Another word Calvin frequently uses to describe the Jews’ hearts is “perfidy.” They were treacherous and disloyal, hardened and hypocritical. They would state they wanted to be holy but never acted so. All this gave (and gives) heathens reason to profane God’s name.
The Jews were, from the least to the greatest, given up to avarice. There was no justice for the common people, but fraud, violence, plunder and injustice abounded, and the prophets and priests were just as deceitful. Every one was addicted to his own gain, so that they practiced mutual wrongs without any regard to what was right and just. They ignored the natural disasters that should have caught their attention, and God permitted their prosperity as cattle are fattened for the slaughter.
Calvin writes of Jeremiah 8:12, “The Prophet in these words shews still more clearly that they were wholly irreclaimable; for they had divested themselves of every shame. It is no doubt a proof of a wickedness past all remedy, when no shame remains… the wickedness of the people was unhealable, and for this reason, because they had an iron front…” Later he says, “It is right that judgment should begin at the house of God, as it is elsewhere said. (I Peter 4:17) God indeed will not pass by anything without punishing it: hence the heathens must at last stand before his tribunal. But as he is nearer to his Church, their impiety, who profess themselves to be as it were his domestics, is less tolerable…”
God therefore forbids Jeremiah to pray for the people, but Calvin states that this prohibition is to be understood in relation to their exile; the people would be banished from the promised land, and that decree was immutable. Jeremiah could, though, ask God’s forgiveness in behalf of the whole people, or at least in behalf of the godly who still remained.
“The Prophet might indeed pray in a certain way for the whole people, that is, that God, being satisfied with their temporal punishment, would at length spare the miserable with regard to eternal life: he might have also prayed for the remnant; for he knew that there was some seed remaining, though hidden; nay, he was himself one of the people, and he not only knew that some true servants of God were still remaining, but he had also some friends of his own, whose piety was sufficiently known to him. God, therefore, did not strictly exclude all his prayers, but every prayer with regard to the exile which was soon to be undergone by the people...
“Except we bear in mind this circumstance, the prohibition might seem strange; for we know that it is one of the first duties of love to be solicitous for one another before God, and thus to pray for the wellbeing of our brethren. (James 5:16) It is not then the purpose of God to deprive the Prophet of this holy and praiseworthy feeling, which is necessarily connected with true religion; but his design was to shew, that it was now in vain to implore him for the remission of that punishment which had been determined.”
So there we have it. A time may come for us in our own country when we are forbidden to pray for its deliverance and success. Nevertheless, it would be right to pray for our countrymen who are hardened, blind, torpid and perfidious, that they might be guided to salvation.