H To see "also the Lord" is alike the secret of steadfastness, and the guarantee of that knowledge in the midst of perplexity which alone liberates from fretful anxiety and unbelief, and leads to right choice and wise action. And to those who seek Him, He is
^ S. Oox, in The Expositor, 2nd Ser., ii. p. 25.
ISAIAH 8i
always so revealing Himself, in character varying according to their present need, and always as their entire sufliciency. Some men can see only " the things which are temporal," and are hence distracted ; but others have learned to look at " the things which are eternal," and are in consequence being continually attracted to Him in whom they find the perfection of wisdom and strength and love.
/ Two men looked through prison bars,
\ The one saw mud — the other stars.
iii. The Throne.
" Sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up."
1. The scene which Isaiah beholds is the heavenly palace of Jehovah's sovereignty, modelled upon, but not a copy of, His earthly Temple at Jerusalem : " I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." The comparatively small adyton of the Temple on Zion is indefinitely expanded, the lofty throne takes the place of the mercy-seat, the skirts of the royal mantle, falling in ample folds, fill the space about and below the throne, and conceal from the beholder, standing beneath, the unapproachable Form seated upon it. The two colossal cherubim, whose extended wings overshadowed the ark in the Holy of holies, are absent, and there appears instead a choir of living creatures, encircling the throne : " Seraphim stood above Him : each had six wings ; with twain He covered His face, and with twain He covered His feet, and with twain He did fly."
^ Some of you may have been watching a near and beautiful landscape in the land of mountains and eternal snows, till you have been exhausted by its very richness, and till the distant hills which bounded it have seemed, you knew not why, to limit and contract the view, and then a veil has been withdrawn, and new hills not looking as if they belonged to this earth, yet giving another character to all that does belong to it, have unfolded themselves before you. This is an imperfect, very imperfect, like- ness (yet it is one) of that revelation which must have been made to the inner eye of the prophet, when he saw another throne than the throne of the house of David, another king than Uzziah or Jotham, another train than that of priests or minstrels in the Temple, other winged forms than those golden ones which over- 6
82 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
shadowed the mercy-seat. Each object was the counterpart of one that was then or had been at some time before his bodily eyes ; yet it did not borrow its shape or colour from those visible things. They evidently derived their substance and radiance from those which were invisible. Separated from them they could impart no lustre ; for they had none. The kings of the house of David reigned because that king was reigning whom God had set upon His holy hill of Zion ; because He lived on, when they dropped one and another into their graves ; because in Him dwelt the light and the power by which each might illumine his own darkness, sustain his own weakness. The symbols and services of the Temple were not, as priests and people often thought, an earthly machinery for scaling a distant Heaven ; they were witnesses of a Heaven nigh at hand, of a God dwelling in the midst of His people, of His being surrounded by spirits which do His pleasure hearkening to the voice of His words.^
What was Uzziah in all his greatness now as the Lord sat upon His throne high and lifted up ? Here were the shifting scenes of human life — the shadows that come and go, the pageants that move to the silence and rest of the grave. There high and lifted up — above all time, above all change — was the Eternal. Uzziah the king, Uzziah the leper, Uzziah the corpse — to set the heart upon him was to be disappointed, deserted, desolate. The Lord is king — that is the centre of all things, the true home and refuge of the soul. Here is some ground for our trust ; here all the adoration of the soul finds fitting room and sphere, and worthy rank for its service and worship.
If The Lord is always upon a throne, even when He is nailed to the Cross ; this Lord and His throne are inseparable. There are dignitaries that have to study how to keep their thrones, but the Lord and His throne are one.^
2. But what shall we say when we recall Him of whom the evangelist asserts " Isaiah saw his glory, and spoke of him " ? High and lifted up, verily ! But how all unlike that which Isaiah saw. Bound and beaten and buffeted, scourged and mocked, amidst a band of ribald soldiers and ruffians who smite Him and pluck the hairs off His cheek. Condemned alike by Jewish priest and Eoman judge He goes forth to be crucified.