This is very strong language for a man to use concerning the society in which he lives, but it harmonizes with the strength of the language which the prophet has been using with respect to himself in Vers. 1, 2. A very bad state of things cannot be described by mild words. Such descriptions as that in this passage make plain how just and necessary the impending desolation of Jerusalem was. He who has just expressed such wishes for himself must speak with words that startle when he comes to counsel all who, in the midst of many perils, would wish to act prudently.

I. THERE IS AN IMPLICATION HERE AS TO WHAT SOCIETY IN ISRAEL MIGHT HAVE BEEN. Without looking for perfection, it was reasonable to expect something a great deal better than what the prophet saw. There is the strength and help coming from real friendship. The more men are brought together the more chances they have of making most precious friendships. Modern facilities of intercourse have probably done much to enlarge such relations. Men meet oftener and communicate more easily than they were once able to do. But it ought to be especially true of those living near one another that neighborhood and acquaintance, other things being equal, should lead on to friendship. The claim of friendship is recognized as something special - beyond the claim of kindred, humanity, and common country. In time of trouble we look to friends as those to whom we have a right to look, and we must be ready for similar claims upon ourselves, the prophet indicates also the claim of brotherhood. Brother should help brother. Not, of course, that mere natural nearness can compensate for deeper differences of disposition and temperament; but the remembrance of a common parentage should have at least the negative effect of destroying all temptation to injure. Then there is general integrity in all dealings between man and man. It is one of the most reasonable of all expectations that we shall so live and act that our word shall be as good as our bend. That which is fair and just towards every one should be wished and provided for. The good name of each should be the care of all.

II. THERE IS A VERY BOLD STATEMENT AS TO WHAT THE SOCIETY IN ISRAEL ACTUALLY WAS. The man who could speak thus must have been a man of great courage - a man into whom God had put a spirit of resolution agreeing with the words he had to speak. Stern, unsparing words are only belied and made to look ridiculous when uttered by a faltering lip. If the prophet's words here were true, this was a society only in name. Some may say that such words could not be true - that things could not possibly be so bad. But, remember, these are the words of a prophet of God, and God is he who searches the heart and can tell exactly how far advanced in corruption a society is at any particular time. Note how a skilled physician will assert the existence of mortal mischief in a patient when as yet there is no sign of it to others, and also predict with tolerable correctness how long it will take the mischief to run its course. And shall not God be much more discerning? All doleful statements as to the rottenness of society have come to be called jeremiads, as if they were really in the same class as the statement of Jeremiah here. But very often such doleful statements are only the result of ignorance and partial views, coming from a defect in him who sees and not in the thing seen. Jeremiah stated the simple truth here. If there had been hopeful signs they would have been mentioned, for God never lacks in an encouraging recognition of the preservative elements in society. To one who notes the warnings of Isaiah it will be nothing wonderful that the evils perceptible in his time should have strengthened into the deplorable universality indicated here. And even now, in places where the outward signs of Christianity abound, there are proofs that society might, in no very long time, approach the description of Jeremiah. The same evils are continually present, though kept in check. No one trusts a stranger. He must first of all take the lowest place, and do such things as need the least amount of trust, and so gradually work himself into the highest place of esteem. No one complains that he cannot win confidence at the first. Family jars and disputings are proverbial. Jesus, we know, divides brother against brother; but it is nothing new that he thus brings into society, for Jacob is the supplanter of Esau, and brother complains against brother to this very Jesus, because he thinks himself defrauded of his rights in the inheritance. There were two couples of natural brethren in the company of the apostles, and in their carnal days they were found hotly embroiled in the dispute as to who should stand greatest in the kingdom. There are abundant seeds of evil in society which are mercifully prevented from having free scope, else the result might soon show us that Jeremiah was in no wise going beyond the essential truth in what is said here. - Y.

Though these words were spoken of the Jews more than two thousand years ago, yet I shall endeavour to show that it may be said of all wicked men; that a wicked life is full of weariness and difficulties; that virtue is more easy than vice, and piety than wickedness.

1. Vice oppresses our nature, and consequently, it must be uneasy: whereas virtue improves, exalts, and perfects our nature; therefore virtue is a more natural operation than vice; and that which is most natural must be most easy. Thus, when we would express anything to be easy to a person or nation, we say it is natural to them. Moreover, all vices are unreasonable, and what is against reason must be against nature. And why is it that laws are so severe against vice, but because it destroys and corrupts the members of the commonwealth? So that the punishments which public justice in all countries inflicts upon criminals, are a plain proof how great an enemy vice is to nature, under whose ill conduct, and for whose errors, it suffers sometimes the most inexpressible torments. Every vice also has its own peculiar disease, to which it inevitably leads. Envy brings men to leanness; the envious man, like the viper, is killed by his own offspring. Lust brings on consuming and painful diseases. Drunkenness, catarrhs and gouts, and poverty beside. Rage produces fevers and frenzies. It is owned by all, that nature is satisfied with little, and desires nothing that is superfluous; by this rule all these vices are unnatural which consist in excess, or stretch themselves to superfluity; such as oppression, injustice, luxury, drunkenness, gluttony, covetousness, and the like.

2. Vice is more unpleasant than virtue; and therefore it must be more uneasy and wearisome; for we soon weary of anything which is not attended with pleasure, even though it should bring us some advantage. Without pleasure there is no happiness or ease. There are indeed some vices which promise a great deal of pleasure in the commission of them, but then at best it is but short-lived and transient, a sudden flash presently extinguished. It perishes in the very enjoyment, and quickly passes away like the crackling of thorns under a pot. Thus sinners are like the troubled sea, tossed to and fro, and yet can find no rest or satisfaction. They ramble on in one kind of debauchery until they are obliged to try another for a sort of diversion; they go round from one sin to another, so that their whole life is a course of uneasiness, and vanity in the strictest sense. Nor is this all, the pleasure of sin being exhausted in a moment, leaves a sting behind it, that cannot be so soon plucked out; these pleasures wound the conscience, and occasion uneasy and painful reflections. A thousand instances of the unpleasantness of vice are everywhere obvious. Envy is a perfect torment; it cannot fail to make the man whom it possesses miserable, and fill him with distracting pain and grievous vexation. It never leaves off murmuring and fretting, while there is one man happier, richer, or greater than the envious man himself. It is contrary to all goodness, and consequently to pleasure. Revenge is most painful and uneasy, both in persuading us that these are affronts, which of their own nature are none, and then in involving us in more troubles and dangers than the pleasure of revenge can compensate. Hatred and malice are the most restless tormenting passions that can possess the mind of man; they keep men perpetually contriving and studying how to effect their mischievous purposes; they break their rest, and disturb their very sleep. Covetousness is a most painful and uneasy vice, it makes the covetous man sit up late and rise early, and spend all his time and pains in hoarding up worldly things. Covetousness is unsatiable, the more it gets, the more it craves; it grows faster than riches can do. From all which it is evident, that all vicious persons live the most slavish and unpleasant lives in the world, and this every vicious man acknowledges in another's case; he thinks the vice he sees another addicted to, most unpleasant and uneasy.

3. The horror of conscience makes vice uneasy. I might show you that no man sins deliberately without reluctancy. But though there were no such disadvantage attending the commission of sin, yet the natural horror which is consequent upon it, is great enough to render it unaccountable, that any man should he vicious. Conscience can condemn us without witnesses; and the arm of that executioner cannot be stopped. And if we consider, that neither the attendance of friends, nor the enjoyment of all outward pleasures, can comfort those whose conscience is once awakened, and begins to accuse them, we cannot but conclude, that vice is to be pitied as well as shunned; and that this alone makes it more uneasy than virtue, which sweetens the greatest misfortunes. The greatest punishment that a wicked man can suffer in this world, is to be obliged to converse with himself. Diversion or non-attention is his only security; he fears nothing so much as reflection: for if he once begins to reflect, and fix his thoughts to the consideration of his by-past life and actions, he anticipates hell himself, he needs no infernal furies to lash him; he becomes his own tormentor.

4. Vicious persons must in many cases dissemble virtue, which is more difficult than to be really virtuous. All men who design either honour, riches, or to live happily in the world, do either propose to be virtuous, or at least pretend it. Now such pretenders and hypocrites have certainly a very difficult part to act; for they must not only be at all that pains which is requisite in being virtuous, but they must superadd to these all the troubles that dissimulation requires, which is also a new and greater task than the other. Not only so, but they must overact virtue, with a design to take off that jealousy, which because they are conscious of deserving, they therefore vex themselves to remove.

5. Vice makes the vicious man fear all men; even as many as he injures, or are witnesses to his vices.

(T. Wetherspoon.)