Jeremiah 1

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. I.—Great are the pains and patience that God exercises to prevent the destruction of his professed people. And it is honourable to be early chosen, sanctified, and prepared, for the ministerial service of God. How fixed are all his purposes relative to men’s persons and offices! He can easily qualify men for his service, and enable them to speak intelligibly and powerfully, notwithstanding all weakness or opposition, and though their message issue in the ruin of some and deliverance of others. And with great care doth God render his mind plain to his servants and people, and condescendingly vouchsafe them his presence in their work. In what different forms he warns men before he inflicts his remarkable judgments! And ministers had need to consider the infinite importance of their charge, the great danger of unfaithfulness in it, and God’s promises of his presence to enable them to perform it, and to protect them in it, as a balance to all the power and threatenings of their persecutors