Ver. 17.-0aptivity, and yet safety. "Behold, the Lord will carry thee a~ay with a mighty captivity, and will surely cover thee." These threateuings of the Almighty had mercy at the heart of them. Captivity was a drastic remedy, but it once and again saved the health of Israel. It was a time of home-longing and sickness of. hPart.. • It was a time when the old religions memories flooded the heart till they. filled it with an aching sense of sliame for sin, and supp1ication for mercy. _ _. I. Gon CARRIED THEM AWAY. The enemies of Israel were but instruments in the hands of Jehovah. He reigned over their interests as truly then as in their more prosperous day. " The day is thine, the night also fa thine." And in the Captivity, God was disciplining the people as no other dispensalion could. Their lofty looks were changed for penitential tears, and their proud hearts were brought low. God would in due time " turn again the captivity of Israel;" and the Law would be read again, and not only be re.ad, but be "lived." II. THE CAPTIVITY WAS A MIGHTY ONE. It occurred to a mighty multitude; H afi'ecteci mighty interests; and it produced mighty results. For this people God had formed for himself, to show forth his praise. We have to learn the lesson too. How tremendous are the powers of grief and loss, change and sickness, under which God often brings his children captive now ! We are "prisoned" by· pain and circumstanc(•. In our hours of solitude and sorrow, God renews our wiH, separates the chaff from the wheat in our character, and meetens us fot service here and for the inheritance of the sa.iuts in light hereafter. ill THE COVERING WAS SURE. They were not cast away; they were only c&11t down. '.!.'he almighty wings were still over them. In strange lands, amid strange faces, and listening to strange voices, they could not sing the Lord's song in a strange land. But the time of joy was to return. God was very near them still, and noue could really harm them. What a covering! Not the mere roof of the home; not the mere outward raiment; but the Lord himself was there, spreading bis shield·over them, when they were away from the munition of rocks and from the defences of dear Jerusalem. Sure I That is what we want. He also ie our Dwelling-place in all generations and under all skies.-W. M. B. Vere. 1-14.-" The aorraw of the world." We have here a striking picture of that w:b.ich, i11 distinction from "godly sorrow," Paul calls "the sorrow of the world." L TH...t.."I GoD BEHDB SOBBOW TO BUMAll SOULS. . 'l'hese national distresses wel'e to hit 011, xxu, 1-25.] 'l'HE DOOK OF TH& PROPHET ISAIAH. 36,'l
of hie sending; it wns to be" a day of trouble . . . by tbe Lord of host&" (ver. 5). 'fhe human instrumentamy would be visible enough, and both those who inflicted the blow and those who endured it-their enemies and themselves-might fail to discern nny Divine hand at work; nevertheless, it was a. chastisement that came from heaven,- it was sent of God. And to whatever second causes we may trace onr troubles in the day of our "treading down and of perplexity,'' or in the day of our loss, or suffering, or bereavement, we may always go beyond the instrumentality to him "of whom are all things," and feel that what has happened to us is "by the Lord of hosts." II. 'J.'HAT BIB PURPOSE THEREIN 18 OUR SPIRITUAL AMENDMENT. "Jn that day diu the Lord God of hosts call to weeping," etc. (ver. 12). God would then invite to a general humiliation-h_e would draw their minds to a view of their guilt, and lead them to repentance and so to restoration and life. '!'his is always the Divine purpose in adversity. God seeks our spiritual amendment. Other methods of instruction failing, he lays his hand upon us so that we must feel his touch; he speaks to us in tones it is difficult to disregard; and we know that the thing from which he call8 us is sin-- sin in one or other (or in some) of its many forms; we know al&O that the thing t-0 which he summons us is rectitude-rightness of heart and life. III. THAT THIS HIS DIVINE END IS SOMETIMES ENTIRELY DEFEATED. "Behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep," etc. (ver. 13); Both national history and_ the biography of individual men prove to us that affliction may produce the very opposite result to that for which it is sent. Never has the city been so abandoned to vice as when the plagne was raging and the dead lay unburied in the streets. Many a man allows adversity to drive him to dissolute enjoyments or to ruinous crimes, instead of lettiug it allure him to a Divine Deliverer. Trouble that was intended to lead to heavenly wisdom and to the service of God only too often hardens o. stony heart,' makes still ungodlier the man who has forsaken the sanctuary, fastens the fetters of some enslaving vice on the limbs of its wretched victim. IV. THAT UNSANCTIFIED SORROW LEADS DOWN TO SPIRITUAL DEATH. This iniquity would not be purged until they died (ver. 14). It would end, not only with, but in death. Death is the penalty of unsanctified sorrow: "The sorrow of the world worketh death" (2 Cor. vii. 10). It leads down inevitably to that utter estrangement from God, that unlikeness to God, and that condemnation by God, in which spiritual death is found here; it leads on to that final banishment from bis presence and glory in which it will be found hereafter.-C.