Chapter III: Part 3

The surgeon must cut away the rotten and the dead flesh,
that the whole body be not poisoned, and so perish; even so
doth God sometimes plague our bodies grievously, that our
souls may be preserved and healed. How deep soever God
thrusteth His iron into our flesh, He doeth it only to heal
us; and if it be so that He kill us, then will He bring us
to the right life. The physician employeth one poison to
drive out another; even so God in correcting us useth the
devil and wicked people, but yet all to do us
good.--_Wermullerus,_ 1551.

[2] Sorrow is in itself a thing neither good nor bad; its value
depends on the spirit of the person on whom it falls. Fire
will inflame straw, soften iron, or harden clay; its
effects are determined by the object with which it comes in
contact. Warmth develops the energies of life, or helps the
progress of decay. It is a great power in the hothouse, a
great power also in the coffin; it expands the leaf,
matures the fruit, adds precocious vigour to vegetable
life; and warmth, too, develops with tenfold rapidity the
weltering process of dissolution. So, too, with sorrow.
There are spirits in which it develops the seminal
principle of life; there are others in which it prematurely
hastens the consummation of irreparable decay.--_F. W.
Robertson._

[3] As long as the physician hath any hope of the recovery of
his patient, he assayeth all manner of means and medicine
with him, as well sour and sharp as sweet and pleasant; but
as soon as ever he beginneth to doubt of his recovery, he
suffereth him to have whatever himself desireth. Even so
the heavenly Physician, as long as He hath any hope to
recover us, will not always suffer us to have what we most
desire; but as soon as He hath no more hope of us, then He
suffereth us for a time to enjoy all our own
pleasure.--_Wermullerus,_ 1551.

[4] It is harder to get sin felt by the creature, than the
burden, when felt, removed by the hand of a forgiving God.
Never was tender-hearted surgeon more willing to take up
the vein, and bind up the wound of his fainting patient,
when he hath bled enough, than God is by His pardoning
mercy to cast the troubled spirit of a mourning
penitent.--_Gurnall,_ 1617-1679.

TOTAL DEPRAVITY.

i. 5-8. _The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no
soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying
sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither
mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your
cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour in
your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by
strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in
a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a
besieged city._

By these powerful figures the prophet sets forth the moral corruption and its impending calamities of the people to whom he ministered. [Note that in vers. 7, 8, the prophet speaks as if the future were already present; so clear and vivid is his view of it.] +I. A whole nation may become morally corrupt.+ Vice may defile and degrade all classes of society. +II. The natural tendency of national corruption is not to abate, but to spread and increase.+ Vices are "_putrefying_ sores." As in the body physical a disease or wound in one member may poison the whole body, so in the body politic the vice of any one class tends to spread through all society.--These two considerations should lead us--1. _To pray constantly and earnestly for our country._ "Christian England" left to itself, and unrestrained by Divine grace and mercy, would soon become as Sodom and Gomorrah. 2. _Not to be selfishly indifferent to the sins of the classes of society to which we do not happen to belong._ This were as foolish as it would be for a man to give no heed to the fact that his neighbour's house was on fire, in forgetfulness or the other fact that fire spreads; or as if in the body the head were indifferent to the fact that the foot had received a poisoned wound. 3. _To put forth earnest efforts for the repression of public vices._ Mere passive reprobation of them will be of no avail. Nor can we reasonably hope that time will abate and lessen them. No; these "sores" are _"putrefying;"_ and if the body politic is ever to be restored to moral health, they must be "closed, bound up, and mollified with ointment." In some cases this "ointment" must be moral suasion, in other cases legal coercion. This principle is already recognised in regard to cockfighting, the sale of indecent books and pictures, &c. +III. In a modified sense, the declarations of our text are true of every human being.+ The doctrine of "total depravity" has been preached in such a manner as to discredit it, and statements have been made in exposition of it which would imply that every child comes into the world as wicked as Nero left it (not only depraved in every faculty, but in every faculty totally depraved!) This representation of the doctrine is contrary both to Scripture (2 Tim. iii. 13; 1 Pet. iv. 4, &c.) and to fact. But our rejection of this exaggerated form of it must not lead us to reject the doctrine itself. Our whole personality has been "depraved"--debased and deteriorated--by sin; the whole man--his affections, passions, understanding, reason, imagination, and will--has been impaired by the "fall;" just as by certain diseases _all_ the functions of the body are disordered.[1] The natural tendency of this inborn corruption is not to lessen with increasing years, but to intensify; as a matter of fact, _aged_ sinners are always the vilest and most malignant. These facts--1. _Disclose man's need of a redemptive power external to himself._ Our moral corruption is not like one of those minor diseases which are best left to "nature;" it is like a cancer or a malignant fever--if it is left to run its course, it will kill us. There is in us no _vis medicatrix_ capable of overcoming and expelling it. If we are to be restored to moral soundness, it must be by a Power external to us. 2. _Should lead us to accept with gratitude the proffered help of the Great Healer._ We all need His help. Without it we shall grow worse day by day. His help will avail for us, however desperate may be our case; as it was in the days of His flesh physically, so it is now morally and spiritually (Matt. iv. 23, 24; xiv. 36). +IV. Moral depravity brings on physical misery.+ The desolation set forth in vers. 7, 8, was the natural consequence of the depravity denounced in vers. 5, 6. By an everlasting and most righteous decree a bad character and a bad condition are linked together, and can be only for a very little while disassociated. This is true both of nations and individuals. Sin inevitably leads to sorrow. Of this fact we have ten thousand evidences in this present world. Hence also the realm of unrelieved wickedness in the realm of unmitigated woe. Were man always reasonable beings, the fearfulness and the certainty of the consequences of sin would be sufficient and prevailing arguments for repentance and amendment of life. Let them prevail with us (Ezek. xviii. 30, 21).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It is not only the inferior powers of the soul which this
plague of sin has seized, but the contagion has ascended
into the higher regions of the soul. The most supreme, most
spiritual faculty in man's mind, the understanding power of
man, is corrupted, and needs renewing. To a carnal
understanding not enlightened by the Word, this always has
been and is the greatest paradox. Indeed, when blind
reason, which thinks it sees, is judge, it is not strange
that this corruption of the understanding should be a
wonder to it. The reason, being the supreme faculty of all
the rest, which judges all else, and is judged by none but
itself, because of its nearness to itself, it least
discerns itself. As a man's eye, though it may see the
deformity of another member, yet not the bloodshot that is
in itself, but it must have a glass by which to discern it.
And so, though even corrupt nature discerns the rebellions
of the affections and sensual part of man by its own light,
as the heathens did, and complained thereof, yet it cannot
discern the infection and defilement that is in the spirit
itself, but the glass of the Word is the first that
discovers it; and when that glass is also brought, there
had need by an inward light of grace, which is opposite to
this corruption, to discover it.--_T. Goodwin,_ 1600-1679.

GOD'S RELUCTANCE TO PUNISH.

i. 9. _Except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small
remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have
been like unto Gomorrah._

God had humbled His people because of their transgressions, but He had not utterly destroyed them, as He might have done in strict justice. This reminds us--1. That the punishments that befall wicked men in this world frequently fall short of their deserts. 2. That this disproportion between guilt and chastisement occurs because God is not so much concerned to punish sin as to reclaim sinners. God chastises, in the first instance, that He may correct, and it is with reluctance that He increases the severity of His strokes.[1]

These facts should lead us--1. _To adore the divine benignity._ How worthy of our love and worship is this God who is no mere vindictive avenger of broken law, but a loving Father who chastens us, not for His pleasure, but for our profit! 2. _To gratefully acknowledge the mercy that has mingled with the judgments which our sins have drawn down upon us_ (Lam. iii. 10).[2] 3. _To shrink with abhorrence from any abuse of the divine long-suffering._ The fact that God is so reluctant to punish, instead of encouraging us in rebellion, should incite us to prompt and loving obedience. Nothing can be more _base_ than to "turn the grace of God into lasciviousness;" and nothing could be more dangerous[3] (Prov. xxix. 1).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See note [1] from outline "Needless Stripes," page 18.

[2] If in an affliction we would pour forth to God such
acceptable prayers as may obtain comfort in our crosses and
deliverance from all our calamities, we must confess our
sins, and humbly acknowledge that we deserve to be
overwhelmed with much more heavy plagues and punishments.
And so the Lord will excuse us when we accuse ourselves,
remit our sins when we remember them, and absolve us from
punishment when in all humility we acknowledge that we have
justly deserved the fearfullest of His plagues. For if we,
who have but a little of the milk of mercy, are moved with
compassion when either our sons or our servants acknowledge
their faults, and offer themselves of their own accord to
suffer that punishment which they have deserved, how can we
doubt that God, whose love and mercy towards us are
infinite and incomprehensible, will be pitiful and ready to
forgive us when He sees us thus humbled?--_Downame,_ 1644.

[3] Take heed of abusing this mercy of God. Suck not poison out
of the sweet flower of God's mercy: do not think that
because God is merciful you may go on in sin; this is to
make mercy your enemy. None might touch the Ark but the
priests, who by their office were more holy: none may touch
the ark of God's mercy but such as are received to be holy.
He that sins because of mercy shall have judgment without
mercy. Mercy abused turns to fury (Deut. xxix. 19, 20).
"The mercy of the Lord is upon them that fear Him." Mercy
is not for them that sin and fear not, but for them that
fear and sin not. God's mercy is a holy mercy; where it
pardons, it heals.--_Watson,_ 1696.

THE SUMMONS TO JERUSALEM.

i.10. _Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give
ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah._

The prophet being about to make a still more terrible announcement, puts forth a renewed call for attention. It is well worthy of our study. We find in it--

I. A STARTLING DESCRIPTION. "Rulers of Sodom, . . . people of Gomorrah." What an astonishing declaration is this, that Sodom, Gomorrah, and Jerusalem are synonymous terms! It reminds us--+1. That man may be morally alike to those from whom they think themselves the furthest removed.+ Many a Protestant who hates the very name of Rome is himself a little Pope: he never doubts his own infallibility, and is ready to anathematise all who dare to dissent from him. Many a man who has never stood in the felon's dock is a thief at heart.[1] The people of Jerusalem were ready to thank God that they were not as Sodom and Gomorrah, whereas they really resembled the people they despised. For, like the inhabitants of those guilty cities, they had been living--(1) _In habitual self-indulgence._ Self-indulgence may vary in its forms, but in its essential nature it is ever the same. The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah had pandered to the lusts of the body, the inhabitants of Jerusalem to the lusts of the mind (see vers. 17, 23; iii. 16, &c.) (2) _In habitual defiance of God._ The sins of which they were guilty were as plainly condemned in God's Word as were those by which the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah polluted themselves. All sin is rebellion against God,[2] and the manner in which we sin is comparatively unimportant (James ii. 10). If we rebel against God, it does not matter much with what weapons we fight against Him. +2. That men may be utterly unconscious of their own real character.+ Self-delusion as to character is almost universal. Man can live in the practice of gross sin without any compunction of conscience. Laodicea and the foul criminal David are at peace until the rebukes of God begin to crash like thunders over their heads (Rev. iii. 17; 2 Sam. xii. 7). As such delusion is most common, so also it is most disastrous. It renders reform impossible. It sends men blindfolded into eternity to the most appalling surprises.[3] The remedy for it is earnest, searching, prayerful self-examination, conducted in the light of God's Word.[4] +3. That God describes men according to their essential character.+ He does not take men according to their own estimates of their character and conduct, and ticked them accordingly. His description of man is often precisely the opposite of that which they would give of themselves, and even of what men would give of them. His neighbours as well as himself would doubtless have described the prosperous farmer (Luke xii. 16) as a shrewd and wise man, but God pronounced him to be a fool. So here, these men who prided themselves that they were rulers of Jerusalem, the holy city, were declared to be "rulers of Sodom," the vilest of cities. Are we quite sure that God describes _us_ as we have been accustomed to describe ourselves?

II. A SOLEMN SUMMONS. "Hear the _word_ of the Lord; . . . give ear unto the _law_ of our God." What is the law to which attention is thus emphatically called? It is the great truth announced in the following verses (11-15), that +worship offered by ungodly men is not only without value, but is positively hateful in the sight of God.+ The most flaming zeal concerning the externals of religion is often found in men of unholy life.[5] Judas was evidently so zealous in such matters as completely to delude his fellow-disciples: even when Christ announced that there was a traitor in their midst, no suspicion turned towards him; the eleven were more ready to suspect themselves than him (Matt. xxvi. 21). Attention to the externals of religion is in itself a good thing; but unless it be conjoined with integrity and benevolence, it will secure for us at the last not the commendation but the condemnation of the Judge (Matt. xxiii. 23).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] To us there seems a wide difference between the judge, with
the robes of office on his back, mind in his eye, and
dignity in his mien, and that poor, pale, haggard wretch at
the bar, who throws stealthy glances around, and hangs his
head with shame. Yet the difference that looks so great to
man may be very small in the eyes of God; and would look
small in ours if we knew the different upbringing and
history of both. The judge never knew what it was to want a
meal; the felon often went cold and hungry to bed. The one,
sprung of wise, kind, reputable, and perhaps pious parents,
was early trained to good, and launched, with all the
advantages of school and college, on an honourable and high
career; while the other, bred up a stranger to the
amenities of cultivated and Christian society, had no such
advantages. Born to misery, his struggles with misfortune
and evil began at the cradle. None ever took him by the
hand to lead him to church or school. A child of poverty,
and the offspring of abandoned parents, he was taught no
lessons but how to swear, and lie, and drink, and cheat,
and steal. The fact is, it is just as difficult for some to
be honest as it is easy for others. What merit has that
judge in his honesty? None. He has no temptation to be else
than honest. And so, I suspect, much of the morality of
that unblemished character and decent life in which many
trust, saying to some poor guilty thing, "Stand aside, I am
holier than thou," and pluming themselves on this, that
they have not sinned as others have done--is due, less to
their superior virtue, than to their more favourable
circumstances. Have they not sinned as others have done? I
reply, They have not been tempted as others have been. And
so the difference between many honest men and decent women
on the one hand, and those on the other hand on whom a
brand of infamy has been burned, and the key of a prison
turned, may be just the difference between the green branch
on the tree and the white ashes on the hearth. This is
bathed in the dews of night and fanned by the breath of
heaven, while that, once as green, has been thrust into the
burning fire--the one has been tried in a way that the
other has not.--_Guthrie._

[2] As every sin is a violation of the law, so every violation
of the law reflects upon the lawmaker. It is the same
offence to coin a penny and a piece; the same to
counterfeit the seal of a subpœna, as of a pardon. The
second table was writ by the hand of God as well as the
first, and the majesty of God, as He is the lawgiver, is
wounded in an adultery and a theft as well as in an
idolatry or a blasphemy.--_Donne,_ 1573-1631.

[3] Is there anything more terrible than a false confidence? It
is an awful thing to wake up and find that what we have
been trusting in is rotten. To embark gaily in a ship that
on mid-ocean proves to be worm-eaten, and leaky; for a man
who believed himself to be wealthy to receive tidings that
the failure of a bank has made him a beggar; for a sick man
rejoicing in the cessation of his pain to be told by his
physician that that is due only to the setting in of
mortification that precedes death;--what horrible
disappointments are these! But what poor and faint image
they furnish of the horror of that man who lives in a state
of delusion as to his spiritual condition, who dies in
peace, imagining falsely that he is Christ's, and who, when
he has traversed the valley of the shadow of death--when he
has reached that point from which there is no return, finds
that the doors of heaven are shut against him, discovers
that he is shrouded by thick darkness, and begins to feel
the fires of hell kindling upon him! Can you picture to
yourself his astonishment, his terror, his despair? Do not
tell me that such a case is not conceivable--Christ
declares that such cases are frequent (Matt. vii. 21-25).

[4] "Examine yourselves:" A metaphor from metal, that is
pierced through to see if it be gold within.
Self-examination is a spiritual inquisition set up in one's
soul: a man must search his heart for sin as one would
search a house for a traitor: or as Israel sought for
leaven to burn it.--_Watson,_ 1696.

This duty of examining and proving supposes that there is
some sure standard, which if we go by, we are sure not to
be deceived. Not that rule is the Word of God. But as in
matters of doctrine men have left the Scripture, the sure
rule, and taken up antiquity, universality, tradition, and
the like for their pride, and by this means have fallen
into the ditch; so in matters of godliness, when we should
try ourselves according to the characters and signs that
the Scripture deciphers, we take up principles in the
world, the applause of others, the conversation of most in
the world. And thus it is with us as men in an hospital,
because every one is either wounded or lame, or some way
diseases, therefore none are offensive to each
other.--_Burgess._

Men compare themselves with men, and readily with the
worst, and flatter themselves with that comparative
betterness. This is not the way to see spots, to look into
the muddy streams of profane men's lives; but look into the
clear fountain of the Word, and there we may both discern
and wash them; and consider the infinite holiness of God,
and this will humble us to the dust.--_Leighton,_ 1611-1684.

[5] Fruit-trees that bring forth the fairest and most beautiful
blossoms, leaves, and shoots, usually bring forth the
fewest and least fruits; because where nature is intent and
vigorously pressing to do one work, spending its strength
there, it is not at the same time weak about other works;
but distinct and several works of nature, in moderate and
remote degree, are all promoted at the same time. Generally
those persons who are excessive and most curious about the
forms of duties, have least of the power of godliness. The
Pharisees were extremely careful about the outside of God's
worship. So it was among us of late years; bowing at the
name of Jesus, the communion-table, surplice, common
prayer, &c.,--those and suchlike were pressed with all
eagerness and strictness. The body of religion was large
and monstrous, but without a soul: or, if any, it was lean
and feeble. These persons are like the Indian fig-tree that
Pliny speaks of, which had leaves as broad as targets, but
fruits no bigger than a bean. This is a foul fault among us
at this day: men stand more about the forms of worship than
about the power of it: they look so much after the way,
manner, and circumstances that they almost lose the
substance; things which are but as husks or shells to the
kernels, or as leaves in respect of fruits.--_Austen,_ 1656.

Many are set upon excess of ceremonies, because they are
defective in the vital parts, and should have no religion
if they had not this. All sober Christians are friends to
outward decency and order; but it is the empty
self-deceiver that is most for the unwarrantable inventions
of man, and useth the worship of God but as a masque or
puppet-show, where there are great doings with little life,
and to little purpose. The chastest woman will wash her
face; but it is the harlot, or wanton, or deformed, that
will paint it. The soberest and the comeliest will avoid a
nasty or ridiculous habit, which may make them seem
uncomely where they are not; but a curious dress and
excessive care doth signify a crooked or deformed body, or
a filthy skin, or, which is worst, an empty soul, that hath
need of such a covering. Consciousness of such greater want
doth cause them to seek these poor supplies. The gaudiness
of men's religion is not the best sign that it is sincere.
Simplicity is the ordinary attendant of sincerity. It hath
long been a proverb, "The more ceremony, the less
substance; and the more compliment, the more
craft."--_Baxter,_ 1615-1691.

REJECTED SACRIFICES.

i. 11. _To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
unto me? saith the Lord._

Try to conceive what emotions would spring up in the breasts of the men to whom these words were first addressed--men who with most scrupulous care had fulfilled the requirements of a costly ceremonial worship, the respectable, the orthodox of their day. With what indignation they would rebuke the prophet, and how triumphantly they would remind him that all the sacrifices which they offered, and all the ceremonies they observed, were of Divine appointment! And, doubtless, to their rebuke they would add a protestation that they had had a sincere delight in the services, which, they would not doubt, had come up as a sweet-smelling savour before the Lord. Both these allegations they might have made with truth, but the prophet would have dismissed them as irrelevant. What he denounced was not sacrifices, but certain sacrifices offered by particular individuals whose wickedness disqualified them for taking part in Divine worship. "To what purpose is the multitude of _your_ sacrifices," &c.

But why should the wickedness of the worshippers cause the rejection of the worship, seeing that _it_ is of Divine appointment? Because--1. _Sacrifices are in themselves worthless to God._ He does not need, nor is He enriched by our offerings (Ps. l. 7-13). 2. _Sacrifices were instituted merely to be expressions of and helps to human piety, and are worthless when there is no piety to be expressed or fostered by them._ Outward worship is to religion just what a bank-note is to commerce; it is valuable only in so far as it is really representative of something beyond itself. The worship which does not really represent penitence, faith, and love in the worshipper is a falsehood, and is necessarily repulsive to the God of truth, and to the offerer of it it is a deadly hurt. As the sunlight which develops life only hastens the putrefaction of the dead, so the very services which help to sanctify and ennoble the saintly may more completely disqualify the insincere for heaven. 3. _Piety towards God is proved, not by costly sacrifices and stately ceremonies, even though pungent emotions are experienced by those who offer and take part in them, but by its pervasive influence on the character and the life._ In family life love is proved by obedience; and to our Heavenly Father the protestations of reverence and love which are offered by men who live in disregard and defiance of His requirements are naturally and necessarily repulsive (1 Sam. xv. 22, 23). No elaborateness or costliness of ceremonial worship can atone for the absence of godliness in the lives of the worshippers; sacrifices are no equivalents for sanctification; and by the love of sin in the soul of the pretended worshipper even a divinely-appointed ritual is rendered abhorrent to God.

Judaism and its ritual are now things of the past, but men still need to be reminded of the facts now pointed out. The men of our day, after committing during the week all the sins denounced in the prophecies of Isaiah, assemble in the sanctuary on Sunday, and, because they enjoy its services, they imagine that they are well-pleasing to God, and will bring down His blessing on themselves. To-day, as of old, men need to be told plainly that public worship may be an abomination to God, and that, instead of making those who join in it more sure of heaven, it may, by confirming them in their self-delusion, make their eternal damnation more certain.

There is another side to all this. While "the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord," _"the prayer of the upright is His delight"_ (Psa. cxlvii. 11; l. 23). Concerning the "true worshippers," who "worship the Father in spirit and in truth," it is declared that "the Father _seeketh_ such to worship Him." How wonderful, how astonishing is that! That GOD, whom angels, archangels, and all the shining hosts of heaven adore, should not merely condescend to accept the worship of men upon earth, but that He should _seek_ such worship! Think much of that surprising and comforting assurance. It used to seem to me almost too wonderful to be true, but I believe and understand it now. I am helped to understand it almost every day; for almost every day my little girl steals away from her nursemaid. I hear her climbing laboriously up the stairs; it is an immense journey for her little legs; and then presently she knocks at my door, and calls me by my name. I am often busy when she comes; she interrupts me when it is not pleasant to be interrupted; but, notwithstanding, I rejoice that there is so much love for me in her heart that she thinks it worth while to climb up so far, just to see me for a moment and then be sent down again. So the marvellous _"seeketh"_ is explained by the word that comes before it! The "FATHER seeketh such to worship Him"! When His children come, and knock at His door, and call "Abba, Father!" He listens with a joy that only a father can understand.

"His saints are precious in His sight;
He views His children with delight;
He sees their hope, He knows their fear,
And looks, and loves His image there."

TRUE AND FALSE RELIGION.

i. 11, 16, 17. _To what purpose is the multitude of your
sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord. I am full of the
burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I
delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of
he-goats. . . . Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil
of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed,
judge the fatherless, plead for the widow._

What was the business of the ancient prophet? Not merely to predict events. His chief work was to make men realise vividly the presence of God. Religions, in order to their permanence, require system. But religious systems, with their creeds, forms, and ceremonies, have an inevitable tendency to coldness and deadness. The prophet was sent to counteract this tendency. It was his mission to restore to great words their great meanings, to cause moral principles to reassert themselves as the lords of conscience and of will--in a word, to prophesy on the dry bones of a decaying religion until there came upon them flesh and sinew, and there passed into them the breath of spiritual life. Such a mission was that of Isaiah. In his time religion was in a state of petrifaction, nay, rather of putrefaction. From this fact his prophetic message takes its keynote. It begins with an invective that reminds us of John the Baptist.

What was the condition of things that provoked his indignation? Not a lack of religious observances; there was a redundancy of them. That which caused a righteous anger to burn with him vehemently was their perversion of the sacrificial system to which they gloried, their dissociation of it from the moral law, to which God intended it to be only a supplement. It was given to teach men the hatefulness of sin, and the duty of consecration to God; but they separated it from the moral law, and allowed all its spiritual meaning to drop out of it. Instead of using it as a help to morality, they were making it the substitute for morality. Coming up red-handed from their murders, and reeking with their foul vices, they stood up before God, claiming His favour; for were they not sacrificing to Him, yea, in accordance with the regulations Himself had given? No wonder that a man with veracity in him and a love of righteousness should pour out upon such men and such offerings the whole wrath of his nature.

From this exposition take the following practical lessons--1. _All forms of religion have a tendency to lose their original purity and freshness._ As a stream, clear at its fountain-head, but turbid before it reaches the sea; as our planet, which physicists say was flung off at first from the sun a glowing mass of light and heat, has been cooling down ever since; so is it with religions and churches. As a rule, their history has been one of gathering accretions and of diminishing purity and power in proportion to their distance from their fountain-head. So was it with Judaism. So has it been with Christianity. Contrast Christianity as we have it in St. Paul's epistles, all aglow with fervour and love, and that of the time of Leo X., with its professed head and most of his court professed infidels, and the officials of the Church selling indulgences to sin for money! Luther lit the fire again; but Protestantism has had its illustrations of the same law. Witness the state of things in this country in the last century. In view of this fact let the Church pray for prophetic spirits who shall in each generation rekindle the dying fires; and, apart from the influence of specially-gifted men, let each Church betake itself continually to the Fountain-head of spiritual life. 2. _False religiousness is worse than none at all._ Isaiah says, not simply that such observances are of no avail with God, but that they are abominations to Him. We can see the reason. Such a religion as that which Isaiah denounced works harm to the individual and to the cause of godliness generally; to the individual, but inspiring him with a vain confidence; to the cause of godliness, by furnishing points for the shafts of ridicule, by which faith is killed in many hearts. It would be difficult to say who are the greatest promoters of infidelity--professed atheists or hypocritical religionists. 3. _It is a perilous thing to overlook the connection between impression and practice in religion._ In vers. 16 and 17, the prophet shows us what the true nexus between them is. "Your ceremonies and observances will do you no good unless you practise the morality, the judgment, mercy, and love to which they point." Our power of receiving impressions is under a directly opposite law from our power of practice. The former steadily decreases by exercise, the latter as steadily increases. This is so in religion, as well as in other things. The impression produced upon the Jews by the sacrifices would decrease as they were repeated, unless by them they were led to practical righteousness, and their whole system would in time become utterly powerless as a moral incentive; just as, if a man is for a few mornings wilfully deaf to an alarum in his bedroom, it presently loses its power even to waken him. The same law will operate with us. The preaching of the gospel is intended to produce impression, and that again to lead to practice. If the latter does not follow _at once,_ the chances are all against its ever following, because the impressions will become feebler with each repetition. A fact this for all hearers to ponder. 4. _Religious observances and machinery of all kinds have their end in the development of character._ This was so in Isaiah's time. It is so now. If their religious observances were not leading them to "cease to be evil," and to "learn to do well," but were hindering them from doing so, it were better for them to give them up. So our creeds, organisations, ministers, &c., are of use only as related to character. They are the scaffolding, character is the building; they are the tools, that the work. If no building is going on, this parade of scaffolding is an imposture, and had better be swept away.--_J. Brierley, B.A._

THE POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.

i. 13. _It is iniquity, even this solemn meeting._

+I. Public worship is a thing of Divine appointment.+ A considerable part of the earlier books of Scripture is occupied with injunctions to observe it, and with directions for its conduct. All the best men of ancient times made public worship part of the business of their lives. David, Josiah, Hezekiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah made great sacrifices that it might be duly honoured. Our Lord Himself, who set aside the traditions of men, was careful to observe this Divine ordinance; besides attending the great feasts, He attended the synagogue every Sabbath-day (Luke iv. 16). The apostles and early Christians were in this respect His true followers (Acts ii. 46; iii. 1). And we are expressly warned against neglect of it (Heb. x. 24, 25). +II. Public worship may be a means of communion with God.+ It was this possibility that induced men to build the Temple, that there might be a recognised place of meeting, not only with each other, but with God. There God did often meet with them (Ps. lxiii. 2, xxvii. 4, &c.) The temple now is wherever devout men are assembled for worship, and God, in the person of His Son, has expressly promised to be in their midst (Matt. xviii. 20). +III. Consequently public worship may be a thing of the highest profit to man.+ Upon those to whom communion with God is indeed vouchsafed, public worship exerts a transforming and ennobling influence.[1] They are uplifted for a season above the cares, the sorrows, and the joys of life; they receive new strength for the performance of life's duties and the bearing of life's burdens; from the mount of supplication they come down bearing a more real and abiding likeness to God than that which in the old time gave to the countenance of Moses an overwhelming splendour. +IV. It may also be a thing supremely acceptable to God.+ When His children assemble to unite in expressing their common thankfulness, trust, and love for Him, He listens with fatherly delight.[2] Compared with angelic worship, human worship is a very poor and imperfect thing; it is but an earthen vessel compared with a chalice of silver or of gold; but the emotions of gratitude, trust, and love with which it is filled, make it precious in His sight. There is a reversal of our Lord's saying (Matt. xxiii. 19): the rude altar is hallowed by the spiritual sacrifice.

These are some of the possibilities of public worship; but they are not the only ones. The reverse of all this may be true. The worship may be observed and offered without any real regard to the Divine will and pleasure; it may separate God and men still more widely; it may be a curse to those who partake in it, and it may be a grievous offence to the Holy One of Israel.

Let us recall some of the things in connection with public worship which are apt to satisfy men. They are such as these: a crowded assembly; sweet singing; a noble liturgy; an eloquent sermon; a large collection. When these things are combined in any service, we are apt to felicitate ourselves exceedingly. But upon that very service God may look with unqualified condemnation. The crowd may have assembled for reasons very far removed from a desire to worship God; the singing may have been merely an artistic performance; the liturgy may have been made up of prayers such as that which a newspaper described as "the most eloquent ever _addressed to a Boston audience;_" the sermon may have had for its supreme object the glorification of the preacher; the contributors to the collection may have been moved merely by a desire to place the name of their congregation at the head of the subscription-list published in the newspapers on the following day. The whole thing may have been of the earth, earthy, and this may have been God's verdict concerning it, "It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting."

What, then, are the elements in worship essential to its acceptance with God? 1. _That it be offered by His people._ Not from rebels against His authority will He accept expressions of homage;[3] in their lips such expressions are mockeries vile and horrible as those wherewith in Pilate's judgment-hall the Roman soldiers jeered at the Son of God (Matt. xxvii. 27-29). 2. _That it be offered with reverence,_ with that sweet and solemn awe which is born of a recognition of God's nearness and of His exceeding glory (Ps. lxxxix. 7).[4] 3. _That it be the expression of love_--love singing in the hymns, breathing in the prayers, awakening "godly sorrow" for the sins of the past, leading to sincere and resolute dedication of the whole being to God for the future. Where these principles animate the worshippers, they will be governed by them also in daily life; their whole life will be a service and sacrifice well-pleasing in the sight of God, and what are called their "acts of worship" will not be artificial flowers stuck on to dead and rotting branches for their adornment, but sweet, natural blossoms, upon which God will smile, and which He will pronounce "very good."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The mind is essentially the same in the peasant and the
prince; the forces of it naturally equal in the untaught
man and in the philosopher; only the one of these is busied
in meaner affairs and within narrower bounds, the other
exercises himself in things of weight and moment; and this
is that put the wide distance between them. Noble objects
are to the mind what the sunbeams are to a bud or flower:
they open and unfold, as it were, the leaves of it, put it
upon exerting and spreading itself every way, and call
forth all those powers that lie hid and locked up in it.
The praise and admiration of God, therefore, brings this
advantage along with it, that it sets our faculties upon
their full stretch, and improves them to all the degrees of
perfection of which they are capable.--_Atterbury,_
1663-1732.

[2] No doubt the prayers which the faithful put up to heaven
from under their private roofs, were very acceptable unto
Him; but if a saint's single voice in prayer be so sweet to
God's ear, much more the Church choir, His saints' prayers
in consort together. A father is glad to see any one of his
children, and makes him welcome when he visits him, but
much more when they come together, the greatest feast is
when they all meet as his house. The public praises of the
Church are the emblem of heaven itself, when all the angels
and saints make but one consort. There is a wonderful
prevalency in the joint prayers of His people. When Peter
was in prison, the Church meets and prays him out of his
enemies' hands. A prince will grant a petition subscribed
by the hands of a whole city, which maybe he would not at
the request of a private subject, and yet love him well
too. There is an especial promise to public prayer: _"Where
two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I
in the midst of them."_--_Gurnall,_ 1617-1679.

[3] If a person was to attend the levee of an earthly prince
every court-day, and pay his obeisance punctually and
respectfully, but at other times speak and act in
opposition to his sovereign, the king would justly deem
such a one an hypocrite and an enemy. Nor will a solemn and
stated attendance on the means of grace in the house of God
prove us to be God's children and friends,--if we confine
our religion to the church walls, and do not devote our
lips and lives to the glory of that Saviour we profess to
love.--_Salter._

[4] A remembrance of God's omnipresence will quell distractions
in worship. The actual thoughts of this would establish our
thoughts, pull them back when they begin to rove, and blow
off all the froth that lies on the top of our spirits. An
eye taken up with the presence of one object is not at
leisure to be filled with another; he that looks intently
upon the sun shall have nothing for a while but the sun in
his eye. Oppose to every intruding thought the idea of the
Divine omnipresence, and put it to silence by the awe of
His majesty. When the master is present, scholars mind
their books, keep their place, and run not over the forms
to play with one another; and the master's eye keeps an
idle servant to his work, that otherwise would be gazing at
every straw, and prating to every passenger. How soon would
the remembrance of this dash all extravagant fancies out of
countenance, just as the news of the approach of a prince
would huddle up their vain sports, and prepare themselves
for a reverent behaviour in his sight. We should not dare
to give God a piece of our heart, when we apprehend Him
present with the whole; we should not dare to mock one that
we knew were more inwards with us than we are with
ourselves, and that beheld every motion of our mind as well
as action of our body.--_Charnock,_ 1628-1680.

I have sometimes had the misfortune to sit in concerts
where persons would chatter and giggle and laugh during the
performances of the profoundest passages of the symphonies
of the great artists; and I never fail to think, at such
times, "I ask to know neither you, nor your father and
mother, nor your name: I know what you _are,_ by the way
you conduct yourself here--by the want of sympathy and
appreciation which you evince respecting what is passing
around you." We could hardly help striking a man who should
stand looking upon Niagara Falls without exhibiting
emotions of awe and admiration. If we were to see a man
walk through galleries of genius, totally unimpressed by
what he saw, we should say to ourselves, "Let us be rid of
such an unsusceptible creature as that."

Now I ask you to pass upon yourselves the same judgment.
What do you suppose angels that have trembled and quivered
with ecstatic joy in the presence of God, think when they
see how indifferent you are to the Divine love and goodness
in which you are perpetually bathed, and by which you are
blessed and sustained every moment of your lives? How can
they do otherwise than accuse you of monstrous ingratitude
and moral insensibility, which betoken guilt as well as
danger?--_Beecher._

GOD OPPRESSED.

i.14. _Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul
hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear
them._

It is the Almighty who here speaks, and His speech is a protest to men who imagined that by their worship they would conciliate and please Him. Their worship He rejects: it was polluted by the pollution of those who offered it. Instead of cleansing them, as they vainly dreamed, they had defiled it. It is the Almighty who speaks, and in what terms of intensity of pain! He speaks as one who has long been burdened by a load that has at length become intolerable. Strictly speaking, it is of worship offered to Him by ungodly men that He here expressed His abhorrence; but it is not conceivable--it is contrary to repeated declarations of His Word to suppose--that this is the only form of human transgression that is grievous to Him; and therefore we may fairly widen our contemplation, and consider--

+I. God's sensibility to human sin.+ God is unchangeable; with Him there is no fickleness or caprice (James i. 17); this is one of the glories of His nature. But how strangely have philosophers and theologians interpreted this sublime declaration! They have presented us with a deity impassive as the stars, which shine with equal splendour upon the display of great virtues and the perpetration of hideous crimes, calm, serene, undisturbed by anything that takes place on earth. Not such is the God of the Bible. He thrills with intensest emotions of delight or of disapprobation, of joy or of sorrow (Jer. ix. 24; Nahum i. 6; Zeph. iii. 17; Gen. iii. 6). Let philosophers call these "anthropomorphic representations" if they will, but words have no meaning if such declarations do not teach that God is stirred by emotions which are determined by the character and conduct of men. He is no cast-iron deity: He is "the living God." Sin is hateful to Him, because 1. _It is an infraction of that order which He has established for the moral well-being of the universe._ As the Sovereign of the universe, He is bound to resent and to punish any injury done to the meanest of His subjects.[1] 2. _It is a defiance of His authority._ Every sinner is a rebel against the authority of the King of kings; and that king would be unworthy of his crown who could see his authority defied without feeling any emotion of displeasure, or without taking steps to vindicate his authority. It was precisely this selfish and pusillanimous weakness that made our Stephen despised and hated by his subjects. With God there is longsuffering and tender mercy, but there is no weakness. Sin is more than a defiance of God's authority; it is--3. _An offence against His feelings._ It is contrary to what we may call His instincts.[2] That which is contrary to our best instincts fills us with disgust and anger. What profound emotion is stirred in a man of generosity and benevolence by a story of oppression and wrong! _e.g.,_ the effect upon David of Nathan's parable (2 Sam. xii. 5). Whole communities have been roused to uncontrollable indignation by a crime of unusual atrocity, even though no member of the community has been directly affected thereby. "Lynch Law." So all sin, as sin, arouses the Divine disgust and indignation. "My _soul_ hateth." 4. _It is a degradation of those whom God loves._ We all condemn and loathe drunkenness; but who of us loathes it as does that mother who is being hurried by it to an untimely and dishonoured grave? God loves us more than any mother ever loved her son, and His hatred of sin is proportioned by His love for us whom it degrades and destroys.[3] 5. _It is often a wrong inflicted on those whom He loves._ Few men sin without wronging others as well as themselves. Now with what anger do we burn when we detect our children defrauding and oppressing each other! But between the sputtering of a lucifer-match and the glowing fires of a volcano, there is not so much disparity as between the anger which the spectacle of sins against brotherhood kindles in us and that which it rouses in God (Jer. ix. 9). To form any adequate conception of the offensiveness of sin to God, we must remember that these considerations do not operate singly, but operate in combination to make it hateful to Him. How marvellous, then, is His endurance of it! Consider, then--