Chapter XXXIX: Part 39

+III. They show a spirit of industrious perseverance.+ Their hands responded to the impulse of their hearts. What they were ready to say they were ready to do. They were prepared by hard, persevering toil to make good their hope. These men of Israel were at this time without God, but they were not without common sense. They dreamed not that by mere wishing their ruined walls would rise again. If they wanted new temples and goodly cedars, they must build and plant them. The moral here is plan (Matt. vii. 21). Hoping will not do everything. It must be backed by earnest effort. The way to heaven is not reached by flying, but by toiling. I am a son of God; let me then subscribe myself "Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ." Beautiful city of God! we hope some day to reach thy gates of pearl and enter it, but till then--

"Many a sorrow, many a labour,
Many a tear."

To your hope add diligence. Watch and wait, but forget not to work.

+IV. They improve matters.+ These tumble-down buildings were, after all, but brick; but now they would build, not with bricks, but with hewn stones. Around them had flourished sycamores, but now that these were cut down they would plant cedars. Such is the spirit of the world. To-day is to be an improvement upon yesterday. _"Excelsior"_ is added to _"Nil Desperandum."_ Is not this the spirit which ought to animate us? There is no temper but may be improved. You never did a thing for Jesus, let it be ever so trifling, but you may do better next time you try. The text speaks to us of failure and ruin; and it shows us that out of these greater and better efforts arose. So should it be with us. Has your faith given way under the severe strain put upon it? Then for the future you must not only have faith, but stronger faith. In the pride and stoutness of their hearts Israel said, "In the future we will do better than we did before;" and we must say, not in the pride of our hearts, but in humble dependence upon God, strengthened with His might, "We count not ourselves to have attained, neither are we already perfect; but this one thing we do," (Phil. iii. 13, 14).

CONCLUSION.--Looking at what Israel proposed to do, three words are suggested, which would be good motto words for us to adopt. They are _strength, beauty, growth._ 1. "We will build with stones." They would now erect a strong building, one not easily to be overthrown. This should be our first concern. We are building not for time, but for eternity. What is to last must be strong. 2. They said, moreover, "We will build with hewn stones;" we shall go in for beauty as well as for strength. Some of us are strong, but we are lacking in beauty. We are robust characters, but we are also rough. There is a more excellent way. Perfection of character is reached only in so far as strength and beauty are blended together. 3. There must also be growth. Israel resolved to plant cedars, trees which should live and grow on for centuries. So we, rooted and grounded in faith, and love, and hope, should grow up in strength and beauty. So, on and on--changing bricks for hewn stones, and sycamores for cedars.--_Adam Scott: Christian World Pulpit,_ vol. xvii. pp. 230-232.

THE DIFFUSION OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.

(_For Whit-Sunday._)

xi. 9. _The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the
Lord, as the waters cover the sea._

It was promised that "the waters should no more become a flood to destroy all flesh;" and yet a flood there was to be, all-compassing, all-absorbing, in God's good time and in His merciful foreknowledge when He spake the former world; but not to destroy all flesh, but to save it; and in the season the rain of grace descended (xlv. 8; Matt. vii. 29; Ps. xcviii. 8).

How different a fulfilment was this from that for which the apostles had been waiting! No doubt they imagined that such as Christ had been would be the Paraclete who was to come--One whose individuality and intelligence they could not doubt, and need not take on faith. When they were waiting for the Angelic Messenger, Prophet, and Lawgiver, One higher than all created strength and wisdom suddenly came down upon them; yet not as a Lord and Governor, but as an agency or power (Acts ii. 2-4).

Such was the coming of the Comforter, He who is infinitely personal, who is the One God, absolutely, fully, perfectly, simply; He it was who vouchsafed to descend upon the apostles, and that as if not a Person, but as an influence or quality, by His attribute of ubiquity diffusing Himself over their hearts, filling all the house, poured over the world, as wholly here as if He were not there, and hence vouchsafing to be compared to the inanimate and natural creation, to water and wind, which are of so subtle a nature, or so penetrating a virtue, and of so extended a range. And most exactly have these figures, which He condescended to apply to Himself, been fulfilled--

I. IN THE COURSE OF THE DISPENSATION OF THE SPIRIT. His operation has been calm, equable, gradual, far-spreading, overtaking, intimate, irresistible. What is so awfully silent, so mighty, so inevitable, so encompassing as a flood of water? Fire alarms from the first: we see it and we scent it; there is crashing and downfall, smoke and flame; it makes an inroad here and there; it is uncertain and wayward;--but a flood is the reverse of all this. It gives no tokens of its coming; it lets man sleep through the night, and they wake and find themselves hopelessly besieged; prompt, secret, successful, and equable, it preserves one level; it is everywhere; there is no refuge. And it makes its way to the foundations; towers and palaces rear themselves as usual; they have lost nothing of their perfection, and give no sign of danger, till at length suddenly they totter and fall. And here and there it is the same, as if by some secret understanding; for by one and the same agency the mighty movement gone on here and there and everywhere, and all things seem to act in concert with it, and to conspire together for their own ruin. And in the end they are utterly removed, and perish from off the face of the earth. Fire, which threatens more fiercely, leaves behind it relics and monuments of its agency; but water buries as well as destroys; it wipes off the memorial of its victims from the earth.

Such was the power of the Spirit in the beginning, when He vouchsafed to descend as an invisible wind, as an outpoured flood. Thus He changed the whole face of the world. For a while men went on as usual, and dreamed not what was coming: and when they were roused from their fast sleep, the work was done; it was too late for aught else but impotent anger and a hopeless struggle. The kingdom was taken away from them and given to another people. The ark of God moved upon the face of the waters. It was borne aloft by the power, greater than human, which had overspread the earth, and it triumphed, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."

II. IN EVERY HUMAN HEART TO WHICH HE COMES. By attending to the figure we shall understand (what concerns us most intimately) whether we are personally under His influence, or are deceiving ourselves. 1. _Any spirit which professes to come to us alone and not to others, which makes no claim of having moved the body of the Church at all times and places, is not of God, but a private spirit of error_ (Ps. lxv. 10-12). 2. _Vehemence, tumult, confusion, are no attributes of that benignant flood with which God has replenished the earth._ That flood of grace is sedate, majestic, gentle in its operations. If at any time it seems to be violent, that violence is occasioned by some accident or imperfection of the earthen vessels into which it vouchsafed to pour itself, and is not token of the coming of Divine Power. Ecstasies and transports often proceed from false spirits, who are but imitating heavenly influences as best they may, and seducing souls to their ruin. 3. _The Divine baptism wherewith God visits us penetrates through the whole soul and body._ It leaves no part of us uncleansed, unsanctified. It claims the whole man for God. It is everywhere, in every faculty, every affection, every design, every work (2 Cor. x. 5). Thus--

III. THE HEART OF EVERY CHRISTIAN OUGHT TO REPRESENT IN MINIATURE THE WHOLE CHURCH. One Spirit makes the whole Church and every member of it to be His temple. As He gives peace to the multitude of nations, who are naturally in discord one with another, so does He give an orderly government to the soul, and set reason and conscience as sovereigns over the inferior parts of our nature. As He leavens each rank and pursuit of the community with the principles of the doctrine of Christ, so does that same Divine leaven spread through every thought of the mind, every member of the body, till the whole is sanctified. And let us be quite sure that these two operations of the Spirit depend upon each other. We cannot hope for peace at home while we are at war abroad. We cannot hope for unity of the faith if we are at our own private will make a faith for ourselves. Break unity in one point, and the fault runs through the whole body. The flood of God's grace keeps its level, and if it is low in one place it is low in another.

CONCLUSION.--As we would forward that blessed time when the knowledge of the Lord will in its fulness cover the earth, as the waters cover their bed, let us look at home, and wait on God for the cleansing and purifying of ourselves. Till we look at home, no good shall we be able to perform for the Church at large; we shall but do mischief when we intend to do good, and to us will apply that proverb, "Physician, heal thyself." And let us not doubt that if we do thus proceed we shall advance the cause of Christ in the world. Let us but raise the level of religion in our hearts, and it will rise in the world. And, meantime, we shall have our true reward, which is personal, consisting in no mere external privileges, however great, but in the "water of life," of which we are allowed to take freely (Ps. xxxvi. 7-9; i. 3; Isa. xxxii. 18; Ps. xxiii. 2).--_John Henry Newman: Subjects of the Day,_ pp. 126-136.

THE PROUD CITY DOOMED.

xiii. 1. _The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of
Amoz did see._

In 2 Kings xvii. we find an account of the invasion of Israel by the Assyrians (vers. 1-6). Then follows a long enumeration of the sins which had brought this Divine visitation upon the ten tribes, ending with the words, "So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day" (ver. 23). If the scourge was no longer in the hands of the king of Assyria, it would be transferred to other hands not less terrible.

1. Would this scourge destroy the life of the Jewish nation? This was the awful question which presented itself to the minds of the prophets when they saw one and another limb of this nation lopped off, when they saw that a great numerical majority of the tribes would be carried away. Isaiah's eyes were opened to see whence the permanence of the race was derived, how great critical moments in its life discovered Him who was everlastingly present with it. The child born in hours of trouble and rebuke had borne witness to him of the continuance of the regal family as well as of the people of God's covenant, when the rage of their enemies as well as of their own faithlessness were threatening them with destruction. Nor was this all. In the miserable, heartless reign of Ahaz the vision had been presented to him of a "Rod coming out of the stem of Jesse, which should stand for an ensign of the people. To it should the Gentiles seek, and His rest should be glorious." Consider _the Rod out of Jesse, what it betokened_ (Isa. xi. 10-12). The immediate fruits which Isaiah saw coming out of this root might have appeared in the days of any patriotic and prosperous prince, and did actually appear in the latter days of Hezekiah. No doubt Hezekiah might become, and did actually become, "an ensign to the nations," just as Solomon had been before him, one to whom they brought presents, whose alliance they sought, whose elevation out of a deep calamity was a proof that some mighty God was with him. But--

2. Though we need not seek in any more distant days than those of Hezekiah for a very satisfactory fulfilment of these predictions (and let it never be forgotten that what may seem to us, when we look back over 3000 years, an exaggerated description of deliverance and restoration, must have seemed inadequate and almost cold to those who experienced the blessing),--though Hezekiah was a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and though the Spirit of the Lord did rest upon him (xi. 2),--though the peacefulness and order of his last years might faithfully carry out the symbols of the wolf and the lamb lying down together, yet it was no less impossible for the prophet to think chiefly of Hezekiah when he was uttering these words than it would have been for him to fancy that he was the King whom he saw sitting on the throne, and his train filling the temple in the year that Uzziah died (chap. vi. 1-4). There was, however, this great blessing which came to Isaiah from his being able to connect the Divine King with an actual man--the belief that a man must embody and present the Godhead, that only in a man could its blessedness and glory appear, acquired a force and vividness from his hope of Hezekiah's government and from his actual experience of it, which we may say, without rashness or profaneness, would have been otherwise wanting in him. In using that language, we are only affirming that any method but the one which we know the Divine Wisdom has adopted for conveying a truth to a man's spirit must be an imperfect method. Hezekiah's existence was necessary to the instruction of Isaiah, and through him of all generations to come. Perhaps Shalmaneser and Sennacherib were, in another way, scarcely less necessary.

Apparently the prophet passes in this chapter to an entirely new subject. The Assyrian seems to be forgotten. He opens with the burden of Babylon; he goes on to the burden of Damascus, &c. But Babel or Babylon represented to the prophets the attempt to establish a universal society, not upon the acknowledgment of the Divine care and protection, but upon the acknowledgment of a mere power in nature against which men must try to measure their own. The order and history of the Jewish nation were made, from age to age, silently to testify against it. "Babylon is the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency" (ver. 19); her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged (ver. 22). But these and similar words must refer to more than the destruction of a certain Chaldean city then or afterwards. How can we limit them to it when we find such words as those in vers. 11-13? Instead of being, as some suppose, an interpolated fragment, the burden of Babylon comes in to make all the visitations upon the other tribes of the earth intelligible. They are diverse but harmonious portions of the same Divine message to man--a message of terror, but also of deliverance and hope. In chap. xiv. we find how wonderfully these are combined.

But though most feel something of the grandeur of this poetry, and a few the truth of this prophecy, we do not enough consider upon what both are founded. The God-Man was the ground upon which the Jewish nation stood; here you have the contrast--the man-god; he would ascend up to heaven and exalt his throne above the stars of God. This is the natural ruler of a society which counts the gold of Ophir more precious than human beings. We have here the Babylonian power and the Jerusalem power, that parody of human and Divine greatness which is seen in an earthly tyrant, that perfect reconciliation of Divinity and humanity which is seen in the Redeemer. Consider both images well. Both are presented to us; we must admire and copy one of them; and whichever we take, we must resolutely discard the other. If we have ever mixed them together in our minds, a time is at hand that will separate them for ever. The Babylonian mark and image, your own evil nature, a corrupt society, the evil spirit, have been striving to stamp you ever since your childhood. Each hour you are tempted to think a man less precious than the gold of Ophir; the current maxima of the world take for granted that he is; you in a thousand ways are acting on those maxims. Oh, remember that in them, and in the habits which they beget, lies the certain presage of slavery for men and nations, the foretaste of decay and ruin, which no human contrivances can avert, which the gifts and blessings of God's providence only accelerate. May God grant us power to cast Babylonian principles out of our hearts, that when they come before us we may despise them and laugh them to scorn, knowing that not against us but against the Holy One the enemy is exalting himself. In that day may we be able to sing the song which the prophet said should be sung in the land of Judah (xxvi. 1-4).--_F. D. Maurice, M.A.: Prophets and Kings,_ pp. 272-290.

TRUE NATIONAL GREATNESS.

xix. 1-3, 14. _The burden of Egypt, &c._

The prophecies of Isaiah take a wide range, embrace the fortunes of almost every nation, however remote, with whom the Israelites were brought into common relation, whether of policy or commerce--Moab, Damascus, Tyre, Babylon, Ethiopia, Egypt. The prophet records the political and social phenomena of his day, not with the eye of a mere statesman or diplomatist, but as reviewing the moral as well as the political aspects of things, the eternal governing laws as well as the fitful moods and changes of a nation's life, the spiritual as well as the material forces of the world.

Israel, in their dread of the great Assyrian monarchy, often cast wistful eyes towards Egypt, where they hoped to find a sure and powerful ally. The Egyptians accepted their subsidies, but thought they consulted their own interests best by observing what has been called amongst ourselves a "masterly inactivity." Their strength was to sit still. They had a large standing army; but as Rabshakeh showed, on a memorable occasion, that he knew (chap. xxxvi. 6) the nation, with all its outward semblance of prosperity, was being eaten up with a thousand moral and social cankers, which corrupted the very source of all national life. This chapter lays bare those wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.

1. _There was a day when Egypt had been famous for its wisdom._ This wisdom had become a thing of the past (vers. 11, 12).

2. _There was no unity of purpose, no coherence of action in the body politic._ The true ideas of the family, of the municipality, of the nation, were lost. Every man was fighting against his brother (ver. 2). It is history eternally repeating itself; it is the lament of Thucydides over Greece; of Horace, Livy, and Tacitus over the corruption of guilty imperialism, and over the absence of the masculine, simple, republican virtues of ancient Rome.

3. _With the decay of public virtue comes the decay of public spirit, and then soon follows the decay of national strength._ Then comes what these old Hebrew seers called the "judgment;" God coming out of His place to visit the earth; anarchy, internal dissolution, collapse, conquest by the foreigner; the giving over of the nation into the hand of a cruel lord; the establishment of a military despotism.

It were easy to point these remarks elsewhere, but let us look at home. Many feel that during the last decade of years or more England has been parting with many of her old traditions. Some of those principles which were merely corrupt remnants of a social and political system which has passed away--feudalism--we have undoubtedly gained by losing. _But there are others which we have lost, or are fast losing, to the great detriment of the commonwealth._ The high sense of duty to the State overruling the sense of interest in the individual citizen; the true measure of a nation's wealth and greatness, not by its revenue in pounds sterling, but by its revenue in the heavenly bodies, and honest hearts, and pure, healthy homes of the people; the noble, self-sacrificing spirit of devotion to the call of duty; the principle of right recognised as a higher principle than that of expediency; a temper of loyalty in the strict sense of the word, of willing obedience to the law and those who represent the law; strict commercial integrity, and not the tricks of trade which have been generated by an unwholesome competition--these are maxims of ancient wisdom which made England great, and the loss of which will make England small. Our greatness, whatever it has been, has not rested so much upon material forces, but, like Israel's of old, upon moral. We can only hope that our position among the peoples will be maintained as long as we hold fast the principles by which it was won. These privileges are not things of chance, but the direct result of moral laws as immutable and irreversible as the laws which govern the physical world. God send us statesmen who will turn the nation's mind away from delusive and partisan aims, and direct them seriously to efforts which may unite us all in one great crusade against evil; in which every soldier might certainly feel that he was fighting under the banner of Christ, in a righteous war, for objects which surely have a place in the redemption which Christ accomplished for the world.--_Bishop Fraser: Christian World Pulpit,_ vol. xvii. pp. 177, 178.

A MOMENTOUS INQUIRY.

xxi. 11. _Watchman, what of the night?_

Some calamity or sad moral condition is foreseen by the prophet. Moral evil is fitly compared to darkness. The term "night" is used to express error and sin. This was a time of darkness. The burden of Dumah was: "Watchman, what of the night?" What is the prospect? Are there any signs of coming day?

The world in its moral history had been for the most part in darkness. It commenced with a bright and sinless morning; but this was succeeded by a time of dark clouds and desolating storms. After the Deluge the world started anew from another head. The new world, however, differed but little from the old. Then God called Abraham, and made his seed His chosen people, through whom He might accomplish His beneficent designs. Outside of Judea there was not much to dispel the darkness. Greece furnished a Socrates and a Plato; but because of her vices and crimes Greece soon went down to ruin. The once magnificent empires Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome were alike involved in the moral night of error and sin. We may inquire, as the voice out of Seir did, "Watchman, what of the night?" What prospect is there for this sin-darkened world? And we may respond in the words of the prophet: "The morning cometh." The morning cometh; but also the night--a night whose duration we may not be able to tell.

+I. How will this inquiry apply to Isaiah's time?+ It was indeed for the chosen people a time of darkness. But the day is about to break! The breathings of better things come like the morning air. "The morning cometh," but also the night--the morning to the sad-hearted Jews, but the night to others--to the Idumeans, who had long cherished unfriendly feelings to the Jews, and appear to have rejoiced in their sorrow. The voice from Dumah was probably a sneering taunt, "Where is now your God in whom ye trusted?"

Isaiah had a grander vision and saw another morning. The long night of the olden dispensation still lingered, but the prophet saw the breaking day, and told of the advent of One who was to be the light and glory of the world (ix. 6, 7, lx. 2, 3, 20). The vision which Isaiah saw we also are permitted to see. To him it was the Saviour to come, to teach, to suffer, to scatter the darkness; to us it is the Saviour who _has_ come, and taught, and suffered, and died, and rose again, and whose glorious light has not only gilded the mountain-tops, but is spreading over all the whole land. And there are signs which will not fail that his grandest visions will be realised.

+II. How will this inquiry apply to our own times?+ 1. What mysteries has science unveiled! How great the historical and geographical research of our day! How successful our time has been in bringing unity out of the variety of the universe and harmony out of its apparent discord! 2. Ours has been a time of moral progress. Slavery has been abolished from our realm. A great work has been done for the arrest of intemperance. The cause of missions has grown into large proportions. 3. The religious progress of the world is remarkable. Religious liberty is rapidly spreading. There is encouraging advance in the social or loving element. In the Church the working element is growing. Never has the giving element assumed such proportions. Amid this varied growth there is a strong tendency towards Christian unity. The enemy is vigilant; it is yet the night of battle, of temptation, and of peril, but the morning surely cometh.

+III. How will this inquiry apply to ourselves personally?+ 1. _There is a night of scepticism,_ or partial scepticism, in which some are involved. There are two classes of sceptics: some are sceptics because they want to be so; some are honest doubters, as Thomas the disciple was--constitutionally a doubter, but honest withal. And therefore he did not turn away from the light, and "My Lord and my God!" exclaimed the enlightened, convinced, and believing Thomas. To the earnest and sincere inquirer the response must be, "The morning cometh;" if thou art willing to be convinced, thou art not far from the kingdom of God. If thou shouldst reject Jesus, whither wilt thou go for a refuge and for a guide? 2. _There is a night of worldliness._ Many are living for selfish gratification and for this life only. For the worldly the morning waiteth. Behold, Christ stands at the door and knocks! His is the light and the life of men; with His entrance into the heart the morning cometh. 3. _There is the night of penitential sorrow._ When the morning cometh to the awakened sinner, the light is sometimes, as with Saul of Tarsus, a blinding, as well as revealing light. To him--the sorrowing, praying, believing penitent--the morning came. And so it ever is. 4. _There is the night of suffering._ There never comes an hour in this world when suffering is unknown. Count it all joy, if it must needs be that ye shall suffer. 5. _There is the night of weariness and disappointment._ The Christian worker, toil-worn, may sometimes inquire, "Watchman, what of the night?" He has wrongly hoped, it may be, at the same time to carry the seed-basket, to put in the sickle, and to bring his sheaves with him. Learn to labour faithfully and to wait. The Son of God is come!

CONCLUSION.--Fail not to remember that while the morning cometh for all who willingly hear and obey the Gospel, the night also cometh for the disobedient and unbelieving. Come, ye who wander in the darkness, while yet there is room, to Him who is the bright and morning star, the sun of righteousness, the light and life of the world, and for you there will come a morning which will be the beginning of a blissful, glorious, and never-ending day.--_D. D. Currie: Christian World Pulpit,_ vol. vi. pp. 213-215.

THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL.

(_Missionary Sermon._)

xxv. 6-8. _And in this mountain, &c._

What the spirit of prophecy has here recorded is the testimony of Jesus and of His salvation, the subject presented to our view being _the blessings of the Gospel of the Son of God._ They are described in their general nature, in their unrivalled excellence, and in their universal extent.

+I. The blessings of the Gospel are here described in their general nature,+ as including instruction for the ignorant, consolation for the sorrowful, and life for the dead. They thus correspond to the state of man without the Gospel, which is a state of darkness, misery, and death.

1. _The natural state of fallen man is a state of moral darkness._ A veil is upon him, by which those things which make for his peace and essentially affect his well-being are hidden from his eyes. It is a triple veil. (1.) There is the fold of _native ignorance._ The merely natural man is totally ignorant of God and eternity. He knows not whence he came or whither he is going. He is altogether "sensual, having not the Spirit," and cannot know those things of the Spirit of God which are only spiritually discerned. Hence, ever since the Fall, darkness has covered the earth and gross darkness the people. (2.) There is the yet thicker fold of _moral corruption._ Sin has exactly the same tendency in each particular case as in the case of Adam. It darkens the understanding by its deceitfulness, as well as hardens the heart by its malignity. It tends to extinguish that candle of the Lord which shines in the conscience, and to render useless and unavailing those other means which God has provided for delivering us from the night of Nature. Those in whom it reigns choose the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil (cf. Eph. vi. 17, 18). (3.) There is the fold of _Satanic infatuation._ "The whole world lieth in the wicked one." He rules in the hearts of all the children of disobedience; and his kingdom is the kingdom of delusion and darkness. He beguiled Eve through his subtilty; and he still labours to corrupt and darken the minds of men (2 Cor. iv. 4).

All this is true of all the unregenerate, however diversified may be their external condition and local circumstances. Hence multitudes even of nominal Christians are fit objects of our compassionate care and exertion. But the description of the text is still more applicable to the case of heathen nations not yet visited by the Gospel. They have not the light which nominal Christians do not allow to shine into them; in general, they have _no_ effectual light. Over them is cast the veil not merely of ignorance and sin, but of _superstition_ and _false religion,_ than which nothing can be more fatally opposed to the entrance of light and the operation of Divine grace. Their very systems of religion are the means of perpetuating folly and vice, instead of reclaiming them to wisdom and righteousness. In many cases that "religion" sanctions and prescribes the most cruel of sacrifices and the most licentious of rites. In Christendom men may be superstitious and wicked, licentious and cruel, but it is _because they neglect their religion._ In heathen and Mohammedan countries, they are so _because_ they attend to their religion. They breathe its genuine spirit and exemplify its proper tendency. All that is deemed sacred and authoritative in the name of religion unites with all the ignorance and depravity of fallen man, and with all the subtilty and power of the Prince of Darkness to produce and perpetuate a system of error and iniquity. False religion may pretend to be a sun which enlightens, but it is really a veil which darkens all who come under its power--a veil much more effectual to favour the ravages of sin, misery, and death than even any of the coverings previously mentioned.

2. _Man is described in the text as the child not only of darkness and error, but also of misery and death._ For ignorance is the mother, not of devotion, but of sin, in all its multiplied forms. And sin is invariably linked to misery! The wretchedness of men bears an exact correspondence to their ignorance and wickedness (Rom. iii. 16, 17).

If this statement be true of natural men in general, it is still more awfully verified in the condition of the heathen world in particular. Infidel travellers who have cheated the public from time to time by highly-coloured pictures of the happiness of pagans, ought not on such a point to be believed. It cannot be that in the dark places of the earth, the habitations of cruelty, no groans should be heard, no tears be seen. The fact is, that while heathenism leaves its votaries to the unmitigated operation of all these natural and moral causes of distress which are common to man in general, it opens many new sources of misery, inflicts many additional desolations, causes many forms of terror, suffering, and destruction, which are peculiar to itself. All men are born to tears, because born in sin; but the tears of pagans are often tears of blood. Every groan they heave is big with double wretchedness.

The Gospel, in its provision of blessings for the human race, adapts itself to that state of darkness, wretchedness, and mortality which I have faintly described.

1. _It removes darkness._ It reveals to us the existence, character, and will of God, our own origin, immortality, and accountableness, the way of salvation and the path of duty; and, used by the Holy Spirit as His great instrument, it changes the heart of those who receive it, and delivers them from the delusions and dominion of Satan. In these several ways does the Gospel become the instrument of illumination. By it, and in connection with it, God destroys the covering which is naturally on man's faces, and the veil that is spread over their understandings and hearts. The consequence is, in instances innumerable, that "beholding as in a glass," with unveiled face, "the glory of the Lord, that are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

The glorious diffusion of light and purity which results from Christianity is still more striking when it obtains access to heathen nations. In proportion to the deeper gloom of their former ignorance is the splendour of the new illumination, when the Sun of righteousness arises upon them with healing in His beams. On such occasions, it may be said with peculiar emphasis, "The entrance of Thy Word giveth light,"--a light which is able to penetrate and destroy even the thickest veil of false religion.

2. _It wipes away tears._ This is here declared to be a part of its design, and experience proves it to be one of its actual operations (Ps. lxxxix. 15, 16). It leads to repentance, and so to pardon, purity, and genuine peace. It comforts in sorrow. It cheers in death.

To the heathen it is peculiarly valuable and welcome. It opens to them, in common with others, the sources of spiritual enjoyment and the hopes of eternal bliss. And besides, it abolishes pagan cruelties and diffuses principles of humanity and kindness. Hence result the amelioration of their civil institutions, the increase of domestic happiness, and the improvement of social life (H. E. I. 1122-1133).

3. _It swallows up death in victory._ It delivers every believer from the fear of death (Heb. ii. 14, 15; H. E. I. 1109-1111, 1589, 1594). God will most gloriously swallow up death in victory when He shall actually recover from the territories of the grave, by His almighty power, those spoils which death has won.

In proportion to its progress in heathen countries, the Gospel will not merely extract the sting of death, but arrest and diminish its most awful ravages. The waste of human life in many pagan lands is incalculable. As true religion increases, even in Christian countries, wars, which it has already rendered less sanguinary, will be less frequent too (chap. ii. 4).

+II. The unrivalled excellence of the blessings of the Gospel.+ "A feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." Variety! richness! abundance! (See outline THE GOSPEL FEAST, pp. 253-256.) Who does not recognise, in the unrivalled excellence of the blessings the Gospel conveys, the most powerful arguments for missionary exertion? Who can think of the Gospel feast, in contrast with the famine of the heathen, without wishing that they also might be bidden to the heavenly entertainment?

+III. The universal extent of the blessings of Christianity.+ "The Lord of hosts shall make unto _all_ people a feast of fat things." 1. They are adapted to all people. 2. They are sufficient for all people. 3. They were designed for all people. 4. The wide world shall, sooner or later, partake of them.

One result of this universal spread and triumph of Christianity is stated in the text: "The rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth." 1. By the successful exertions of God's people to evangelise the world, the reproach, which is at present too well-founded, of neglecting to care for those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, shall become no longer just and applicable. 2. In consequence of the general spread and influence of Christianity, the reproach of Christ, the scandal of the Cross, shall cease; and the Church, formerly despised and laughed to scorn, shall be held in great honour and reputation (chap. lx. 13-16). 3. The particular reproach of spiritual barrenness--the reproach founded on the paucity of her converts, and the small number of her children--shall for ever cease. At present "Jacob is small," and the flock of Jesus is, comparatively, a little flock. This fact has been converted by infidels into matter of attack upon Christianity itself. They have tauntingly urged the narrow extent of our religion as an argument against its Divinity. That argument admits, even now, of solid refutation. But in due season the fact itself shall be altered, and no shadow of plausibility shall be left for the reproach (chap. liv. 1-5).

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.

1. The text should teach you your personal obligations and privileges in reference to the Gospel. The feast is spread out before _you;_ to _you_ are the blessings of it freely offered (chap. lv. 1-3).

2. The text teaches you the ground of missionary exertions. To partake of the feast ourselves is our first duty: but, while we "eat the fat and drink the sweet," shall we not "send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared?" Can any duty be more obviously founded in reason and justice, humanity and piety, than that of sending the bread of life to our perishing fellow-creatures? The most hateful and inexcusable of all monopolies is the monopoly of Christian truths and consolations.

3. There are great encouragements to such labour. (1.) The certainty of Divine approbation. (2.) The certainty of consequent success (H. E. I. 1166-1168). But remember, if you would share in the triumphs of the Gospel, you must share in the labour and expense of their achievement.--_Jabez Bunting, D.D.: Sermons,_ vol. i. pp. 453-483.

PEACEFUL KEEPING.

xxvi. 3, 4. _Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, &c._

The delightfulness and value of peace to the nation, the Church, the family, the individual (P. D. 2664). Consider--

I. THE PROMISE. 1. +It is universal in its range.+ It is made to any and every man who will trust in God. 2. +It is sure.+ Men fail for various reasons to keep their promises, but every Divine promise is certain to be fulfilled (H. E. I. 4052, 4053). 3. +The peace which is pledged and secured to all who will fulfil the condition of the text is perfect+--so perfect that it can only be described by a repetition of the word, _"peace, peace."_ God never gives in driblets. His gifts are like Himself, perfect for their fulness, for their suitability, for their enduring qualities. God can keep His people in perfect peace when the devil accuses, when the world allures or threatens, when sickness tries, when adversity oppresses, even when the heart is sore tired, and when grim death would affright (H. E. I. 1253, 1893, 1894, 1911-1926; P. D. 2669, 2673).

II. THE CHARACTER DESCRIBED. _"Whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusted in Thee."_ Trust unites. The mind will not be stayed upon God unless there be perfect confidence in His wisdom, power, and love. Trust and love go together. Love begets confidence, and confidence strengthens love. The whole nature must be stayed on God, and on God only. There must be no division in the heart's affections: we cannot serve God and Mammon and be kept in perfect peace. There must be trust before there can be peace; God Himself cannot give perfect peace to the untrustful.

III. THE EXHORTATION. _"Trust ye in the Lord for ever."_ We trust in the Lord when, encouraged by His promises, we hold fast to Him. It is nothing deeper, nothing more difficult than that. Its very simplicity is its difficulty. As the limpet binds itself to the rock, and is not disturbed by the dashing billows, so let the soul by an ardent affection bind itself to the Rock of Ages. The word "ever" gives a wonderful expansiveness to our text. It points at once to God's eternity and man's immortality. He is a being capable of being trusted for ever, and for ever we shall be capable of trusting Him. Our trust is to be unlimited and unintermitted; it is to be exercised at all times, under all circumstances, through all ages.

IV. THE STABLE FOUNDATION OF THE BELIEVER'S CONFIDENCE. _"For in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength."_ The peace must be perfect that rests upon, and rises out of, such a solid foundation. The mountains are "everlasting" only in figure, but the foundation on which we rest is everlasting in fact (Ps. xci. 1, 2).--_W. Burrows, B.A._

The world needs the message contained in our text. Most faces that we see are careworn. They are so because behind them there are anxious hearts distressed by fears of various kinds--by fears concerning the body, by fears concerning the soul. The vast majority of men are destitute of true peace; for while in the world there are many ways--of pleasure, of sin, of disappointment, of misery, of death--there is no way of peace. The multitudes who throng past us are miserable because the way of peace they have not known.

I. LOOK AT THE PERSON WHO IS KEPT IN PEACE. He is a person whose mind is stayed on God. A man's self, sin, pleasure, false religion, vain hopes, are every one of them troubled waves in an ocean of disquietude, and no soul can stay itself on them, though many souls have sought to do so. Who, lying down in the very midst of the sea, can find there repose? As he lieth down upon the waves, they yield beneath him--the billows roll over him; he is sinking in the mighty deep. So with the sinner lying down in the midst of the sea and of the storm of this world apart from God. But he who lieth down upon God is as a man upon a rock, or as one in a mighty fortress; he is at peace--secure in fact and in feeling. But it is only as God is revealed to us in Christ that we may rest upon Him. Apart from Christ, He is to sinners "a consuming fire." Only through Christ may we find the blessedness we so much need, but through Christ we may find it.

II. LOOK AT THE POWER WHICH KEEPS THE BELIEVER IN PEACE. It is not the power of his own faith (H. E. I. 1970, 1975). It is not the power of his own effort, struggling to obtain confidence. It is the power of God: "_Thou_ wilt keep him," &c. The sinner obtains peace by yielding himself to God (Rom. vi. 13). The believer has peace while he leaves himself in God's hands, quietly submissive, cheerfully willing that God should lead him and do with him whatever is pleasing in His sight (P. D. 2966-2968, 2970-2972). Then all God's attributes--His omniscience, His omnipotence, His faithfulness, His tender mercy--minister to his peace (P. D. 3379).

III. LOOK AT THE PEACE IN WHICH SUCH A PERSON IS KEPT. It is _"perfect peace."_ Peace in spite of all that conscience may say, of the temptations that assail us, of the troubles of life, of the certainty and mystery of death. With the peace of pardon, all this peace flows into the soul, increasing more and more. It is the peace of Christ, the same peace which filled and sustained Him (John xiv. 27). You remember that we are shown Him with His head on a pillow, His eyes closed, His mind in unconscious repose, asleep in the midst of the wild storm at night upon the Lake of Galilee, when the waves beat upon the trembling vessel, and the wind strove to raise the waves still higher, and engulph them all. He slept, secure and peaceful, amid the storm. So does the soul of the believer that stayeth itself upon God. Upon what lay that peaceful head of Jesus but upon the unseen arm and heart of God. Men said of Christ mockingly, "He trusted in God." He did trust in God, as the most exalted believer, and far more than the most exalted believer; and in that simplicity of faith He was kept in peace, sleeping amidst the storm. So is it with the believer. O believer! is it so with you?--_Henry Grattan Guinness: Sermon in The Christian World,_ 1860.

Here is the secret of life--peace, perfect peace--and the sure way of attaining it. Consider--

I. THE CHARACTER CONTEMPLATED. _"Whose mind is stayed on Thee."_ His mind is fixed with such intensity that it cannot be diverted from the object on which it is set. This object is not himself (Prov. xxviii. 26), nor his riches (Prov. xxiii. 5), nor his fellow-men (Ch. ii. 22; Jer. xvii. 4, 5), but GOD, in whom he trusts unhesitatingly, exclusively, universally. He accepts all that the Scriptures reveal concerning God, and makes these revelations the foundation of his confidence and his prayers.

II. THE PROMISED BLESSING. _"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace."_ See also Jer. xvii. 7. The idea suggested is that of habitual and continued blessedness. The elements of peace are begun in the soul, and they are brought to maturity in the whole course of the future life. The peace given is like a river (chap. lxvi. 12), both for abundance and permanence. That is, while, and only while, the mind is stayed upon God (chap. xlviii. 18). Then he is _kept_ in peace, for God is its finisher as well as its author; and it is "perfect peace," because it is peace of all kinds, in its highest degree, at all times, under all circumstances.

III. THE REASON FOR THE BESTOWMENT OF THE BLESSING. _"Because he trusteth in Thee."_ Faith honours God (Rom. iv. 21), and therefore those who exercise it are honoured by Him (1 Sam. ii. 30; H. E. I. 4057, 4058).

IV. THE DUTY ENJOINED. _"Trust ye,"_ &c. While we are listening to expositions of this text, this duty seems to be easy; but in actual life our faith is tried and often fails, because we lose sight of the promises and perfections of God. Here there come to us disappointments, difficulties, temptations to distrust. But it is our duty to struggle with them all; and if we do so, it will be our blessedness to overcome them all (chap. xl. 27-31). "Trust ye in the _Lord;_ trust ye in the Lord _for ever;_ for in the Lord Jehovah is _everlasting strength._"--_James Morgan, D.D.: The Home Pulpit,_ pp. 512-516.

There is sometimes a world of meaning in a single word: Country, home, _peace!_ How it sometimes tells of booming cannon hushed into silence, of glittering swords sent back into their sheaths, of hundreds of homes relieved from distressing anxieties and fears, of thousands of lives respited at least for a time! How it sometimes tells of surging passions hushed into a calm, of vengeful purposes superseded, of the fires of enmity quenched, of despair giving place to hope and joy! Peace has its histories, many and pleasant; its triumphs, various and substantial; its heralds, Divine, angelic, human. Ministers have messages of peace to deliver to their congregations, and in our text we have one of them.

I. THE CONDITION EXPRESSED IN THE TEXT. _"Whose mind is stayed on Thee."_ It is a mind resting on God as the God of grace reconciling sinners to Himself through the mediation of Christ, dispensing pardon, sanctity, salvation--a mind resting, after reconciliation, on His truthfulness, wisdom, almightiness, holiness--a mind resting on His rule and government over all the forces of nature and all the events of daily life, both national and individual.

II. THE CONFIDENCE EXPRESSED IN THE TEXT. _"Thou wilt keep,"_ &c. _Thou_ wilt do it; not merely delegate and intrust this to any agency whatever. Thou _wilt_ do it; there is no uncertainty or peradventure about it. "In perfect peace:" peace of all kinds, and in a superlative degree; peace flowing from reconciliation; peace in the midst of unexplained mysteries; peace in the midst of adverse providences; peace amid the uncertainties of the future.--_John Corbin._

THE SONG TO THE VINEYARD.

xxvii. 2, 3. _In that day sing ye unto her, &c._

There are different opinions as to what is meant by "leviathan, that crooked serpent," and "the dragon that is in the sea" (ver. 1), whether the same power is signified by different names, &c. (1.) On a point concerning which learned and able men cannot see eye to eye, it would be presumptuous for me to give an opinion. (2.) If we cannot feel certain as to the literal meaning, the spiritual is plain. (3.) Neither of the expositions affects the substance of the prophecy. A great deliverance is spoken of, to be accomplished by the destruction of the enemies of the Church, and the Lord gives a command to comfort His people. There is in our text a _command_ and a _promise._

I. THE COMMAND.

1. _"Sing ye unto her."_ It is taken for granted that the spiritual condition of the Church is pleasing to God, but that the feeling of His people is in a low state. Sometimes the Lord directs His servant to reprimand them: "Show unto my people their transgressions." A Church may need comfort while some of its members deserve correction. Possibly the faulty members are the cause of the discomfort to the Church, and render it desirable that she should be comforted. It is so in the family. We comfort the family when a member of it has transgressed. The fact that one member needs correction causes the others to need consolation. In some cases, it requires much wisdom to decide whether an encouragement or a reproof should be given. We have seen the rod used when a kind word would have been more suitable; and some are singing songs while it would be more appropriate to sound an alarm. There is need for rightly dividing the Word of truth. "A word in its season," &c.

Possibly the accurate expositor will ask who is commanded to sing. Is it the prophets, or the priests, or the choir of the Temple? This is a poetical book, and sometimes it calls on the heavens, the mountains, and the trees of the field to sing. In this respect I would rather let the command of the text remain undecided, and say to everybody and everything, "Sing unto her!"

2. _What should be sung to this vineyard?_ Remind her in this song that she is "the vineyard of the Lord of hosts." The Old Testament is full of references to a vineyard, to vines, and to wine. The reason for this is, that the Bible is an Eastern book. A vineyard supposes--