The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

232 THE LAMENTATIONS UE JEREMIAH
hindrance to reconciliation with our Father is our
failure to recognise that any such reconciliation is
necessary. The most deadening effect of sin is seen
in the fact that it prevents the sinner from perceiving
that he is at enmity with God at all, although by every-
thing he does he proclaims his rebellion. The Pharisee
of the parable cannot be justified, cannot really approach
God at all, because he will not admit that he needs any
justification, or is guilty of any conduct that separates
him from God. Just as the most hopeless state of ignor-
ance is that in which there is a serene unconsciousness
of any deficiency of knowledge, so the most abandoned
condition of guilt is the inabilit}^ to perceive the very
existence of guilt. The sick man Vv'ho ignores his
disease will not resort to a physician for the cure of it.
If the soul's quarrel with her Lord is ever to be ended
it must be discovered. Therefore the first step will be
in the direction of self-examination.
We are led to look in this direction by the startling
thought with which the previous triplet closes. If the
calamities bewailed are the chastisements of sin it is
necessary for this sin to be sought out. The language
of the elegist suggests that we are not av;are of the
nature of our own conduct, and that it is only
by some serious effort that we can make ourselves
acquainted with it, for this is what he implies when he
represents the distressed people resolving to "search
and try " their ways. Easy as it may seem in words,
experience proves that nothing is more difficult in
practice than to fulfil the precept of the philosopher,
" Know thyself" The externalism in which most of
our lives are spent makes the effort to look within
a painful contradiction of habit. When it is attempted
pi'ide and prejudice iace the inquirer, and too often