1. Of what may be called the call to work of its heroes the Bible is wonderfully communicative: it describes with great fulness how they were led to abandon private life and come forward as public witnesses for God. These scenes are among the most remarkable passages of the Divine record. Of this nature was the appearance of Jehovah at the burning bush, when Moses was called to his great life-work. The night scene in which the boy Samuel was called by the voice of God, as he slumbered in the tabernacle, is one of unapproachable beauty. Isaiah has described his own call in the sixth chapter of his prophecy-the scene in the Temple when he saw Jehovah on a throne, high and lifted up, and around Him the seraphim, chanting, “Holy, holy, holy.” The account of Ezekiel's call fills several chapters at the beginning of the book of his prophecies. The call of St. Paul, on the way to Damascus, is related no fewer than three times in the Book of Acts. In every one of these cases the call not only is an incident full of spiritual grandeur, but it also throws a great deal of light on the life which follows. Jeremiah also received a special call to the work of the prophet, and he has described it with his own pen.
We are at first struck with disappointment at the narrative, when we remember the vision of Isaiah and that of Ezekiel. There is no splendid awe-inspiring manifestation of God; the prophet is not penetrated like Isaiah with a conviction of his own uncleanness by its contrast with God's holiness; nor does he fall on his face like Ezekiel, overpowered by God's radiant glory. Yet the narrative gains an effectiveness of its own by the very absence of accessories. God and the man are here alone in intimate conversation; no seraphim or cherubim mar the impressive simplicity of the scene. It is a fit prelude to the life-work of the prophet who first clearly conceived religion as a personal relation between man and God.
The one question is, whether God calls us: it is not whether we feel fit or no. If God gives us the call, God will give us the grace. We may under-estimate ourselves, as well as over-estimate ourselves. St. Paul said, “Who is sufficient for these things?” If St. Paul, how much more we? The question is not as to anything in the past or present; but as to the call of God. If God calls us, He will fit us. When God put our soul into the bodies which we received of our parents, He had His own special purpose for each of us. He willed each of us to be saved in doing our own appointed work. He had us and our whole selves to be formed in our own special way. We sometimes hear of a person mistaking his profession; of his being, e.g., a good lawyer spoiled, a good man of business spoiled, i.e., he had missed the employment of life for which God adapted [him]. I cannot tell what your calling is; I know only certain outward dispositions: hold up your soul as a sheet of white paper to God, for Him to write on it what He wills. He has promised to hear prayer: say with St. Augustine, “Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou willest.” Do not hurry, but pray Him to teach you.1 [Note: Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey, 23.]
2. In the call of Jeremiah we may discover the sort of man whom God chooses as the medium for His speech. And our discovery will greatly startle us. We shall find the heavenly treasure in a simple earthen vessel. Not in the metropolis, but in the poor village of Anathoth, three miles to the north; not in an elder, but in a youth; not among the high and noble, but in the family of an undistinguished priest; not in a man mighty as Elijah, eloquent as Isaiah, or seraphic as Ezekiel; but in one who was timid and shrinking, conscious of his helplessness, yearning for a sympathy and love he was never to know-such was the chosen organ through which the word of the Lord came to that corrupt and degenerate age.
Frederick Denison Maurice pointed out that it was a singular feature of the life of Jerusalem, at the time when the great religious reformation was begun under Josiah, that both the king Josiah and the great prophet Jeremiah were young men. The association of these two Hebrew youths as leaders in the work of restoration of the Kingdom of God in Judæa was very significant. For the heart of the reformer we look to youth. It is then that ideals are noblest; they have not been lowered in obedience to the world's demands for compromises and expediencies. There is a healthy impatience of evil. Youth does not mean to acquiesce in wrong as the inevitable. It will hear no counsels of despair. It is intolerant of delays and hesitations. With youth “Now is the accepted time, Now is the day of salvation.” It may possibly expect to achieve too much, but that is better than expecting nothing at all. It is time to sit down and weep when there are no more worlds to conquer, no wrongs left to be righted, no heights to be stormed, no heroisms to be dared for the Kingdom of God.1 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]
3. How did Jeremiah receive the call? The natural effect of the Divine intimation which had been made to Jeremiah would have been the rush of all that was in him to the point indicated, in eager desire to be engaged in God's work; and this no doubt came later. But it was not the first result. On the contrary, the first feeling was a recoil from the course indicated. His reply to the voice which had addressed him was not, like Isaiah's, “Here am I; send me,” but, “Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.”
This has been the first feeling of many of the servants of God at the same critical juncture. Moses received the call of God in the same way; and so far did he carry his refusal as to arouse the anger of Jehovah. When John Knox was called to be a preacher by the acclamation of his fellow-prisoners in the church of St. Andrews, he was so overwhelmed that, after an ineffectual attempt to address the congregation, he burst into tears, rushed out, and shut himself up in his chamber, persuaded that he could never appear in the pulpit again.
In Jeremiah's mind there must have been an instinctive fear of the opposition which he would have to encounter; for the state of the times was such that anyone could foresee, even at the first glance, that a true prophet would have to lift up his voice against the whole course of society and bring down on his head the maledictions of high and low. For Jeremiah had a more difficult task than Isaiah. The latter prophet must have had on his side nearly all the zealous worshippers of Jehovah. The State was more than once in great danger, and it was the burden of Isaiah's prophecies that, by simply trusting in Jehovah and obeying His commandments, the State would infallibly be delivered. But in Jeremiah's time there seems to have been a great revival of purely external religion. Men went to the Temple and performed all the ceremonial laws which concerned them, but neglected those practical duties which make up so large a portion of true religion. There was a party of this kind in Isaiah's time, but it was not so powerful, because the misfortunes of the country seemed to show clearly that Jehovah was displeased with the state of the national religion. In Jeremiah's time, on the other hand, the continued prosperity which at first prevailed was equally regarded as a proof that God looked favourably upon His people, in accordance with those repeated promises in the Book of Deuteronomy, that, if the people obeyed the law of Jehovah, Jehovah would bless their basket and their store, and would keep them in peace and safety.
Never was heavier burden laid upon the shoulders of mortal man. A man of tender, loving, yielding, deeply impressible spirit, Jeremiah loved his country intensely. He would have given all he had to see Judah flourishing, Jerusalem prosperous; and, lo, we see him compelled by his destiny to announce to his fellow-citizens nothing but misfortune. Yet we may recognize in Jeremiah's character a special fitness for his mission. That tender, shrinking, sympathetic heart could more fully feel, and more adequately express, the ineffable Divine sorrow over the guilty people, the eternal love which was never stronger than at the moment when it seemed to have been metamorphosed into bitter wrath and implacable vengeance.
The record of the call of Jeremiah contains a parable as well as a promise. There is not one of us, I suppose, who is not often overwhelmed when he compares his task and his resources. “What am I,” we each say, “that I should maintain such a cause against such adversaries? that I should challenge popular opinion? that I should rebuke the unbelief which arrays itself in decent conformity? that I should preach the blessedness of punishment for sin? that I should uphold the gospel of sacrifice? What am I? a child without the innocent confidence of ignorance, a child in waywardness, a child in knowledge and in force.” As long as we look at ourselves the judgment is most just. But what then? “Say not,” the Lord says in our hearts, “I am a child.… Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth … I have set thee … to destroy and to overthrow; to build, and to plant.” After all, opinion is stronger than the sword, the prophet is mightier than the soldier, the victories of thought are more enduring than the victories of force. The cause which is committed to us is not our cause: it is the cause of God.1 [Note: Bishop Westcott.]
4. It was no easy thing for Jeremiah to answer “Yes” to the call of God. The call involved a lifetime of brave service. Matters in the nation were sure to go from bad to worse. Difficulties after difficulties therefore, as they developed, must be faced. He stood at what we name “the parting of the ways”: if he did as God wished, his whole life must be given to the work indicated; if he said “No” to God's call, he would drift along with the rest of the people, leaving them to their fate, he no better and perhaps no worse than they. In some respects there is nothing better than to be forced to a decision on some important matter, particularly if that decision is a decision involving character. It was a choice with Jeremiah whether he would live unselfishly for God or selfishly for himself. This choice ordinarily is the supreme choice in every one's life. It is the supreme choice that the Christian pulpit is constantly presenting. Present character and eternal destiny are shaped according to this choice.
The contemplation of such a life as that of Jeremiah reveals to us God's ideal man for the times, and what is God's purpose for those who have begun to long and pray that the Kingdom of Heaven may be established on earth. We have some of us lately been reading the story of Laurence Oliphant, and the strange influence exercised over him by the motto, “Live the life.” To “live the life,” he was content to abandon brilliant prospects, and a sphere of increasing influence, and go out to the obscure little community in America where he was obliged to submit to the lowest forms of manual labour, that, as he said, he might be “bullied” till his pride was broken. It is, of course, possible to conceive that such a discipline might be the necessary stage in some men's spiritual training to fit them for the service of God. But it seems quite certain that to live in an isolated colony, apart from the beating heart of the world, must be fruitful of many evils besides the supreme one of the impoverishment of a world that needs all the spiritual power it can get, by the withdrawal of those most able to help it. There have been times when the same ideal that possessed Laurence Oliphant has possessed the imagination of the Church, and asceticism and monastic seclusion have become “the rage.” At such times there have been crowds of men and women who, as Dr. Hatch said, “were ready to forsake all and follow John the Baptist into the desert, rather than Christ into the world.” But even if such times produced a kind of unnatural and artificial sanctity among a few, the mass of mankind suffered from the loss to its affairs of the spiritual counsel and moral energy of the men who were saving their own souls in solitude. The holiness with which God endows His own people is not a choice exotic that cannot live in the common air and light and temperature in which their brethren live their lives and do their work. It is a real working righteousness, a texture of the spirit that will stand the strain and bear the stress of the engagements of every day. It is a holiness that will wear. And the business of God's servants, however young they may be, is to receive this communication of God's Spirit, and then go forth to mingle in the life in which they have a share, and endeavour to reproduce God's ideas in the kingdom of which Providence has made them citizens. This is the task of building up the city of God on earth.1 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]
Professor Bosanquet worked it [the doctrine of duty] out in a new shape in the Gifford Lectures which he delivered in this University [of Edinburgh] last year [1912]. There he sought to exhibit the world as a “vale of soul-making,” to use the phrase which he borrowed from Keats, in which the soul reached most nearly to perfection by accepting without hesitating the station and the duties which the contingencies of existence had assigned to it, and by striving to do its best with them. Looked at in the light that comes from the Eternal within our breasts, the real question was not whether health or wealth or success were ours. For the differences in degree of these were but droplets in the ocean of Eternity. What did matter, and what was of infinite consequence, was that we should be ready to accept with willingness the burden and the obligation which life had cast on us individually, and be able to see that in accepting it, hard as it might be to do so, we were choosing a blessedness which meant far more for us than what is commonly called happiness could. We should rather be proud that the burden fell to us who had learned how to bear it. It thus, I may add by way of illustration of Mr. Bosanquet's words, was no sense of defeat, no meaningless cry of emotion, which prompted Emily Brontë when she defined her creed:-
And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, “Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!”
Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
'Tis all that I implore;
In life and death, a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.1 [Note: Viscount Haldane, The Conduct of Life (1914), 8.]
