world, we see the same results produced in the same way. How is it that vice is propagated? How are drunkards, gamblers, and infidels made? Not by wholesale, but by individual contact. One corrupt heart infects some other heart: one polluted soul taints some other soul with the infection of its own depravity; and thus recruits are ever multiplied for the host of Satan. Let it be so in the work of salvation. Let each Christian labour to rescue his neighbour and his brother, and how soon will the world "be filled with the knowledge of the Lord"! Nor will such benevolence be restricted to its own immediate circle. A genuine concern for the salvation of one soul is of the nature of the most enlarged philanthropy. From this subject we learn — 1. The true remedy for all our social and political evils. It is by spreading the knowledge of the Lord. 2. The excellence of those methods of doing good, which exercise the conscience on questions of personal duty. Hence the excellence of all those forms of effort in which teaching is employed: the mother amid her children — the teacher of a Sabbath School, or Bible class — the faithful distributor of tracts — and, pre-eminently, the pastor and the missionary. 3. The mode in which revivals of religion may be promoted. A revival that shall penetrate the mass of the community, must be carried into it by the living agents, who are accustomed to mingle with the mass; and who will go hither and thither, attaching themselves to individuals. (C. Hall.) Parallel Verses KJV: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. |
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