The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 530

In lte most Important, most sacred relationships. They who are beneath the sense of responsibility, and are therefore incapable of righteousness, can never possibly attain to the _possession of peace; they are constitutionally below it. II. TBEY WHO HAVE LOST RIGHTEOUSNESS MUST REGAIN IT BEFORE THEY CAN HAVE THl!I HERITAGE 011' PEACE, 1. This is BO with the commwnit,y. When the country, or the company, or the Church has fallen into disorder because it has fallen into error and the commission of wrong, there is but one way to regain the harmony which has been Jost. Absolutism will never yield it. Force will not secure it. Compromise will not permanently restore it. Nothing will avail until righteousness is re-established. Justice must be done to those to whom it has been denied. Rights must be conceded to those who have fo.irly won tbem. Relations must be adjusted to changed con- ditions; every one and everything must make way for rectitude. In no other way whatever will the path of peace be found. 2. It is thus with the human soul. We have all wandered from the way of wisdom and of righteousness; we have refused to God the love, the reverence, the service which is his due and which it is our highest interest to render, We have thereby become disordered, disquieted, confused; instead of dwelling in "a peaceable habitation," in "quiet resting-places," we have become inbabitants of a realm of condemnation, reproach, peril, agitation, misery. There is no way back to the home of rest which we have left behind us but by a. return to right- eousness; that is to say, by repentance, the turning our back on the sinful selfishness in which we have been living, and becoming right with God, accepting the gracious offer of bis Son our Saviour (Matt. xi. 28, 29). (1) Rejection of truth ma.y give a false s«Urity; (2) absorption in worldly pursuits or in pleasurable excitements may provide temporary indifference ; but only righteousness, only the restoration of the soul to its true relation to God, by repentance and faith, will give peace. IIL RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL ENSURE PEACE BOTH IN POSSESSION AND m PROSPECT. Jt will effect: 1. Reconciliation with God, and the consequent "peace which passes understanding,"-a blissful, satisfying" rest unto the soul," which is incomparably more precious than any eBrthly satisfaction to the body or the spirit. 2. The inward and abiding rest which belongs to spiritual harmony; this is the invariable consequence of the soul being in a right relation with the Supreme, and with its fellows, and of a.ll its faculties being rightly related to one nnother. 3. A peaceful departure from the present life. 4. A home in the g_uiet re.~ting-place of the heavenly land.-O. Ver. 20.-Fruitful labour. "Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters." u There will be widespread desolation," says the prophet; "the fields will be untilled, the land will be covered with briars and thorns; but a glorious change shall come over the scene- the • wilderness shall become a fruitful field' (ver, 15), the happy scenes of industry will•again be witnessed, the arts and industries of agriculture will revive and flourish in all their former fulnese. Happy will be the land that shall put forth its whole strength in the field ; • blessed a.re they that sow beside all waters.'" Two general truths spring from this passage. I, 'fHAT THEY ARE BLESSED WHO PUT FORTH ALL THE POWERS WITH WHICH THEY ARE ENDOWED. It should be the happiness of Israel in its time of restoration to leave no soil uncultivated that would yield produce; they would sow beside all waters. All its inhabitants, with all their agricultural implements, would be busy in the open fields; no strength left unexercised in the homes ; no weapons left unused in the storehouses. Unhappy indeed is (1) the country whose population is doomed to enforced idleness, whose looms are still, whose ploughs are rusting in the homestead; (2) the family where sons and daughters are letting their various faculties lie idle, when they might be put forth to their own great advantage and for the good of others; (3) the man whose individual powers are slumbering in his soul, unspent and undeveloped. Blessed are they who expend all the resources they possess, who cultivate all their skill of band, who develop all their strength of mind, who so put out all their talents tbat the whole energies of their spiritual nature will be employed, increased, perfected. Ily sowing beside all waters is meant sowing seed in well-watered, and therefore fruitful, soil. The expression consequently contains the idea- 11. 'l'nAT THEY ARE DLF.SSF.D WHO ABE ENGAGED IN REMUNERATIVE LABOUR. This is peculiarly true of the Christian workman. 1. He has the very best seed to eow: truth,  THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAB:, [oll, um.1-..20,