The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 117

fountains! Is it nothing to us that multitudes are -~inking, going down to t,erditlol'l, under the name of ~hristian, from under the means of life.and sa.lvatiott..'.....perishing- and we can do nothing to prevent it? We know thtiy must perish that do ·n:ot repent and tum to ~ ~nd love him above all; .that do not bel\eve in his Son, and pay ,l'liiri homage as their rightful Lord." We l\r'e guilty before God in neglecting to keep •ivid in our ~earts h~mbling conv!ctions of sin ; and we may trace to this neglect our hn- perfect impressions ol the holiness of God, of the majesty of his Law, and df the necessity lor atonement by blood-shedding. We may also trace to this·ne"'lect our:easysubjeetiou t~ the pleasures and vanities of the world; our indifference in the pursuit of Ohristian virtues, and our coldness and deadness to the claims of Christian work. To'eeo 'sin rightly we must see it- L IN THE coNSEQUEN~S TO WHICH IT LEADS. We wonder why these stern writings of the old prophets are preserved, and make up so la.rge 11 portion of God's Word. 'l'hey are needed to keep before us the connection between sin and sufferih"' to show the wickedness of sin by the bitterness of its consequences. We do not ~~d either old prophets or new ones to convince us of the fact of sin. Conscience and observation suffice for that. Nor do we need old prophets or new ones to convince us of the fact of suffering. But we do need them to convince us of the connection between the two. And that was just the mission of the old prophets. In vigorous language they describe dreadful famines, devouring pestilences, the march of myriad locuijts, frightful scenes of battle-fields and siege, the desolation of fair countries, t-he exile and captivity of nations. But they never leave us to imagine for a moment that such things are mere calamities. They are consequences of sin; the whirlwind.which those reap who sow: the wind. They try to make us see behind the apparent order of cause and effect, and they say, " Ye have provoked the Lord your God to anger, therefore bath all thhi" evil come upon you." Sin is invisible. Sin is pleasing to our corrupt nature, and we will not see its true character. So God writes it up before our eyes in bodily, social, national, hereditary woes. Illustrate from the end of the avaricious man, tli:e drunkard, the presumptuous, etc., as given in this chapter. • • lL 11' THE COl>"l'RA.ST OF Gon's MERCIFUL DEALDmS wt'rH -08. It is mostly in this way that God is accustomed to present sin to us. See the opening ·parable· of this chapter. Sins and vices look hateful indeed, as staining and debasing poor Africans. Drunkenness is hideous, corrupting the poor islanders of the Southern S~. But what do such things look like, putting to utter shame the enlightened islanders of Christian Britain? Are not lust, and passion, and greed, and drunkenness, and down-treading the poor, and neglecting the offered salvation, aggravated immensely by God's abounding mercy to ns? God pleads his aercy (see Hos. xi. 3, 4). We plead thus: Do you think, if you had lived in Christ's days, you could have gone on sinning on the very knoll of Calvary, under the very shadow of the cross on which your Saviour died? Could you have cast lots for his raiment with those rough gamesters, danced a merry round about his cross, and done the deeds beneath his very agony which now stain your life? It may be that very thing which you are, in spirit, doing now. The shadow of tho cross has never passed away; it lies right across Christian England to-day. We live through our daily lives beneath it. It is not really a dark shadow; it is transformed; it is the Lord's rainbow of love shining throngh tears. It arches our whole sky. Its presence glorifies all goodness; but its presence also aggravates all sin, all self-indulgence, all neglect of God. The iBsue, the final issue, for all who sin under the very shadow of the cross-that no human lips can describe, as no human imagination can conceive, That must be the woe unspeakable, the dreadful day of God.-R. T; ' Vers. 24, 25.-Gocl's judgments thrmi,gh natural agencies. The Prophet Isaia.h lived in anxious times. He was keenly observant of the social and moral features of his RJ!:e- a discerner of the " signs of the times." He was sent by God to show the people how national wrong-doing bore its sure fruitage in bad harvests and in n11tiona.l calamities and to help them to see in such fruitage the operation of Divine jud.gipents. ~n the text the prophet clearly sees trouble coming on apace, and taking form ae· ~nt and withered han·ests either throuo-h unkindly seasons or the viRitation of locusts. OIThliir root shall be as r~ttenness, and°their blossom sh11.ll •go up as dust." Ewald ~ell de~ribes tbe social conditione which Iaaiah observed in their more serious aspects ID relation to dk. v. 1.:..:.ao.J THE nook OF 'rtil P'IWPtlET tSAlAtt. 10,;