astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from moun-
JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS the adoption, as Paul testifies, remains fixed, and can never be changed. (Romans
11:29.) Then on God's part it is eternal. But as the Jews had become covenantbreakers, that covenant is called, on this account, weak and evanescent: and for this reason the Prophet said,
the last days I will make a covenant with you, not such as I made with your fathers, for they have broken, he said, that covenant.'' (Jeremiah 31:31, 32)
Jeremiah now repeats the same thing, though more briefly, that the Jews would return to favor with God, not only for a moment, but that his covenant might continue and remain valid; and the way by which this would be done is expressed in
Jeremiah 21, even because God would inscribe his law on their inward parts, and engrave it on their hearts. For it is not in man's power to continue so constant as that
God's covenant should never fail; but what the Prophet omits here must be supplied from the former passage, that when the Jews returned, God's covenant would again become so valid and fixed, that it would never fail, even because their hearts would be renewed, so that they would be faithful to God, and never become apostates any more like their fathers.
He then adds, This covenant shall not be forgotten. We hence conclude, that the perpetuity of which he speaks, was founded rather on the mere benevolence of God than on the virtue of the people. He calls then the covenant which God would never forget, perpetual, because he would remember his mercy towards the chosen people; and though they were unworthy to receive such a favor, yet he would continue perpetually his mercy towards them to the coming of Christ; for the passage clearly shows that this prophecy cannot be otherwise explained than of Christ's spiritual kingdom. The Jews indeed returned to their own country, but it was only a small number; and besides, they were harassed by many troubles; God also visited their land with sterility, and they were lessened by various slaughters in wars: how then came the prophets thus to extol in such high terms the favor of God, which yet did not appear among the people? even because they included the kingdom of Christ; for whenever they spoke of the return of the people, they ascended, as we have said, to the chief deliverance. I do not yet follow our interpreters, who explain these prophecies concerning the spiritual kingdom of Christ allegorically; for simply, or as they say, literally, ought these words to be taken, --- that God would never forget his covenant, so as to retain the Jews in the possession of the land. But this would have been a very small thing, had not Christ come forth, in whom is founded the real perpetuity of the covenant, because God's covenant cannot be separated from a state of happiness; for blessed are the people, as the Psalmist says, to whom God shows himself to be their God. (Psalm 144:15.) Now, then, as the Jews were so miserable, it follows that God's covenant did not openly appear or was not conspicuous; we must therefore come necessarily to Christ, as we have elsewhere seen, that this was commonly done by the Prophets. The Prophet now enters on a new argument,
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Jeremiah 50:6
6. My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from moun-