Jeremiah 6:16 Thus said the LORD, Stand you in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein… Transition is easy from an outward physical path to a moral meaning: roads men walk with their feet suggest the road men's thoughts habitually walk in, the path in which their feelings are accustomed to move, the way in which their conduct naturally flows. In this secondary sense, use text to point out the necessity, in all who would go right, of keeping upon the old ways, the ascertained ways, which, in the experience of mankind, have been proved beneficial. I. OUR BOAST OF NOVELTY, OUR GLORYING IN OUR NEWNESS, AS IF WE WERE IN ADVANCE OF EVERYBODY AND EVERYTHING ELSE, IS A FANCIFUL MISTAKE. Our thoughts, and all the channels of our thoughts, are the result of the thought and experience of thousands of years that are gone by. Political habits and customs, knowledge of right and equity, have been gradually unfolded from ages past. Combinations are new, elements are old. II. THE PRESENT TIME IS NOTICEABLE FOR AN EXTRAORDINARY OUTBREAK OF ACTIVITY ALONG NEW LINES OF THOUGHT AND BELIEF. 1. Men are inclined to doubt generally the social and moral results of past experience, to repudiate long-accepted social maxims and customs. 2. General distrust is being thrown upon religions teachings: not positive unbelief, but uncertainty. And by having confidence in religion its real power is destroyed. Thus thousands are abandoning old paths — old thoughts, usages, customs, habits, convictions, virtues. III. THERE ARE CERTAIN GREAT PERMANENCIES OF THOUGHT, CHARACTER, AND CUSTOM, ESPECIALLY NECESSARY IN OUR TIME. 1. Moral and social progress can never be so rapid as physical developments. Men cannot be changed in their principles, feelings, and inner life in the same ratio as external changes go on. 2. There is danger in giving up any belief or custom which has been entwined in our moral sense. Regard as sacred the first principles of truth. 3. In the transition from a lower to a higher form of belief there is peril. Hence, we are not to think it our duty in a headlong way to change men's beliefs simply because they are erroneous. As if changing from one mode of belief to another was going to change the conscience, reason, moral susceptibility, and character. IV. THE RELINQUISHMENT OF TRUST OR OF PRACTICE SHOULD ALWAYS BE FROM WORSE TO BETTER. If you want a traveller to have a better road, make that better road, and then he will need no argument to persuade him to walk in it. If you are teaching that one intellectual system is better than another, and that one religious organisation, church, or creed, is better, prove it by presenting better fruit than the other, and men will need little argument beyond. If a Church breeds meekness, fortitude, love, courage, disinterestedness; if it makes noble men — uncrowned but undoubted princes, — then it is a Church, a living epistle which will convince men. V. ALL NEW TRUTHS, LIKE NEW WINES, MUST HAVE A PERIOD OF FERMENTATION. 1. All truths are at first on probation; must be scrutinised, ransacked, vindicated. 2. Guard against wild and unseasonable urgency in throwing off traditional faiths and truths, for those you can discover for yourselves. Accept what other men construct for you. We are so related, by the laws of God, one to another, that no man can think out everything for himself. VI. WE DO WELL TO LOOK CAUTIOUSLY AT NEW TRUTHS AND THOSE WHO ADVOCATE THEM. There is a conceit, a dogmatism, a bigotry of science, as really as there is of religion. Application — 1. All the tendencies which narrow the moral sense and enlarge the liberty of the passions are dangerous. 2. All tendencies which increase self-conceit are to be suspected and disowned. 3. Those tendencies which extinguish in a man all spiritual elements, such as arise from faith in God, in our spirituality and immortality, must inevitably degrade our manhood. 4. All tendencies which take away your hope of and belief in another world, take away your motive for striving to reach a higher life. Without this hope men will have a weary pilgrimage in a world of unbelief. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. |
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