y by his oath to his
suzerain of Babylon and when he broke that oath his legitimacy
crumbled.(591) Of right Divine or human there was none in a government so
forsworn and self-disentitled, besides being so insane, as that of the
feeble king and his frantic masters, the princes. For Jeremiah the only
Divine right was Nebuchadrezzar's. But to the conviction that Sedekiah and
the princes were not the lawful lords of Judah, we must add the pity of
the Prophet as he foresaw the men, women and children of his people done
to useless death by the cruel illusions of their illegitimate governors.
Calvin is right, when, after a careful reservation of the duties of
private citizens to their government at war, he pronounces that "Jeremiah
could not have brought better counsel" to the civilians and soldiers of
Jerusalem.(592) And it is no paradox to say that the Prophet's sincerity
in giving such advice is sealed by his heroic refusal to accept it for
himself and resolution to share to the end what sufferings the obstinacy
of her lords was to bring on the city. Nor, be it observed, did he bribe
his fellow citizens to desert to the enemy by any rich promise. He plainly
told them that this would leave a man nothing but bare life--_his life for
a prey_.

It would, however, be most irrelevant to deduce from so peculiar a
situation, and from the Divine counsels applicable to this alone, any
sanction for "pacificism" in general, or to set up Jeremiah as an example
of the duty of deserting one's government when at war, in all
circumstances and whatever were the issues at stake. We might as well
affirm that the example of the man, who rouses his family to flee when he
finds their home hopelessly on fire, is valid for him whose house is
threatened by burglars. Isaiah inspired resistance to the Assyrian
besiegers of Jerusalem in his day with as Divine authority as Jeremiah
denounced resistance to the Chaldean besiegers in his. Nor can we doubt
that our Prophet would have appreciated the just, the inevitable revolt of
the Maccabees against their pagan tyrants, which is divinely praised in
the Epistle to the Hebrews as a high example of faith. It is one thing to
deny allegiance, as Jeremiah did, to a government that had broken the oath
on which alone its rights were founded, and the keeping of which was the
sole security for "the stability of the times." It is another and very
different thing to refuse, on alleged grounds of conscience, to follow