Did Jeremiah ever conceive the far-off fulness of the travail thus laid upon his soul, the truth that this vicarious agony of a righteous man for the sins of others is borne by God Himself? To that question we have only fragments of an answer. In his discourses, both earlier and later, when he talks directly in the Name of the Deity—when the Deity speaks in the first person—the words breathe as much effort and passion as when Jeremiah speaks in his own person. The Prophet is very sure that his God is Love, and he hears that love utter itself in tones of yearning for the love of men, and even of agony for their sin and misery. There is, too, a singular prayer of his which is tense with the instinct, that God would surely be to Israel what Jeremiah had resolved and striven to be—not a far-off God who occasionally visited or passed through His people, but One in their midst sharing their pain; not indifferent, as he fears in another place,(746) to the shame that is upon them, but bearing even this. The prayer which I mean is the one in XIV. 8, 9, which recalls not only the terms but the essence of Jeremiah’s longing to escape from his people, and lodge afar with wayfaring men, aloof and irresponsible. O Hope of Israel, His Saviour In time of trouble. Why be like a passenger through the land, Or the wayfaring guest of a night? Yet Lord Thou art in our midst, Do not forsake us.(747) I may be going too far in interpreting the longing and faith that lie behind these words. But they come out very fully in later prophets who explicitly assert that the Divine Nature does dwell with men, shares their ethical warfare and bears the shame of their sins. And the truth of it all was manifested past doubt in the Incarnation, the Passion and the Cross of the Son of God. But whether Jeremiah had instinct of it, as I have ventured to think from his prayer, or had not, he foreshadowed, as far as mere man can, the sufferings of Jesus Christ for men—and this is his greatest glory as a prophet. Lecture VIII. GOD, MAN AND THE NEW COVENANT. We have followed the career of Jeremiah from his call onwards to the end, and we have traced his religious experience with its doubts, struggles, crises, and settlement at last upon the things that are sure: his debates with God and strifes with men, which while they roused him to outbursts of passion also braced his will, and stilled the wilder storms of his heart. There remains the duty of gathering the results of this broken and gusty, yet growing and fruitful experience: the truths which came forth of its travail, about God and Man and their relations. And in particular we have still to study the ideal form which Jeremiah, or (as some questionably argue) one of his disciples, gave to these relations: the New Covenant, new in contrast to God’s ancient Covenant with Israel as recorded and enforced in the Book of Deuteronomy. 1. God.