The old paths.
I. CONSIDER THE RECOMMENDATION TO FOLLOW THE OLD PATHS.
1. The course of life should be determined after thoughtful deliberation. Jeremiah is to "stand in the ways and see." It is foolish to go with the multitude without individual convictions of what is right, or to follow our own private impulses blindly and aimlessly.
2. The choice should fall on a good way. Other ways may be smooth, pleasant, flowery at the starting, only to lose themselves in the pathless wilderness, while this may look more rugged and steep at first; but it should not be the present attractiveness, but the direction, the whole course and the end of a way, which should determine our choice of it.
3. There are old paths of right. Religion has not to be made anew. It is not left for the latest saint to discover the way of holiness.
4. Having found the right way, we should forthwith "walk therein." Knowledge is useless without practice; nay, guilt is aggravated if, knowing the right, we follow the wrong.
5. In the right way is rest for the soul. Even while on the earthly pilgrimage many quiet resting-places may be found (Psalms 23:2), through all the course an inward peace may be enjoyed (Proverbs 3:17), and at the end will be found the perfect rest of the home of God (Hebrews 4:9).
II. CONSIDER THE GROUNDS ON WHICH THIS RECOMMENDATION IS BASED.
1. Old ways have been tested by experience. We choose for a guide one who has already traversed the country. In an unknown land we naturally turn to beaten tracks in preference to following stray footprints across the wild, or striking out for ourselves a pathless way. If others have done rough pioneer work, why should not we avail ourselves of it? If they have reached the goal, they have proved that it is attainable by their way. This is fact; that a new way will be easier or shorter is conjecture. There is, therefore, a presumption in favor of the old.
2. Old ways in religion are nearer to the original fountains of inspiration. Israel was referred back to the old ways marked out by Moses, the great founder of the Jewish faith. Christians are referred back to primitive Christianity, to the teaching of the apostles, to the life and example of Christ. Christianity is not a speculation, a creation of the spirit of the age. It is a tradition, a following of those Divine counsels which are indicated in the New Testament.
III. CONSIDER THE LIMITATIONS TO THE APPLICATION OF THIS RECOMMENDATION.
1. The old ways are to be followed only in so far as they are good. Still we must judge by our own conscience. Antiquity must not be taken as a despotic master. There are bad old ways. The first-born man struck out an evil way; it was left to Abel, the second-born, to show the better course.
2. In considering the character of an old way, we must take note of the character and light of those who founded it. There have been dark ages in the past. Corruption soon crept in. Things are not good just in proportion to their age. Christians must look, not to the Puritans, the Reformers the mediaeval Church, the Fathers, but, passing numerous errors and corruptions, reach back to Christ himself for the true old way. He is the Way (John 14:6).
3. We must ever progress beyond the attainments of the past. We are to follow those old ways that are good; we are to build on the one foundation. But we are not to be content with having the foundation. The fabric must rise higher and higher (1 Corinthians 3:11-15). Christianity is a religion of progress. It is not to be subject to revolutions. Progress must follow the lines laid down by Christ and his apostles. Christianity is not strengthened nor adorned, but only burdened and hidden, by a mere accretion of human ideas and institutions; yet it is a seed which grows, developing larger, fuller life out of its own essential principles (Matthew 13:31). Jeremiah himself took a great stride forward beyond the limits attained by antiquity, though in the direction of the old path, i.e. in the spirit of the religion of his fathers (Jeremiah 31:31-34). "These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we count ancient, ordine retrogrado, by a computation backwards from ourselves" (Francis Bacon).