It  is  at  this  point  that  Jeremiah  stands,  who  despairs
of  the  community  as  it  now  is,  as  all  the  prophets  do,
but  who  looks  forward  to  a  new  Church  of  God  made
up  of  members,  gathered  together  one  to  one  by  an
operation  of  Jehovah  with  each.  Hence  Jeremiah's  idea
of  sin  is  not  only  national,  but  profoundly  personal :
"  The  heart  is  deceitful  above  all  things,  and  desperately
wicked"  (xvii.  9);  "this  people  hath  a  revolting  and  a
rebellious  heart"  (v.  23);  the  house  of  Israel  are  "un-
circumcised  in  heart"  (ix.  26);  "I  will  give  them  a  heart
to  know  Me  "  (xxiv.  7)  ;  "  Blessed  is  the  man  that  trusteth
in  the  Lord  .  .  .  I,  the  Lord,  search  the  heart,  I  try  the
reins  "  (xvii.  7,  10) ;  "I  will  write  ,  .  .  My  law  upon  their
heart"  (xxxi.  33).  And  the  reconstruction  which  such  a
prophet  looks  forward  to,  or  which  is  looked  forward  to  in
the  second  half  of  Isaiah,  is,  so  far  as  its  moral  and  religious
character  goes,  nothing  short  of,  and  nothing  else  than,
Christianity.  These  prophets  expect  it  soon.  They  couple
it  with  the  restoration  from  exile ;  they  bring  it  down  upon
a  condition  of  the  world  externally  resembling  that  in


CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  SIN  231

their  own  day.  We  have  to  distinguish  between  their
religious  thoughts  themselves  and  their  ideal  reconstructions
of  the  external  world.  These  were  constructions  which,
living  in  that  ancient  world,  they  had  to  make  ;  for  no
other  materials  were  at  their  hand.  But  the  ideas  which
they  expressed  through  their  great  fabrics  of  imagination
abide,  the  inheritance  of  all  the  ages.  They  built  on  the
true  foundation  gold,  silver,  precious  stones.  Time  wastes
even  these  costly  but  earthly  fabrics,  and  we,  as  we  live  age
after  age,  have  to  replace  them  with  materials  to  serve  our
use,  which  shall  probably  decay  too,  and  future  generations
will  have  to  body  out  the  eternal  ideas  in  other  materials.
