JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET

[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
VII.  THE SWELLING OF JORDAN
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

When we are reviled and hated, we should carefully search our hearts to see if we have given any just cause to those that hate and persecute us. The only suffering which comes within the circle of Christ's beatitude is that which is inflicted falsely, wrongfully, and for his sake. The man who endures griefs, suffering wrongfully, alone can claim to be following in the steps of the Master, and to be offering a sacrifice which is acceptable to God. He only can count on God's delivering aid.

The bursting storm should lead the captain to see that there is peace among his crew, and amity with the other ships of the fleet. We have no right to complain of the wrong-doing of others unless we are sure that, so far as we are concerned, we have given no just cause. But if we have done so there is no option but to agree with our adversary quickly, though it involve leaving our gift at the altar. Every moment of delay aggravates the case and increases the difficulty of reconciliation. The course of justice is so rapid, from the adversary to the judge, the judge to the officer, and the officer to prison (Matthew 5:22-25).

(2) He was Perplexed at the Inequality of Human Lot.

Every word of good Asaph's complaint in Psalm 73. might have been appropriated by Jeremiah. He had never swerved from the narrow path of obedience; at all hazards he had dared to stand alone, bereft of the comforts and alleviations that come in the lot of men; he did not scruple to bare his heart toward God, knowing that to the limit of his light he had done his bidding. But he was hated, persecuted, threatened with death, while the way of the wicked prospered, and they were at ease who dealt very treacherously. Surely it was in vain that he had cleansed his heart and washed his hands in innocency. It was too painful for him. His feet were almost gone, his steps had well-nigh slipped.
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[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
VII.  THE SWELLING OF JORDAN
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

It is the question of all ages, to be answered only by remembering that this world is upside-down; that the course of nature has been disturbed by sin; that the prince of the power of the air is god of this world; and that the servants of righteousness fight, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, the wicked spirits in heavenly places.

(3) He was Anxious for God's Character.

There is a touch of apparent vindictiveness in his cry. "Let me see thy vengeance on them .... Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter." We are disposed to contrast these words with those that Jesus breathed for his murderers from the cross, and that Stephen uttered as the stones crashed in upon him; and we think that there is an alloy in the fine gold, a trace of dross in the saint.

It is possible to adopt the suggestion that the prophet was predicting the fate of these wicked men, or that he was the divine mouthpiece in this solemn pronouncement of coming doom. But a deeper and more correct conception of his words appears to be that he was concerned with the effect that would be produced on his people if Jehovah passed by the sin of his persecutors and intending murderers. It was as though the prophet feared lest his own undeserved sufferings might lead men to reason that wrong-doing was more likely to promote their prosperity than integrity and holiness. Josiah was the one God-fearing monarch of his time, but he was slain in battle; he was the devoted servant of God, and his life was one long agony. Was it the best policy, then, to fear God? Might it not be wiser, safer, better, to worship the gods of the surrounding peoples, who seemed well able to defend their votaries, and to promote the prosperity of the great kingdoms that maintained their temples? As Jeremiah beheld the blasting influence of sin, how the land mourned and the herbs were withered and the beasts and birds consumed, his heart misgave him. He saw no limit to the awful evil of his times so long as God seemed indifferent to its prevalence. Therefore he cried for vengeance -- not for the gratification of his own feeling, but for the sake of Israel.
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JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
VII.  THE SWELLING OF JORDAN
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

(4) He also Rolled his Cause on God

So might chapter Jeremiah 11:20 be rendered: "On thee have I rolled my cause." Ah! this was wise  And it is our only safety in times of great soul anguish  The Divine Sufferer did this on the cross  "Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; · . . but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously." In his steps we must plant our feet. When men malign and plot against us, when friends forsake, when difficulties like Atlantic breakers threaten to engulf us, we must roll our anxieties from ourselves upon the blessed Lord, our burden-bearer, and leave them with him. The care ceases to be ours when it has been committed to him. He will see to all for us with a love so strong and tender and true that we need have no further cause for fear. Roll thyself, thy burden, and thy way on the Lord.
..........

II. THE DIVINE REPLY.

"If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" God stooped over his life and said: "Do you not remember when I first called you to be my prophet that I foreshadowed the loneliness and isolation, the difficulty and persecution, which were in store? Do you not remember that I told you that you would have to be a brazen wall against the whole people? Have you already lost heart? Are you so soon discouraged? Has the first brush of opposition mastered your heroic courage? You have as yet run with footmen, presently you will encounter horses; you are now in the land of comparative peace, your native village, where those surround you who have known you from your childhood, and yet you are dismayed; but how will you do when a tide of sorrow comes upon this land, as when the Jordan leaps its banks, and swells over the low-lying land around, and drives the wild beasts from their lair -- how then?"
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JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
VII.  THE SWELLING OF JORDAN
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

Does not God ever deal with us thus? He does not put us at once to contend with horses, but tests us first with footmen. He does not allow any one of us with frail and fainting courage to meet the overflowing floods of Jordan; but he causes us first to be tested in our homestead -- the land of peace, where we are comparatively secure amid those who know and love us. God graduates the trials of our life; he allows the lesser to precede the greater. He gives us the opportunity of learning to trust him in slighter difficulties, that faith may become muscular and strong, and that we may be able to walk to him amid the surge of the ocean. Be sure that whatever your sorrows and troubles are at this hour, God has allowed them to come to afford you an opportunity of preparation for future days. Do not be discouraged or give up the fight, or be unfaithful in the very little. Do not say you cannot bear it. You can!

There is sufficient grace in him; appropriate it, use it, rest upon him. Be very thankful that he has given you this time of discipline and of searching, and now, taking to yourself all that he waits to give -- the grace and comfort and assurance -- go forward! He cannot fail you. What he is in the lesser he will be much more in the greater. The grace he gives to-day is but as a silver thread compared to the river of grace he will give to you to-morrow. If you start back now you will miss the greater discipline that will surely come, but in missing it you will also miss the greater revelation of himself that will accompany the discipline. Be true to God! Trust in God, and remember that when he brings you to the swelling of Jordan -- not necessarily death, but some awful flood of sorrow -- that then, for the first time perhaps, you will meet the ark and the Priest whose feet, when they dip in the margin of the river, will cause it to part, and you will go over dry-shod. When Jordan overflows its banks God brings his chosen people to the brink, and it is then that he cleaves the path through the heart of the river, so that they are not touched by its descending torrent.

It is a solemn question. You have failed in the quiet, sequestered home life: how will you do in the turmoil of the city, with its terrific temptations? You have succumbed when there was everything to help you: how will you do when all is against you? You cannot bear the transient troubles of an hour with patience: how will you do in those that wear the life out with ceaseless pain? You cannot live well: how will you do when the moment arrives for you to die? "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"
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JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
VIII.  THE DROUGHT
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

(Jeremiah 14, 15.)

"If, in the paths of the world,
Stones might have wounded thy feet,
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit -- of that we saw
Nothing; to us thou wast still
Cheerful, and helpful, and firm;
Therefore to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself;
And at the end of thy day,
O faithful shepherd! to come,
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand."
ARNOLD.

THE reign of Jehoiakim was still young. Necho was back in Egypt, Nineveh was tottering to her fall, Babylon was slowly growing upon the horizon as the rival of each great empire and as the future desolater of Judah. Meanwhile the chosen people, like a tree whose heart is eaten away with insects, were corrupted by innumerable evils. As a premonition of coming destruction, and as though the Almighty would make one last effort to arouse them to the awfulness and imminence of their peril, a terrible drought cast its sere mantle over the land. It had often been predicted among the other results of disobedience, but probably never before had it fallen with such desolating effect (Leviticus 26:20; Deuteronomy 11:17; Deuteronomy 28:23). The whole land was filled with mourning. In the places of public concourse, where the people gathered in the burning sunshine, they sat in black garments upon the hard ground. Accustomed to rely upon the natural resources of the country, nourished by the rivers and streams that gushed from valley and hill, they were reduced to the dire extremities of famine. The vines on the terraced hills were withered, the cornfields were covered with stubble, and the pasture on the wolds was yellow and scorohed. The very dew seemed to have forsaken the land; where the river had poured its full tide there were only a few trickling drops. The beds of the watercourses were filled with stones. And the bitter cry of Jerusalem ascended, made up of the mingled anguish of men and women and children, whose parched lips might not be moistened.
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JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
VIII.  THE DROUGHT
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

The description given by the prophet is very striking. Want is felt in the great houses of the nobles, who send their servants for water without avail. The plowmen sit in their barns with covered heads; it is useless to think of driving their plows through the chapped soil. The hind, whose maternal love has passed into a proverb, is represented as forsaking her young, that she may seek for grass. The wild asses stand on the bare heights and eagerly snuff up what breeze may pass over the land in the evening, to relieve the agony of the fever of their thirst. All the land bakes like an oven, and the sun, as he passes daily through a leaden sky, looks down on scenes of unutterable horror.

What a picture is this of the desolation that sometimes overtakes a Christian community! Every faithful worker could tell of periods when it has seemed as though the cloud and dew of divine blessing had forsaken the plot on which he was engaged. There are no tears of penitence, no sighs of contrition, no blessed visitations of the dew of the Holy Ghost, no fresh young shoots of piety, no joy in the Lord, no fruits of the Spirit. Ah! then work is hard and difficult, and the soul of the worker faints and is discouraged. Blessed is that church which has not known this time of drought, and which has not experienced in the spiritual sphere the counterpart of the utter failure of moisture in the natural.

It is at such times that the lover of his fellows gathers himself together to deal with the Almighty. You can see him entering the secret place of the Most High, prepared to speak with God, and, if possible, secure a mitigation of the reign of the brazen sky and a return of those times of blessing that can only come from the presence of the Lord. His face is set with a resolute purpose. Through the weary eyes the fire of a mighty resolution is burning. With his two hands he is prepared to come to close dealings with God, as Jacob when he made supplication with the angel. Let us draw near and overhear the colloquy between Jeremiah and the Almighty. It may be that we shall discover arguments that we may take upon our own lips when days of drought are visiting the Church at large, or that sphere of work in which we are called specially to labor. It is thus that the soul discourses with God.
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[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
VIII.  THE DROUGHT
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

I. THE PLEADINGS OF THE INTERCEDING SOUL.

"My God, I come into thy presence to acknowledge my own sin, and especially the sins of my people. I stand before thee as their priest to confess the sins which have separated between thee and them, incurring thy divine displeasure, and closing the avenues of communion. Our iniquities testify against us, and our backslidings are many. Once thou seemedst to abide in our midst: thy smile a perpetual summer; thy presence one long stream of benediction; thy grace like a river making glad thy city. But of late thy visits have been few and far between. Thou hast tarried for a night, and been away again at dawn, and we sorely miss thee. Once thou wert as a mighty man, our Samson, whose arm sufficed to keep our enemies at bay; but for long thou hast seemed overcome by an unnatural stupor, by a paralysis that holds thee like a vise. And yet thou hast not really changed. Thou art our Saviour; thou art in the midst of us. We bear thy name. Thine honor is implicated in our lot. What thou couldst not do for any merit of ours do for the credit of thy name; do for the sake of thy Son; do for the maintenance of thy cause upon earth. Leave us not, nor let that foreboding prediction of Ezekiel be realized, when he saw the glory of the Lord recede by stages from the holy place, until it stood outside the city walls" (Jeremiah 14:7-9).

The Answer of the Divine Spirit. -- There are times when God seems to speak thus to the soul -- if we may dare put our impression of his words in our own phrase: "It is useless, my servant, to pray. My grace is infinite; my mercy endureth forever; my fullness waits to pour forth its tides, to make the wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose. I have no pleasure in the parched wilderness; I would that it were springs of water. I have no liking for the glowing sand; I would that it might become a pool. But so long as men cling to their sins, so long as they perpetrate abominations like those which Ezekiel saw when in the chambers of imagery he beheld the elders of Israel offering incense to creeping things and abominable beasts, it is impossible for me to cause rain or give showers. Beneath the appearance of religious worship and decorum, evils are breeding that separate between my people and myself, and hide my face from them. These must be dealt with. You must begin to search the chambers of their hearts with candles, to show my people their transgressions, and the house of Israel their sins. Your work just now is not that of the intercessor, but of the reformer; not yet to plead with Elijah upon the brow of Carmel, but, like Elijah, to extirpate the lurking evil of the people as when he dyed the waters of Kishon with the blood of Ahab's priests" (Jeremiah 14:10-12).
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JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
VIII.  THE DROUGHT
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

II. THE LAMENT OF THE TRUE SHEPHERD.

Ah, Lord God! True, too true, sadly too true, are thy words. Thy people deserve all that thou hast said. Their iniquities are alone accountable for their sorrows. But remember how falsely they have been taught. The land is full of those who hide thy truth under a cloud of words. They say that the outward ritual sufficeth, howsoever far the heart is from thee. There is grievous fault; but surely it lieth at the door of those who mislead the fickle, changeful crowd. Their mouths are lined with wool; they cry ' Peace, Peace! ' when there is none. The very remonstrances of conscience are drowned by their delusive assurances. Spare thy people! they are scattered because the shepherds have failed in their high commission" (Jeremiah 14:13).

The Answer of the Divine Spirit. -- There are days in the history of the Christian when he is called to walk upon the mountains of vision, and overhears the attendant shepherds, of whom Bunyan speaks, talking to each other and saying, "Shall we show these pilgrims some wonders?" Beneath their guidance he climbs to the top of the hill called Error, which is very steep on the farther side. At the bottom lie several men all dashed to pieces by a fall from the top. "What meaneth this?" is the obvious inquiry. "Have you not heard of Hymeneal and Philetus," is the reply, "who erred concerning the faith of the resurrection of the body? These are they." So in our pleadings for men we sometimes obtain a glimpse of the inevitableness of the divine judgments and the irreparableness of the injury that false teachers may do to their fellows. There is no fate so terrible as of those who have not only erred themselves, but have caused men to err; who have been a stumbling-block in the way of one of God's little ones. Better be dumb and not able to speak than say words that may destroy the faith of childhood, or start questionings that may shatter by one fell blow the construction of years. It was in this strain that God replied to the prophet:

"The doom of the false prophets will be terrible. Their fate will be the more awful because they have run without being sent, and prophesied without having seen a vision. There has been no divine impulse energizing their words. Position, bread, power, have been the incentives of their office; but the people have loved to have it so. Their corrupt morals have produced a corrupt priesthood and a crop of false prophets. The men of whom you complain are the product of their times. My people, enervated with sloth, luxury, and conceit, would not endure the simple truth of the divine Word; and this evil band have been bred and nurtured in the stifling corruption of the age. Until, therefore, the people themselves have put away their sin, and returned to me in penitence and consecration, they must be held guilty before my sight, and suffer the outworking of their sin. ' I will pour their wickedness upon them '" (Jeremiah 14:14-16).
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JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
VIII.  THE DROUGHT
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

III. THE INTERCEDING SOUL.

" Granted, great God, that thou art just and right, yet thou canst not utterly reject. Thy smiting cannot be unto death. Thou must heal. Thou mayest cast away those with whom thou hast not entered into covenant relationship, or on whom thy name has not been named, or among whom the throne of thy glory has not been set up, but thou canst not deal with us as with them. There is a tie between thee and us which our sin cannot break. There are claims which we have on thee as our Father, which the far-country wanderings of the prodigal cannot annul. There are interweavings of thy character and prestige with our history which no stroke of thy pen can dissolve. Remember the covenant; remember thy promise to thy Son; remember thy bride whom thou canst not put away; remember that we have no help but in thee; remember the word on which thou hast caused us to hope -- therefore we will still wait upon thee. We are not worthy to be called thine; but we claim the kiss, the robe, the fatted calf" (Jeremiah 14:17-22).

The Answer of the Divine Spirit. -- It is as though the Lord said: "I am wearied with repenting. I have tried every means of restraining them and turning them to better things -- now by winnowing out the chaff, and again by bereavement and sorrow, and again by the swift destruction of the sword. They have appeared to amend, but the improvement was only superficial. Now my mind is thoroughly made up. My methods must be more drastic, my discipline more searching and thorough. I will turn my hand upon my people, and thoroughly purge away their dross, and take away all their tin, and I will restore their judges as at the first and their counselors as at the beginning. Thus I will answer thy pleadings on their behalf. The destruction of the city, the decimation of the people by sword and famine, the awful sorrows of captivity, shall act as purging fires, through which they shall pass to a new and blessed life. Nothing else can now avail. For my love of them I cannot spare them. The prayers of my holiest cannot alter my determination, since only thus can my eternal purpose of redemption be realized" (Jeremiah 15:1-9).
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JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
VIII.  THE DROUGHT
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

IV. THE CRY OF THE INTERCESSOR.

Here the prophet falls into a muse, and as he foresees the misrepresentation of his motives, and the certain hate which his unfaltering prediction of coming doom must excite, he wishes that he had never been born. So does the heart of the man of God fail, and if, like Jeremiah's, it is highly strung and keenly sensitive, it becomes the prey of the deepest anguish. "Why, O God, didst thou make me so gentle and sympathetic, so naturally weak and yielding, so incapable of looking calmly on pain? Would not some stronger, rougher nature have done thy bidding better? Even now hast thou not some man of ruder make to whom thou canst intrust this mission? There are skins more impervious to the scorching heat than mine: may they not go into these flames? Why this stammering lip, this faltering heart, this thorn in my flesh?" (Jeremiah 15:10).

The Answer of the Divine Spirit. -- "I will strengthen thee for good." It is as if God said: "My grace is sufficient for thee. I have summoned thee, with all thy weaknesses, to perform my will, because my strength is only perfected thus. I need a low platform for the exhibition of my great power. To those that have no might I impart strength; in those that have no wisdom I unfold my deepest thoughts. The broken reed furnishes the pillar of my Temple; smoking flax gives light to my beacon-fires. Be content to be a threshold over which the river passes; be satisfied to be a rod in my hand which shall achieve the deliverance of my people. O frail, weak soul, thou art likeliest to be the channel and organ for the forthputting of my energy. Only yield thyself to me, and let me have my way through thee, with thee, in thee; then thou shalt be as the northern iron and brass, which man cannot break (Jeremiah 15:11-14). hope that trembles like the first flush of dawn, and the fear that paralyzes; the conflict, the broken ideals, the unfinished sentences, the songs without words: thou knowest. Thou art my all. Thy smile strengthens me against reproach. Thy words bring rifts of joy and rejoicing in my saddest hours. Thy presence banishes loneliness when I sit alone. And yet sometimes a dark foreboding comes that thou wilt be to me as a deceitful brook, whose intermittent waters fail, which is dry when most its flow is needed. I know it cannot be, since thou art faithful; and yet what could I do if, after having made me what I am, thou should-est leave me to myself?" (Jeremiah 15:15-18 ).
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[nChrist]

JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
VIII.  THE DROUGHT
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

The Answer of the Divine Spirit. -- " Renounce thy forebodings.'' God seems to say: "Come back from the far country of try despondency. I would have thee stand face to face with me without a shadow of a cloud. Wait before me. Consider not try frailty, but my might; not try foes, but my deliverances. Put from thee that which is vile; expose thyself to my refining fires, that all thy dross may be expurgated. Divest thyself of all that is inconsistent with thy high calling. Then thou shalt be as my mouth; thou shalt stand amid the surging crowd as a fenced brazen wall; thou shalt be impregnable against the assault of fear; in the darkest hours, when floods of ungodliness might make thee afraid, and the fury of hell be hurled against thee, I will be with thee to save and deliver. Thou mayest have neither wife nor child; but I will be to thee more than they. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible." "This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord" (Jeremiah 15:19-21).

V. THE RESPONSE OF THE SOUL.

"O Lord, thou knowest." "Things that my dearest cannot guess, which I cannot utter, which I am slow to admit even to myself; the hope that trembles like the first flush of dawn, and the fear that paralyzes; the conflict, the broken ideals, the unfinished sentences, the songs without words: thou knowest. Thou art my all. Thy smile strengthens me against reproach. Thy words bring rifts of joy and rejoicing in my saddest hours. Thy presence banishes loneliness when I sit alone. And yet sometimes a dark foreboding comes that thou wilt be to me as a deceitful brook, whose intermittent waters fail, which is dry when most its flow is needed. I know it cannot be, since thou art faithful; and yet what could I do if, after having made me what I am, thou shouldest leave me to myself ?" (Jeremiah 15:15-18 ).
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JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
IX.  "ON THE POTTERS WHEEL"
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

(Jeremiah 18:4.)

"He fixed thee 'mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This present thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent,
Try thee, and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed."
R. BROWNING.

ONE day, beneath the impulse of the Divine Spirit, Jeremiah went beyond the city precincts to the Valley of Hinnom, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, where; in a little hut, he found a potter busily engaged at his handicraft. "Behold, he wrought a work on the wheels." Amid the many improvements of the present day, the art of pottery remains almost as it was as many centuries before Christ as we live after.

As the prophet stood quietly beside the potter, he saw him take a piece of clay from the mass that lay beside his hand, and, having kneaded it to rid it of the bubbles, place it on the wheel, rapidly revolving horizontally at the motion of his foot driving the treadle. From that moment his hands were at work, within and without, shaping the vessel with his deft touch, here widening, there leading it up into. a more slender form, and, again, opening out the lip. So that from the shapeless clay there emerged a fair and beautiful vessel, fit for the Temple court or the royal palace. When it was nearly complete, and the next step would have been to remove it, to await the kiln, through a flaw in the material it fell a shapeless ruin -- some broken pieces upon the wheel, and others upon the floor of the house.
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JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
IX.  "ON THE POTTERS WHEEL"
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

The prophet naturally expected that the potter would immediately take another piece of clay, and produce in its yielding substance the ideal which had been so hopelessly marred under his hand. Instead of this, however, to his astonishment and keenly excited interest, the potter with scrupulous care gathered up the broken pieces of the clay and pressed them together as at the first, and placed the clay again where it had lain before, and made it again into another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Perhaps this second vessel was not quite so fair as the first might have been; still it was beautiful and useful. It was a memorial of the potter's patience and long-suffering, of his careful use of material, and of his power of repairing loss and making something out of failure and disappointment.

O vision of the long-suffering patience of God! O bright anticipation of God's redemptive work! O parable of remade characters and lives and hopes! To us, as to Jeremiah, the divine thought is flashed: "Cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel."

The purport of this vision seems to have been to give his people hope that even though they had marred God's fair ideal, yet a glorious and blessed future was within reach; and that if only they would yield themselves to the touch of the Great Potter, he would undo the results of years of disobedience which had marred and spoiled his fair purpose, and would make the chosen people a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master's use.

The same thought may apply to us all. Who is there that is not conscious of having marred and resisted the touch of God's molding hands? Who is there that does not lament opportunities of saintliness which were lost through the obdurateness of the will and the hardness of the heart? Who is there that would not like to be made again as seems good to the Potter? "But now, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou our Potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity forever."
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JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
IX.  "ON THE POTTERS WHEEL"
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

I. THE DIVINE MAKING OF MEN.

(1) The Potter has an Ideal.

Floating through his fancy there is the vessel that is to be. He already sees it hidden in the shapeless clay, waiting for his call to evoke. His hands achieve so far as they may the embodiment of the fair conception of his thought. Before the woman applies scissors to the silk she has conceived the pattern of her dress; before the spade cleaves the sod the architect has conceived the plan of the building to be erected there.

So of God in nature. The pattern of this round world and of her sister-spheres lay in his creative thought before the first beam of light streamed across the abyss. All that exists embodies with more or less exactness the divine ideal  -- sin alone excepted. So of the mystical body of Christ, the Church, his bride. In his Book all his "members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." So also of the possibilities of each human life. I know not if we shall ever be permitted, amid the archives of heaven, to see the transcript of God's original thought of what our life might have been had we only yielded ourselves to the hands that reach down from heaven molding men; but sure it is that God foreordained and predestinated us, each in his own measure and degree, to be conformed to the image of his Son.

See that mother bending over the cradle where her firstborn baby son lies sleeping. Mark that smile which goes and comes over her face, like a breath of wind on a calm summer's day! Why does she smile? Ah! she is dreaming, and in her dreams is building castles of the future eminence of this child -- in the pulpit or the Senate, in war or art. If only she might have her way he should be foremost in happiness, renowned in the service of men. But no mother ever wished so much for her child as God for us, when first cradled at the foot of the cross.
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JEREMIAH PRIEST AND PROPHET
IX.  "ON THE POTTERS WHEEL"
BY F. B. MEYER, B.A.

To be like Christ, the type of perfect manhood; to be as much to Christ as he was to his Father; to reflect the face of Christ on men as he the face of God; to fulfill the commission of redemption; to take up the cross; to be crucified with Christ; to rise and reign with him -- all this is God's ideal.

(2) The Potter Achieves his Purpose by Means of the Wheel.

In the discipline of human life this surely represents the revolution of daily circumstance; often monotonous, commonplace, trivial enough, and yet intended to effect, if it may, ends on which God has set his heart.

Many, on entering the life of full consecration and devotion, are eager to change the circumstances of their lives for those in which they suppose that they will more readily attain a fully developed character. Hence much of the restlessness and fever, the disappointment, and willfulness, of the early days of Christian experience. Such have yet to learn that out of myriads of circumstances God has chosen the lot of each as being specially adapted to develop the hidden qualities and idiosyncrasies of the soul he loves. Anything else than the life which you are called to live would fail in giving scope for the evolution of properties of your nature which are known only to God, as the colors and fragrance which lie enfolded in some tropic seed. Believe that all has been ordered or permitted, because of that which lay entombed within you waiting for his call, "Come forth!"

Do not, therefore, seek to change, by some rash and willful act, the setting and environment of your life. Stay where you are till God as evidently calls you elsewhere-as he has put you where you are. Abide for the present in the calling wherein you were called. Throw upon him the responsibility of indicating to you a change when it is necessary for your further development. In the meanwhile look deep into the heart of every circumstance for its special message, lesson, or discipline. Upon the way in which you accept or reject these will depend the achievement or marring of the divine purpose.
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