Ver. 8.-The call of God. " Also i heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me." The symbol of the seraphim had been on the prophet's head, and the voice of the Lord had come. to his conscience and his heart. The live coal had touched his lips. Prophets, apostles. teachers, must be sent of God. Other qualifications are appropriate and excellent, but this is indispensable. I. THE DIVINE QUERY. "Whom? n Then God takes thought about Divine govem- ment in human history. Just as Nature expresses, in all her forms of beauty, his skill and care, so in grace God is observant of character, and watchful for the wisest means, He knows the secret places of grace and genius, and he can call them forth at the appropriate time. Isaiah now ; Paul in the great epoch to come. II. THE ELECTIVE BONOtra. " Wbom shall I send?" . Here we have the sublime election to privilege, so far as responsibility is concerned, which, rightly considered, explains God's calling of Jews then, and Jews and Gentiles now. It is not an election to salvation, bat to a statas of honour and influence in witnessing for him. "Send In Then God is the great Father of all human spirits, not willing that any should perish. The Jewish Church was a city set on a. hill to enlighten others; the salt to save the world from death and putrefaction. III. TBE QUICK RESPONSE, There is no hesitation. "Here am I." Men should fulfil their own prayers. They ask for grace and strength to work and give. Let them inquire within whether they cannot turn supplication into consecration. " Here am I." How few say that I They look ronnd and exclaim, "Send others I" "Send me I " says the prophet, fnlfilling the commission which makes him the great evangelic spirit of the Old Testament.-W. M. S.
Ver. L-7'le msion of God. "I saw ••• the Lord," writes the prophet. These simple, strong wordl! ,mggest to us- L THE VISION wmOH IS DIPOSBIBLE. "No man bath seen God at any time," our Lord declares ; and his declaration is sustained by the philosophic truth that he who is a Divine Spirit must be invisible to mortal eye. So far as our apprehension by sense is concerned, God must remain, to every human being, "the King eternal, immortal, invisiole." Himself, in hie own essential nature, we cannot look upon. IL THE VISION WHICB IS EXTBAOBDINABY. God has, on some few occasions, granted special and particular manifestations of himself-such that those to whom they were vouchsafed might say, without impropriety, that they had "seen the Lord.'' Of this kind were the burning bush (Exod. iiL), the vision granted to Moses on the mount (Exod. xxxiv. 5, 6), that of Micaiah (1 Kings :u:ii. 19), this one narrated in the text, those of the Apocalypse. In these cases there was a manifestation of Deity in som,i form, temporarily assumed, cognizable by the senses, and bringing the soul into close communion with the Eternal One himself. ill THE VISION WHICH IB CONSTANT. It is something more than poetry to think and speak of God as being in the various objects and operations in nature. It is sorne- thing deeper than fanciful sentiment, and truer than Pantheistic thought, to ,iay that "nature is the robe of God." For his power is immanent in all living things. The "forces of nature," which are working everywhere and in all things, are, in truth, the outworkings of bis own Divine hand, in constant and regular, and therefore in mensur- able and reHable activity. Whe~ we wawh them, we do well to feel that we are uear OD, vi., 1......18.] THE BOOK or THE PROPHET :iSAIAtr. 11'1
to him; they are directly euggeetive of him, and we ought not to be able to regud them 'With interest without reaching and resting in him of whose presence and skill and love they continually speak to us. IV. TBl!I VJSION WHICH 18 HIBTOBI0AL. There are two manifestations of Deity which 11tand by themselves, the latter bein~ transcendently the greater and more gracious of the two. 1, One was in the visible Shechinah, which remained the constant symbol of the presence of Jehovah for many generations; there in the midst of the camp, visible to any eye that looked within the veil, but only to be seen by one man OP one great day in the sacred calendar. 2. The other was found in him who was able to say, " lie that hath seen me bath seen the Father." They who looked on him in the days of his flesh, and who heard his voice, might sa.y with peculiar mea.ning, "I ha.ve seen the Lord." And we, before whose eyes a once-crucified Saviour has been conspicuously upheld (see Gal. iii. 1), and who, in him, have presented to our spiritual vision the holy and loving One, infinitely worthy of our reverent affection, may also say, with profound truthful- ness, that we too " have seen the Lord." - V, THE VIBION wmcH 1e OCCASIONAL. There are certain exceptioru.1 experiences which God grants to us now, when he comes very near to us and reveals himself to our souls. It may be on the occasion of some outward incident, the apparent nearness of death and the future world,or the passing of some intimate friend or relation into the unseen realm, or the powerful presentation of the truth by some faithful minister of Christ, or it may be the sudden illumination of the Spirit of God apart from all special circum- stances whatsoever; but there are times in individual history when God comes to us, when he makes his person, his claims upon us, his grace to us in his Son, and with these, our highest, eternal interests, to assume to our souls their true, their grand proportions. Then is it well, indeed, for us so to act tha.t we can thereafter say, "I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision."-C.