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which I can conceive nothing more powerful to still all rebellious and repining thoughts, nothing that could elevate more, and yet make more lowly.
There is a fable of the ancient heathen (perhaps another of their beautiful allegories) that the nightingale rested its breast upon a thorn when it poured out those melodiously melancholy tones which pierce and ravish the soul.
IF It is thus with the Christian who sits upon the Cross. Then will his tones be like unto the songs of David's harp, now pealing in the Heavens above, in high accord " with Angel, and Archangel, and all the glorious company of Heaven " ; now bringing down the Heavenly strains to sad, sweet sympathy with the sorrows of the Church below, to dispel the fear, to restore the faith, to brighten the hope, to calm the troubled mind, to heal the broken heart of many sufferers with the " song of the Eedeemed." Such marvellous power is given, not to those who would serve God in their own way, by pleasing themselves, or according to the wisdom of the world, but to those only who suffer the will of God patiently and gladly, who " glory not, save in the Cross of their Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto them, and they unto the world." ^
1 J. R. Alaop.
Vicarious Healing.
Literature.
Christlieb (T.), Memoir and Sermons, 308.
Doney (C. G.), The Throne-Boom of the Soul, 35.
Gibbon (B. J.), Visionaries, 104.
Home (C. S.), The Soul's Awakening, 97.
Home (W.) Religious Life and Thought, 146.
Hutton (R. E.), Sorrows of the King, 141.
Laing (F. A.), Simple Bible Lessons, 249.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions, Isaiah xlix.-lxvi,, 97.
Macleod (A.), The Cliild Jesus, 76.
Paget (F.), Faculties and Difficulties for Belief and Dishelicf, 172.
Spurgeon (C. K.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xiv. No. 834 j xviii.
No. 1068 ; xxxiii. No. 2000 ; xliii. No. 2499 ; 1. No. 2887. Tipple (E. S.), Drew Sermons on the Golden Texts for 1910, 295. Watson (E. K. E.), Heavenly Truths in Earthly Dress, 82, 94, 127. Wilmot Buxton (H. J.), Sunday Lessons for Daily Life, i. 97, 305. Woods (F. H.), The Hope of Israel, 151. Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 8 (Tuck). Contemporary Pulpit, Ist series, ix. 274 (Perowne). Treasury (New York), xx. 351 (Kinsolving).
Vicarious Healing.
With His stripes we are healed. — liii. 5.
1. " I PRAY thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this ? of himself, or of some other man ? " Such was surely the v&ry natural question put by the Ethiopian stranger who had gone to worship at Jerusalem, and returning, sat in his chariot and read t^is passage of the prophet Isaiah. Even now, with all the light shed upon the interpretation of this passage by the New Testament and by the history of eighteen centuries of Christian experience, men are still repeating the eunuch's question, " I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this ? " Some would persuade us that the prophet is speaking of the nation of Israel ; others would persuade us that Jeremiah is the servant of the Lord who is led as a lamb to the slaughter ; and others again that it is the prophet himself or the better part of the people who occasionally bore the burden of the rest.
Unquestionably there is a difficulty in this passage. And it is just this, that the prophet does speak of the servant of the Lord who occupies so very prominent a part in all the later chapters of the prophet Isaiah, — he does speak of the servant of the Lord sometimes as the nation of Israel, sometimes as the prophet himself, and at other times of a third person. For instance, in the very first place where the servant of the Lord is mentioned — in the eighth and ninth verses of the forty-first chapter — "Thou, Israel, art My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen." And again, in the forty-second chapter, and the nineteenth verse, " Who is blind, but My servant ? or deaf, as My messenger that I sent ? Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant ? " The context very plainly shows that he is speaking of the nation at large ; and
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the prophet himself is spoken of as the Lord's servant in the forty-fourth chapter, " That confirmeth the word of His servant, and performeth the counsel of His messengers." But here is one, " the servant of the Lord," who is certainly not the nation if he atones for the nation ; and certainly is not the prophet, for the prophet joins himself with the rest of the nation as one of those who need atonement : — " All we like sheep have gone astray."
How are we to^ understand this ? How is it that the servant of the Lord is the nation, is the prophet, is the coming Kedeemer ? Just for this reason, that the true Eedeemer, born of the seed of Abraham, is so absolutely one with Israel that the whole history of Israel and the whole history of Israel's great representative men, whether prophets, priests, or kings, is fashioned on the lines of the great redemption, and can be interpreted only by the life and sufferings and death and victory of the great Kedeemer. You will remember that St. Matthew sees the fulfilment of Hosea's words, " Out of Egypt have I called my son," in the going down of our Lord into Egypt in His infancy and His sojourn there. Yet we know that Hosea is speaking of the literal Israel, for he says, " When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt," St. Matthew sees that what is true of Israel is true also of the Christ.