from hill •Ohaldean home, 11nd wandered forth, 11 sojourner tn a strange land; but God was fo.lthful to his word, and proved towBrds him an unchanging Friend. Guilty Jacob fled from home, and God met him, revealing himself as the faithful Watcher, willing to be in close and gracious personal relations with him. For years, while in service, God bleased his basket and his store. When journeying back to Canaan, God defended him, subdued the enmity of Esau, and gave him prosperity and honour. Few lives are offered for our study which bear such manifest traces of the nearness and providence of God. Few names could suggest so much to ue as this most simple one-the God of Jacob. Still God is what he has ever been-Defence of his endangered people; Wisdom for his perplexed people; Support of his enfeebled people ; Corrector of his mistaken people; Saviour of his sinning people. For all the actual needs of a tried, roiling, tempted life, we may come, even as the patriarchs did, into close personal relations with God, for" this is his Name for ever, and this is his memorial to all generations.• Graves, in his work on the Pentateucb, says, " The peculiar and incommunicable character of God is self-existence; he is the great • I Am.' But this abstract and philosophical description of the Supreme Being was not sufficiently calculated to arrest the attention, conciliate the confidence, and command the obedience of a people entirely unaccwtomed to scientific speculations, and incapable of being influenced by any other than temporal motives; it was therefore necessary to represent to them the Governor of the universe in a more circumscribed and attractive form, as the God of the fathers, who bad conferred the most distinguished honours on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to whom their posterity might-from the full confidence which fact and experience supply-look up and trust as their peculiar guardian God." UL "HoLY ONE OF lsRAEL;" OB, Gon IN HISTORY, This is the new name given to God, when his dealings with our race through many generations could be reviewed, and the character of all those dealings make due impression of the character of God himself. What one thing comes out most plainly from all reviews of God in history? The prophet ~ys, in reply, his holiness. '!'his estimate of God may be illustrated on the followin~ lines. 1. The Holy One of Israel has ever been faithful to his covenant. 2. The Holy One of Israel has ever required the holiness of a simple and trustful obedieuce; 3. 'l'he Holy One of Israel bas ever been swift to mark iniquity. 4. 'l'he Holy One of Israel has ever been redeeming and saving. 5. The Holy One of Israel bas ever been jealous of his supreme claims. "His glory he would never give to another." So the three great names on which we have been dwelling (1) touch us with reverence and awe ; (2) open our eyes to see his working all round about us; and (3) call upon us to render to him hearty trust and lowly service.-R. T. Ver. 2.-The wisdom ·of God in his punishments. "Yet he also is wise." These words seem to have been spoken as an ironical parenthesis. He also, as well as the Jewish politicians. "The words vindicate to Jehovah the skill and power adequate to inflict punishment on both the contracting parties, together with veracity in carrying his tbreatenings into execution." "God was as wise as the Egyptians, and ought therefore to have been consulted; be was as wise as the Jews, and could therefore thwart their boasted policy." As Isaiah leads us to consider so many phases of the subjeot of Divine punishment, we only suggest this topic as giving a fresh point of view. We are reminded of the wisdom, rather than the mysteriousness, severity, or love, of the Divine judgments and chastisements. Jn sending calamities "God is wise." Covering the whole subject, the following divisions may be taken. I. God's wisdom is seen in the threatenings, which act as warnings, and increase the guiltiness of the wilful. II. God's wisdom is seen in making his threatenings conditional, so that repentance of, and forsaking, sin may be hopeful. III. God's wisdom is seen in fulfilling threatenings, so that no wilful men may dare to presume. IV. God's wisdom is seen in what he does for sinners themselves by his judgments. V. God's wisdom is seen in what he does by his judgmeuts for the spiritual training of the onlookers. "He is known by the judgments which he execnteth."-R. T.
Ver. 4.-Gocl unhindered by fears of man. We fear and tremble before boastful 520 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH.