Ver. 2.-Nalions working out <Jod'a providencu. The reference of this" burden" is to Ifabyloo, which was the successor to Assyria in executing the Divine judgments on the Jews. Babylonia is called "the desert of the sea," as a poetical fiuure, suggested by th!l fact jJiat its surging masses of people were like a sea-desert ; or '"i:iecause it was a flat ~ountl'y., and full o( lakes, like little seas. It was abundantly watered by the m,11oy, streams of the river Euphrates. The prophet, writing when Babylon was the ris~g: 11,nd triumphing nation, sees in vision her terrible fall and humiliation. Which siege of Babylon he refers to cannot be assured, but much can be said for Cheyne's suggestion, that the depression under which Isaiah writes is best explained by referring the vision to the first siege of Babylon, when Merodach-Baladan was king (B.c. 709), whose interests were in harmony with those of Ilezekiah, and who~e humiliation Isaiah would regard as injurious to Judah. Watching the movements of these several nations, Assyria, Babylonia, Elam, Media, Judah, we meditate on- I. RIGHT IDEAS OF Goo's PROVIDENCE. We do not speak of providence so freely as our fathers did,_because we have less impressive views of the Divine rule and control. As Dr. ];3ushµell expresses it, "our age is at the point of apogee from all the robuster notions ,of tl\e Divine Being." We are more interested in the ordinary workings of Law, than, in the continuous adjustments and qualifications of Law by the ever-pre- siding Lawgiver. Yet,if our eyes were opened, we might see manifest signs of what our fathers called " providence " in the personal, the family, and the national spheres of to-<iµ.y~ The proper idea of providence may be thus expressed-it is God using for moral purposes commonplace events, and therefore adjusting, arranging, and fitting together those events. Pr9vidence ordering or controlling the nations is " God in history." And th9 illu~trations ,of Divine overruling which we see in the large spheres of the world-kingdoms, are designeu to convince us of the reality of that over- ruling in the small details of our personal life. II. TllE PROVIDENTIAL DlfiTlNGQ'ISHED FROM THE MIRACULOUS. The distinction is in pur apprehension; we ciinncit conceive of the distinction as recognized by God. As by the "pro.viuenlial !.' ~e mean Gud intervening to readjust the usual order of material ,ev!lu~s, it is. plain that sometimes he ma/' use forces with which we a.re familiar, and tµen we call h,is wo_rklng "providential.; .' but at other times be may use forces with 'Yhi<ch,~vc are, unfamiliar,. and then we call his working" miraculous." There need be no difficulty in. r0A9gnizing resources in God beyond, what he bas been pleased to explain to ,man. God has not e:x;hausted himself in making revelations to man. If we could see dearly .we s,hould see. that "providential" and "miraculous" are convertible terms. III.,1}HE RELATION,O.F,i:"ROVIDENCE TO MORAL LAW. This may be put into a sentence.. , It is the executor of its sanctions. The rewards of obedience and the p~I\~ltie~,gf d~qpedience are not things deferred until some yet far-distant day. They are c_ontinual)y operating in' all sphel'es, p1ivate and public. And what we call "providence ' 1 is the agency in their distribution. But our "providence" differs from ~,'Jal,ll,"1 OI the. pagan conception of the "furies," because it is the working of an in.fin\tely wise and go(?.d Being, who acts upon compr!Jbensive knowledge a.nd sound j udgi;nen t. , IV. T,HE RELATION OF PROVIDENCE TO NATIONS. Here we take one single point. Nations have a corporate life, so they are, as it were, individuals, with a distinct individual character and acti!)n. Just as God UH~s the individual man for his purposes, so he uses the individual natjon .. For the characteristics of nations, see Greece, Rome, Germany, France, etc. The,. n·a.tul'"l expression of a nation's character or genius becc;>)Il.es the providential agency for carrying out God's purposes. Illustrate the con- que1jng genius of ~aby:lon under Nebuchadnezzar doing God's work in the destruction of t.he ,kingdom qf Judah. 1'he fa.et that a nation employed as an executor is still in GO<l't ,control, is shown in God's judging that nation for evils that become manifest in . its,doing.of, that executive work. Effici,mt illustrations may be found in the move- ments and enterprises of the European nations duriug the last century.-R. T. Ver. 3.-Sympat'hy of bcxlie4 with. distress of mind. The prqphet is only seeing in a vision something that is going to happen by-and-by. BL1t the scene presented to him is so torriblo that, he qannot .. fl[Ult i.!, it, .though, it _i~ the overthrow of an enemy's city. He i.11 deeply .. disttessed, auu, the mental anguish ~ds its response in acutest bodily THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [oa. :n:r.1-1T.
J)Ain~. T~e "loins".. are referred to in Sc~iptui:5 as tl~e seat of the sharpest pains (Ezek. xx1. 6; Nah. 11. 10). The most familiar 1llustratton of the eympathy between body and mind is the expression of mental emotion by tears. Ministers and public speakers know, from bitter experience, how nervous excitement stands related to sharp bodily pain and serious bodily depression. The connection may be seen in Job, In Hezekiah, in the Apostle Paul, and in David, who, with vigorous poetical figures describes the bodily distress which accompanied his months of restraining himself, in his hardness and impenitence: "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long." I. SoUL AND BODY ARE KIN. Our normal condition is the perfect harmony of the two, so that the soul only uses the body for good and right purposes; and the body responds perfectly to all the demands which the soul makes upon it. Combat the idea that the body is e'l'il, or that evil lies in matter, and so our great effort should be to get free of our bodies. The true triumph is to win the use of our body, or, as the Apostle Paul puts it, to get "the body for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." II. BODY MAY MASTER som:.. This is the abnormal condition into which men have passed. They are practically ruled by "sensations" .which dominate the will, and so the mass of men are merely animated bodies, in whom the soul is silenced and crushed. Illustrate by the demoniacs in our Lord's time, in whom the man was crushed by the vice. III. SoUL SHOULD C01'"TBOL BODY. This is the recovered normal condition and relation ; and t.o energize the soul unt.o a full and efficient mastery and use of the body is precisely the work of the Divine redemption. The indwelling Spirit of God is a new life for the soul, in the power of which it may overcome the body and the world.-R. T.