Ver. 7.-0ne source of evi1 and good. "I make peace, and create evil." It is an unworthy forcing of Scripture to set this passage in relation to the insolnble difficulty of the origin or moral evil. Two things are often sadly confounded-evil as an unpleasant state of our circumstances; and evil as a wrong condition of our will. The latter is refemble to God only in the sense that he iave to man a moral nature and a capacity of choice. The former view of evil is that alluded to in the passage now before us. It h11s been thought that the passage was written in view of the principles of Persian dualism. "The Magi taught that there are two coeternal supra.mundane beings-Ormazd, the pure and eternal principle of light, the source of all that is good ; and Ahriman, the source of darkness, the fountain of all evil, both physical and moral. These two divide the empire of the world, and are in perpetual conflict with each other." Perhaps Isaiah deals here with evil and good as they are regarded by man, not as they are estimated by God. The "good" here is that which is pleasant; the "evil" is that which is painful; and the assertion is that both the pleasant a,,d the painful are within the Divine controlling, and are forces used by God to secure certain high moral ends. "Darkness" represents the misery and woe of the exile; "light" represents the happy state to which Israel was to be restored through the agency of Cyrus. I. THE TENDENCY TO THINK OF A SEPARATE SOURCE OF EVIL. So great are the dis- turbances of God's order through man's sin and wilfulness, that human life seems more full of calamities and anxieties than of blessings and good. This is man's impression, o.nd he has ever been disposed to say, "The good God cannot send these calamities; they must have a source of their own." Men are always ready to make Ahrimans, Sivas, or Typhons, to explain the existence of physical evils. II. THE TENDENCY TO GIVE ALMOST EXCLUSIVE WORSHIP TO THE EVIL-GOD. To ward olf evil seems to be a more pressing thing than to be good or to obtain goud, and so the supreme effort is made to propitiate the evil-god. Illustrate by the heathen sailors in the boat with Jonah, exposed to storms. We even need to be most careful in our conceptions or Satan, lest a notion or his independence should divide our worship between him and Jehovah. He must be thought of as dependent on God, even as we. Ill. THE INEVITABLE DEGRADATION OF HUMAN WORSHIP UNDER TfilS CONDITION, The maintenance of high morality is found absolutely to depend on the jealous preser- vation of the truth of the Divine unity.-R. T. Ver. 9.-The sin and folly of resisting God. The truth of the Divine sovereignty ruust be clearly and faithfully presented. But we must carefully gnard God from all charges of caprice or favouritism. We must liken him to man, in order to apprehend him at a.11; but we must eliminate from our figure of man nil that is weak a11d self- seeking. 'l'he infinite holiness and infinite wisdom of God glorifies his sovereignty. He does what he wills with his own; but what he wills to c.o is always the absolute best, the eternally right. It must, then, be mistaken, unworthy, and wrong for us to resist God. "Woe unto him that stri veth with his Maker!" The immediate refer- ence of the text is to those who murmured at the delay of the deliverance from exile. "Woe unto him who, though made of earth, and with no intrinsic superiority over others of his race, presumes to find fault with his Maker, and to criticize providential nrrangements ! " Matthew Henry says, "Men are but earthen pots, nay, they are broken 1,otsherds, and are made so ve1·y much by their mutual contentions. They arc dashed in pieces one against another; and, if they are disposed to strive, let them strive with on,i another, let them meddle with their match; but let them not dare to contend with him that is infinitely above them, which is ns senseless and absurd as for the clay to find fault with the potter, as unnatural as for a child to find fault with his parents." Criticizers of God may bu classed under two heads-(1) those who only question o.nd raise doubts; (2) those who arrogantly condemn. Some of the people of Israel were looking for a deliverer to ari~o from among themselves, a.nd criticized God's delay, and then criticized his delivering by the agency of a heathen priuce. The plea urged is this: " Will Israel be moro wise than God?" We have here suggested three stages of unworthy treatment of God. I. CR1T101zmG. There are two ways of judging the actions of o'.hers, o.nd they differ by the difference in tlieir tone and spirit rather than in the a,ts themselves. 1. We Hl2 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [oH, XLV, 1-25,
may judge with the prevailing disposition to find out all that is good. 2. We may judge with the prevailing disposition to find fault. This is always unworthy, but never so unworthy as where applied to the ways and works of God. II. CoNDEM!fIN0. Always a doubtful thing for man to do, seeing he is investe,l with neit.her au!hority nor ability for such work. Always wrong and unworthy, if man's condcmnnt1on of God, seemg that he cannot compass the whole of God's reasons, motives, and aims. Man never knows enough to allow him to venture on e. condem• nation. 111. WoRKINO AGAINST. Translating bad opinions into bad conduct. Allowing criticism to encourage enmity. Illustrate from Saul of Tarsus, who ventured to criticize a1;1d condemn God's Messiah, and then thought himself justified in working against h1n1.-R. T.