JEREM. 23. 22.
THis Chapter hath two main principal parts; the first is Promissory, the second Comminatory.
The Promissory is of a three-fold benefit. 1. Reduction from Captivitie. 2. Godly and holy Governours, both Civil and Ecclesiastical. 3. The Mission of Christ, who is described in his glorious Office, he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousnesse.
The Comminatory beginneth verse 9. against the false and wicked Prophets, as the fountain of all the wickednesse in Jerusalem. The sins they are accused of, are a prophaning of the holy things of God, Adulteries, and swearings; as also Hypocrisies, which not onely they themselves were guilty of, but infected others also. The wicked lives of Ministers make a great deal of Atheism among people: They are like poisoned Fountains or Springs, which do presently conveigh poison to all that drink of them. Now as their sin is decyphered, so their judgment is threatned ver. 15. grief and heavie trouble of mind; for saith God, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of Gall. They fed the people with Gall in their deceiving Sermons, and God he feeds them with Wormwood. Now my Text doth by way of contrarie aggravate the sad and damnable effects of a corrupt and sinfull Ministry; for whereas verse 14. he had shewed that they did strengthen the hands of wicked doers, so that none did return from his evill wayes. On the contrary, in my Text he declareth the good, and soul-saving effect of it, in case of a godly and conscientious discharge of their Function. So that in the words you have good qualifications supposed: and secondly the godly and blessed successe that will flow from hence.
The good qualifications supposed are two.
First, If they had stood in my Counsell. To understand the full sense of this consider, 1 Kings 22. 19. and Job 1. 6. Where God is described as a Judge sitting upon his Throne, and all the Host of heaven standing by him on his right hand, and on his left; so that the meaning is, If those Prophets had not delivered the imagination of their own hearts, but had attended for my commands, had received all from me, as the Angels do; then, &c. And further note, that To stand before one, is an Hebraism, describing the ready posture of servants, to receive any command. Thus Gehezi is said to stand before his Master; and we are forbidden to offend any of those little ones, because their Angels behold alwayes the face of God, Mat. 18. 20.
The second qualification floweth from the former, And cause the people to hear my words. The false Prophets preached their own words of peace to them, whom God cursed; but they must be like the Trumpet, that sends forth no other voice than was breathed into them. Embassadors must keep themselves strictly to the words of their Commission; and Executors to the Will of Testators: for If it be but a mans Testament, no man may add to it, how much more to a Divine?
The next thing supposed, is the good successe, They shall be Fishers of men indeed; though while they followed their own ways, they laboured all night and day, and took nothing; yet then Christ will command them to throw in the Net, and they shall catch abundantly. When they thus water and plant, God will give great increase.
Doct. Doctr. That the Ministry of God faithfully discharged, according to Gods own Counsell, is a sure way to turn men from their sins.
To explain this, consider:
First, That God hath firmly and immoveably set Ministers and Pastors, or their Office in the Church, for glorious and supernatural effects. That although God was pleased to make the world, the old Creature, by his own word immediately, using no Angels, or other things as instruments (nay they could not be used instrumentally to that infinite work of Creation) yet he is pleased to appoint spirituall Officers in the Church, To be co-workers, as the Apostle saith, with him, 2 Cor. 6. 1. Not that they co-operate with God in the infusing of grace in the soul, (no, that is Gods sole work) but they prepare and dispose the subject in a morall way, by convincing and instructing the Consciences of their hearers. That God hath thus firmly appointed such spirituall Offices is plain, 1 Cor. 12. 28. God hath set some in his Chnrh, set as he hath set the Sun and Stars in the Firmament: and then he reckons up extraordinary and ordinary Offices; and these are called gifts given to men, and the fruits of his Ascention, Ephes. 4. 11. where they are again enumerated: So that by these places, you see a Ministry is a Divine Office, a plant of Gods own planting: and that it is not a temporary, but a perpetual Office appeareth by their end, which is perpetual, Eph. 4. 13. till we all come to a full stature in Christ: And the Apostle in his Epistles to Timothy, laying down the Characters and Qualities of such who are to be Ministers, he chargeth those Commandments to be kept impartially till the coming of Christ. 2 Tim. 5. 21.