The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 561

be rnisconccil'ed. To represent God's indignation against sin as the chief element in his character is essentially false; to represent his love as absorbing or eclipsing his hatred of sin and his intention to punish the guilty is also, if not equally, false. The same lips which opened to invite every weary wan<lercr to return to him e.od find rest in his happy service declared that many of the children of privilege should be shut out oft.he kingdom of heaven. To the Thrice-Holy One sin is now "that abominable thing which his soul hateth," and a.,,aainst it he will always express, both in word e.nd deed, his righteous indignation, . II. THAT IT IS SOMETIMES POSITIVELY OVERWHELMING IN ITS EFFECTS. "He bath utterly destroyed them" (ver. 2); "Their slain shall be cast out . . . the mountains shall be melted with their blood" (ver. 3); "All the host of heaven shall be dissolved;" etc. (ver. 4); "The sword of the Lord is filled with blood . . . the Lord bath a great ~laughter in the land" (ver. 6). God is sometimes "terrible in his doings toward the children of men." 'The flood swept away the race; the fires of heaven consumed the cities of the plain; the avenging armies destroyed the population of the guilty land. And now the corrupt nation pays for its apostasy and its crimes the penalty of defeat and humiliation; the degenerate Church also suffers feebleness, decline, perhaps positive extinction; and the debased, hardened man finds himself bereft of every good, pursued and overtaken by gathering evils, having nothing to hope and everything to fear. God is "slow to wrath," he gives opportunities for repentance, he welcomes and restores the penit.ent; but on the impenitent and unreturning sinner he lays his hand of retribution, and alas for those who find from their own experience that" the way of transgressors is hard"! III. THAT IT IS OFTl!:N EXCITED BY OFFENCES COMMITTED AGAINST ms PEOPLE. "'l'he day of the Lord's vengeance" is "the year of recompenses/or the controversy of 3ion" (see Numb. xx. 20; 2 Chron. xxi. 8-10; xxv.12; Ps. cxxxvii. 7; Obad. 10-lG). 0ur Divine Lord has told us that to cause one of his little ones to stumble is a heinous offence in his sight; that, inasmuch as we do not our duty to one of the least of his brethren, we withhold what is due to himself. The persecution of the people of God has ta.ken many forms beside that of slaughter or imprisonment; they who resort to it must reckon on a very serious measure of Divine disapproval, IV. THAT IT BHOWB ITSELF IN ITS SADDEST FORM IN A COMPLETE DEGENERACY, "From generation to generation it shall lie waste" (ver, 10 and vers. 11-15). It is a sad descent, a melancholy instance of degeneracy, when the thickly peopled city is abandoned by mankind, is untrodden by the human foot, a.ad becomes the haunt of the wild beast, of the obscene bird, and of the "night-monster." The last a.nd worst penalty which God's indignation inflicts on the children of men is utter spiritool degeneracy-the mind losing its intellectual faculties, and becoming imbecile through vice and folly; the will broken down and become helpless, bent and swayed with every breeze; the heart hardened so that all feeling of pity and affection bas departed; the soul foregoing and forgetting its higher aspirations and sunk into the condition in which it craves nothing better than worldly increase or animal indulgence. Sad as is the loss of position or estate when the powerful prince becomes a me!lial or the wealthy merchant becomes a beggar, immeasurably sadder in the.sight of Heaven is tha.t spiritual degeneracy in which, as the inevitable wages of sin, a human spirit loses &11 its nobility of character and becomes an outcast in creation, mere driftwood on the ocean, the sport of the devouring waves.-C. Vers. 16, 17.-TheDivine Word and hwmat11, woe. These words are called forth by- I . .ANTICIPATED INCREDULITY. The prophet thinks that the solemn threatenings he has uttered will not be credited. He seems to say, "You beard these awful utterances, but you will not heed them; you will indulge the thought that they are nothing more than a fanatic's dream; you think in your hearts that they will never be fulfilled ; you imagine that you can afford to disregard them; but you are mistaken, there will be the closest correspondence between what is written in ' the book of the Lord' and what shall one day be witnessed in the experiences of Edom." There is a great deal of unwarranted incredulity in the hearts of n::en respecting the penal purposes of God. He has spoken, has warned men, has clearly intimated what wi11 he the consequences of crime, of vice, of ungodliness, of the rejectioii of the gospel of Christ, of unfaitbfal• on. xn.1.-. 1-17.] T.tlE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 565