d greatest, sons of Judaism.
It was the salt of their character, the life of their inspiration, the
message of their prophecy. In days of national distress and despair,
this star shone the brighter for the darkness. The terrible shame of the
Captivity and the profound agony that followed it were lit up with the
glorious vision of a better future in store for the people of God. On
the quivering lips of the prophet that "sat weeping," as he is described
in the Septuagint,[149] this strong hope found utterance. He had washed
the dust of worldliness from his eyes with tears, and, therefore, saw
more clearly than the men of his time the threatened downfall of Judah
and the bright dawn beyond. In reading his prophecy of the new covenant
we almost cease to wonder that some persons thought Jesus was Jeremiah
risen from the dead. The prophet's words have the same ring of undaunted
cheerfulness, of intense compassion, of prophetic faith; and Christ, as
well as the Apostle, cites His prediction that all shall be taught of
God.[150]

Jeremiah blames the people.[151] But the Apostle infers that the
covenant itself was not faultless, inasmuch as the prophet seeks, in his
censure of the people, to make room for another covenant. We have
already been told that there was on earth no room for the priesthood of
Christ.[152] Similarly, in the sphere of earthly nationality, there was
no room for a covenant other than that which God had made with His
people Israel when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. But the
earthly priesthood could not give efficacy to its ministering, and thus
room is found for a heavenly priesthood. So also, the covenant on which
the earthly priesthood rested being inadequate, the prophet makes room
for the introduction of a new and better covenant.

Now the peculiar character of the old covenant was that it dealt with
men in the aggregate which we call the nation. Nationalism is the
distinctive feature of the old world, within the precincts of Judaism
and among the peoples of heathendom. Even the prophets could not see the
spiritual truth, which they themselves foretold, except through the
medium of nationality. The Messiah was the national king idealised, even
when He was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. In the passage
before us the prophet Jeremiah speaks of God's promise to write His law
on the heart as made to the house of Judah and the house of Israel, as
if he were not aware that, in so speaki