Jeremiah had no fear of the issue being threshed out between them. The
wheat would be surely cleared from the straw.(562) That is a confidence
which attracts our trust. In the strength of it Jeremiah was enabled to
pause and reflect on the apparently equal confidence which he encountered
in his opponents, and to give this every opportunity to prove itself to
him before he repeated his own convictions. I cannot think, as many do,
that his words to Hananiah were sarcastic; and when Hananiah broke the
yoke on Jeremiah's shoulders, and it is said, _But Jeremiah went his way_,
this was not in contempt but to think out the issue between them.(563) Nor
do I feel sarcasm in his wish that his opponents' predictions of the
return of the sacred vessels from Babylon might be fulfilled.(564) His
brave calm words to the prophets and priests who sought his life in the
Temple in 604(565) bear similar testimony. All these are the marks of an
honest, patient and reflective mind which weighs opinions opposite to its
own.

Further still, Jeremiah had to his credit that of which his opponents
appear to have been devoid. As we have seen no prophet was less sure of
himself, or more reluctant to discharge the duties of a prophet.
Everywhere he gives evidence of being impelled by a force not his own and
against his will.(566) But the other prophets show no sign of this
accrediting reluctance. They eagerly launch forth on their mission; _fling
about their tongues, and rede a Rede_ of the Lord.(567) They give no
impression of a force behind them. Jeremiah says that _they run of
themselves_ and _prophesy of themselves_, they have not been sent.(568) We
still keep in mind that we owe the accounts of them to Jeremiah and
Baruch, their opponents. But our own experience of life enables us to
recognise the portraits presented to us, as of characters found in every
age: pushful men, who have no doubts of their omniscience, but, however
patriotic or religious or learned, leave upon their contemporaries no
impression of their being driven by another force than themselves, and
whose opinions either are belied by events, or melt into the air.

One point remains. In answering Hananiah Jeremiah adduced the example of
the acknowledged prophets of the past as being always prophets of doom, so
that the presumption was in favour of those who still preached doom; yet
he allowed that if any prophet promised peace, and peace came to pass, he
also might be known as g