which abounds in amplification, and, if I may so say, exagger- tion. Thus this same prophet, speaking of this same period, says, " Behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth ; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind
There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days : for the child shall die an hundred years old ; but the sinner, being an hundred years old shall be accursed," i. e. shall be considered as having died under a kind of judicial sentence, by reason of his being removed at so early an ageb.
This, too, is most clearly marked in the context c It
is also strongly marked in the context in a following chapter ;
where the very same words are used, by the same prophet*
And again the very same event, foretold, though not in the same, yet in nearly similar terms, is associated with the very same identical facts, expressive of the blessings which shall then abound over the face of the whole earth e ]
In a word ; what the prophet here speaks respecting the state of the Church in his day, as compared with that which shall obtain in the latter day, is precisely to the same effect with that which St. Paul speaks respecting the Jewish and the Christian dispensations : " The former had a glory ; but the latter far exceeded in glory; so that that which was made glorious had no glory, by reason of the glory that excelledV]
And a most glorious event will this be —
[The whole world, which is like a desolate wilderness, will have the seed of the Gospel cast upon it, and, through the showers of divine grace falling upon it in rich abundance, will bring forth fruit to the praise and glory of our God. We doubt not but that the most savage people upon the face of the earth, who, in point of civilization and knowledge, are at present scarcely superior to the beasts, will, through the preaching of the Gospel, " be turned from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God." And where the light of the Gospel has already come, it will shine with incomparably greater splendour ; according as it is written, " The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven-fold, as the light of seven clays, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound g." In that day, the prophet tells us, "the people shall be all righteous11:" "holiness to the
to Isai. lxv. 1 7, 20. c Citever. 18, 19. d Cz'telsai.xxxii. 15—18.
e Isai. xxxv. 1, 2, 5 — 7. All these passages must be distinctly cited, in order to justify the construction put upon the text, in oppo- sition to Vitringa. Bishop Lowth, &c.
f 2 Cor. iii. 8— 10. e Isai. xxx. 26. •' Isai. lx. 21.