1. He found the grace of God mighty in him to keep him to this business, notwithstanding the temptation he was in to throw it up: "I said, in my haste, I will speak no more in his name; what I have in my heart to deliver I will stifle and suppress. But I soon found it was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, which glowed inwardly, and must have vent; it was impossible to smother it; I was like a man in a burning fever, uneasy and in a continual agitation; while I kept silence from good my heart was hot within me, it was pain and grief to me, and I must speak, that I might be refreshed;" Ps. xxix. 2, 3; Job xxxii. 20. While I kept silence, my bones waxed old, Ps. xxxii. 3. See the power of the spirit of prophecy in those that were actuated by it; and thus will a holy zeal for God even eat men up, and make them forget themselves. I believed, therefore have I spoken. Jeremiah was soon weary with forbearing to preach, and could not contain himself; nothing puts faithful ministers to pain so much as being silenced, nor to terror so much as silencing themselves. Their convictions will soon triumph over temptations of that kind; for woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel, whatever it cost me, 1 Cor. ix. 16. And it is really a mercy to have the word of God thus mighty in us to overpower our corruptions.
{"chapter_id":"Jer.xxi","chapter_title":"Chapter XX","kind":"whole-body-P","position":14,"unit_key":"Jer.xxi-p14","work_key":"Jer","work_title":"Commentary on Jeremiah","xpath":"/ThML/ThML.body/div1[4]/div2[21]/div[2]/p[8]"}