HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-7.-2'7ie Servant of Jehovah. "Behold I" Let all the world hearken and 11Ucnd to the new revelation. It is admitted that the conception is substantially that of Christ in the Gospels. According to one critic, indeed, the prophetic passage springs from tlie time of Herod II. Let us think, then, of Jesus and his mission. I. 'l'BE ELEOT OF Goo. Six times does the word occur in this portion of Isaiah ; it is found also in P~. lxxxix. 3; cv. 6, 43; cvi. 5, 23. He has been endowed with God's Spirit, anointed for a special mission, for a high and arduous task; and this is to publish the Law, the practical religion of Jehovah, to the nations of the earth. "All religions claim to be laws; biblical religion dwells with increasing earnestness on the moral as opposed to the ritual law." II. His METHODS. They are gentle, quiet, spiritual. He speaks, not in the loud voice of passionate debate and contention, but with the still small voice of reasonable persuasion. He does not come to crush life, but to develop it; not to despise the weak, but to encourage and raise them. 'l'he crushed reed is the very type of helplessness; the dimly burning wick of ignorance of the best. It has been designated as the religion of condescension. When it came into the world, it found the multitude crushed beneath the yoke of political oppression, exhausted by the demands of heathen ritualism, yet longing for health and salvation; it stooped to them and blessed them. He himself is as a brightly burning Lamp, and a Reed," a humble Plant;" unlike others," covered with leaves, or hardened in their stalk." In a spirit of strict truthfulness, for this end born and brought into the world, he shall proceed to establish justice and true religion on the earth. He shall be the nations' Desire; and they shall wait in longing upon him (cf. Matt. xii. 17-21). Such is Christianity, as it exists in the mind of its Author, and as it appears in the world, pursuing its beueficent way, in spite of all revolutions, and of all religious changes and controversies.-J. Vers. 5--9.-Mission of Jehovah's Servant. "A new revelation defines the mission or the Servant with greater precision. The plan of the mission requires an exhibition of tho Divine wisdom and powor on as large a scale as iu creation and preservation (cf. Zech. xii. l)" (Cheyne). I. THE RELATION OF Goo TO THE WORLD. He is the God-the only God (cf. Ps. lxxxv. 9). He can admit no rival; he stands in a unique relation to the world-is alone to be worshipped. He is the Creator: his work is the heaven and the earth, and the people. The breath of life is by him breathed into his creatures. The universe is entirely subject to him, and he has the right to appoint whom he will to be the minister and channel oi his favours to men. To the appointed Messiah, then, due reverence is to be paid. II. Hrs COVENANT WITH lsRAEL AND MANKIND. There is a covenant with the chosen people, and through them all natious are to own him as God. Generally the righteousness of God stauds for the goodness of God, manifested to his world in the whole scheme and agency of salvation. "I have done this o.s a righteous and just God, and in accomplishment of my righteous purposes. I am the just moral Governor of the universe, and have designated thee to this work, in the accomplishment of those purposes." Ill. THE MEDIATOR OF THE COVENANT. God holds his hand in his. Wh11t strength, then; what grace and Divine communication must there not be with the Mediator, who will be guided and guarded, will be visibly in the enjoyment of the Diviue favour I And so the Mediator himself is called a Covenant-the personal realization of Gorl's tho·1gh L and purpose to the people-the embodiment of that spiritual relation announced in vers. 30, 31, etc. Another of his names is Light. Being Intelligence in himself, the Wisdom of God, he will diffuse it among the nations: bringing men out of their spiritual blindness and the prison-house and confinement of spiritual distress (Ps. cvii. 10; ,Job xxxvi. 8). "Such is the freedom the gospel imparts; nor can there be a more striking description of its happy effects on the minds and hearts of darkened and wretched men" (l Pet. ii. 9). IV. THE SOLEMN ASSORAN0E, Jehovah nllw turns to the peoJ?le, and assures them 124 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [orr. XLII, 1-25,
that he is the only true God, and jealously claims a sole and undivided homage, He is "the Eternal." The nnme includes "the unique reality, and powel' to confer reality of the Divine Being." His glory he will not give to another; for wore such II God'~ prediction to fail, he would ~ink to~ lower level than the imaginary deities, who have, at any rate, not deluded their worsh1ppel's. But the earlier pl'cdictions hn.ve been ful- tilled-those against tke Babylonians or Assyrians; and the new thino-~ later and more splendid-the deliverances of the Jews-will in like manner be fu!Lill~ll. The plant is contained in the seed; the event in the mind; the fulfilment in the Word of Jehovah (eh. ix. 8; Iv. 10, 11; Amos iii. 7).-J.