Ver. 2.-Sin as broken sonship. Literally, the verse reads, "Sons I have made great and high, and they have broken away from me." The later conception of the Jewish covenant embraced the ideas of fatherhood and sonship, and thus prepared for the revelation of the fatherhood of God in the teachin!(S of the Lord Jesus, and for the apprehension of the" sonship of men" through Christ's own sonship. It is the point of impression, that this relation intensifies the guilt of the people's unfaithfulness and rebellion, just as Absalom's relation, as BOD, to David aggravates the criminality of bis deceptions and his revolt. In addition to the actual relation of father and son, the text suggests the exceptional goodness and considerateness of Israel's Father-God. He had brought the nation to its maturity, and given it a high place among the kingdoms. And still the extreme painfulness of sin is not its breaking of law, its insult to kingly majesty, or the necessarily bitter consequences that must attend upon it; it is its filial ingratitude, its dishonour of the sacred claims and duties of sonship. All heaven and earth me.y be called to see this shameful sight-children turning against their father. I. 'l'BE BIN OF THE UNFILIAL BON. Dwell upon its characteristic features. We estimate the motive and spirit of the wrongs rather than the precise nature of the acts. Show the aggravations of such sin. Every persuasion of dependence, love, and duty must be pushed aside ere unfilial sin can become possible. II. ITS POSSIBLE EX0USE IN AN UNWORTHY FATHER, This is the only excuse that can be urged, and this does not count for much. The natural relation sustains the demand for obedience, and nothing can conflict with parental law save the supreme law of God. If even parents command what is contrary to God's revealed will, wo must obey the Father in heaven rather than the father on earth. Illustrate how this conflict of the human and Divine law was the burden of the Greek dramas. Short of this, obedience must be fully rendered, even when fatherly requirements cannot be approved. III. THE ABSENCE OF ALL SUCH EXCUSE WHEN TUE FATHER IS Gon. llis will is right, is love. Apprehen<l what he ia. Apprehend what he has been to our forefathera THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAh\.H. [oJi_ 1. 1-SJ.,
and to UB. Realize the " goodness" of him in whom our breath is, and who8e are 1111 our ways, and then the unspeakable iniquity must be to grieve -him, disobey him, arid revolt from him.-R. T. ,
Ver. 5.-The fool~hfUWI of increasing _Divinejudg~nts_. The plea of the prophet appeam t.o be this : You have run temble lengths m sm; nnd you have seriously suffered from the consequences of sin; now why will you bring down fresh jud(;ments upon your head through persisting in your infidelity" (comp. Ezek. xviii. 31)? So Rerious, indeed, had been the penalties of transgression already that there seemed to be no part of the body politic upon which another stroke might fall; new.inflictions ·must come upon old sores and wounds. _ ." The two noblest parts of the human body are here ~elected t.o represent the body politic; and the extreme dnnger to which it was exposed is significantly set forth under the image of universal sickness and languor. '!'here were no parts which did not suffer from the calamities which sin had -entailed;'' H.emember the expression of St. Paul (Rom. ii. 5), "After thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." I. ALL srns ARE FOLLOWED BY JUDCJMENTS. We say, by consequences;· and we even admit that they are usually "unpleasant" consequences; but we must go further and admit that every sin-be it neglect, or be it wilful disobedience, whether it concern the individual or the community-is attended by its appropriate and necessary result:, and that this is always the Divine judgment. Sorrow waits on sin. Suffering follows sin. Moral deterioration is Divinejudgment. Painful circumstance is.Divine judgment. The old world sins, and comes under the judgment of the Flood. Sodom sins, and comes into the judgment of the Divine fires. David sins, and quarr.el !li;td curse break up his family and break his heart. Judgment nlwnys links on to.sin, and no human power can rnap the uniting tie. If we will -enjoy sin we must bear suflering. illustrate by the pagan conceptions of the Furies and the Fat_es. Something bad grows out of all sin; and "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also ieap.'! ,, . ;, II. ALL JUDGMENTS ARE CHASTISEMENTS. It is impossible to associate punishment, as a mere exercise of tyrannical power, with God the great Father. -1n the long run; or in the short run, all Divine judgments must be proved to have lieen remedial in: their design. It is quite beyond our province to decide to what extent the free-will, the self-will, of man may resist the remedial purpose of God's judgments.-, AU we can say is, that a father'a punishments must be, at the very heart of them,. chastisements·; and that the plea of the passage before us rests upon the fact that God had been smiting in order to correct, and was deeply grieved because his correcting .purpose had hitherto been so successfully resisted. illustrate how epidemics and •pla~ues, following upon ~anita.ry sins, are designed to correct sanitary evils. The same applies in moral spheres. From this point a review of God's dealinga with us in our past lives may be taken,.and \l"C may be searchingly reminded how we have resisted the remedial influence of God's chastisements. fil IlEFU8AL 'l'O l&AllN BY CHASTISEMENT 18 ,FREBR SIN. • Thie tlie prophet pleads. "You are farther grieving God by this; that you will not he humbled; you will not learn; you will not let him lift his judgmentR off you." Illustrate by the harden_ed boy who will not respond to his father's punishment. That hardened resistance .is 11 fresh sin. IV. FRESH SIN 1!1.-VOLVES FURTHER AND WOBBE JUDGMENTB. Before, the judgment was but to reveal the evil character of the sin; now, the judgment has to bear upon the heart-hardness, and it must be. more searching and severe. The secret of _more than half our calamities and afflictions is, that they are second and sharper stroke& because we would not heed the first. Israel was swept away into captivity at last, Lecause she would resist the smaller national calamities that were gracious Divine persuasions to repentauce. In a great measure it is true that our life-troubles are in our owll l,ands. We suffer BO much because we are such dull and unwilling scholo.rs in the school of God. V. 'l'ItE WO!lBT OF ALL WOES WOULD BE TUE SUSPENSION OF DIVINE JUDGMEN're. There is no more terrible conception than that ordinarily awakened by th~ passa~e "Ephraim is joiued to Lis idols, let him alone." The unspcakablo calamity for a <ill. I, 1-81.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 27