people was he st.ricken" (ver. 8). It is indirectly implied in four others: (1) "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all;" (2) "'l'hou shalt make his soul an offering for sin;" (3) "He shall bear their iniquities;" (4) "He bare the sins of many" (vers. 6, 10-12). III. THE SUFFERINGS OF MESSIAH PROPITIATORY. The idea of propitiation is implied in the three pass:1ges where Messiah is said to have borne the sins of men. No o!l'.crwise_ can one man _bear the sin of another. than by d?ing something which pro- 1,1t1ate~ ~1m ~,horn the sm has offended. But 1t 1s further distinctly asserted in ver. 10, when 1t 1s sa1? that the s_oul ot th~ Servant should be "made an offering for t!ln." A.s the 11·bole not10n of offering for s1~ ~as grounded on the idea of expiation, so it was now made plam that the real exp1at1on, the real atonement, the real propitiation, to which the entire ritual system of the Israelitisb nation pointed, was the ofterinrr up of that "righteous Servant" of the Lord, who, "having done no wrong," having been guilty of no "guilf'," nevertheless was made sin for man, and became a willina and meritorious Sacrifice. "It is impossibl,e for the blood of hulls and goats to takebaway sin " (Heh. x. 4). It is impossible for sinful man to redeem bis fellow-man (Ps. xlix. 7, 8). Only One who was without sin, "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners" (Heh. vii. 26), could make atonement for others' sins; only One who was per- fectly pure himself could 1,urify them; only One who needed none to intercede for him could intercede for his brethren. It is strange how men dislike, and kick against, and endeavour to explain away, the doctrine of vicarious suffering and substitution, and of atonement made for man by the blood of Christ. Yet why should this be? "The do.::tri11e," as Mr. Urwick says, "is in perfect keeping with all that the Jewish cere- monial ew bodied, aud with the teaching alike of the Redeemer himself (Matt. xx. 28; John x. 11; Luke xxii. 20) and bis apostles, St. Paul (Rom. iii. 24--26), St. Peter (1 Pet. ii 24, 25), and St. John (1 John ii 2). It satisfies the Divine holiness, and the demands of the sinner•~ own conscience. It fully recognizes the reality of sin and its exceeding sinfulness, whereas all other attempted explanations tend to make light of sin, or at least to represent it more or less as a matter of human weakness, which a good-natured God will readily pass over aud forgive without a ransom. It presents the way of salvation as sim]Jle and straightforward; all can understand it; whereas other attempted explanatioJIB of the efficacy of Christ's redemptive work are cloudy, iudefinite, mystified, abstruse, and difficult of apprehension even by the learned"(' The Servant of Jehovah,' pp. 129, 130).
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 4-6.-1'le suffering Servant of Jehovah. I. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE BUFFER- ING. It depicts, by simple force of language, its extreme intensity-not a suffering springing from internal weakness of nature, and so withering and dying like a lamp for want of oil, but "like a torch in its full flame bent and ruffled, and at length blown out by tile breath of a north wind." It was a diffused suffering, according to the expression of the psalmist, " like water in his bowels, or oil in his bones." " In hie person we may see grief in its height and eupremac:y:, triumphant, crowned a~d arrayed in purple, grief reigning and doing the utmost that 1t was able.'' In prO})O;t10n to the fineness of the nature is the sensitiveness, and in proportion to the eens1Uveness, the capacity for suffering. In these words, "stiicken, pierc_ed, affiic_ted, crushed, beat?n with stripes," we have a cumulation of strong touches m the picture. Add_ to this, "smitten of God." The allu~ion is said to be to leprosy, regarded as a punishment for grievous sin (Numb. xii. 9, 10; 2 Kings xv. 5; Ps. Ii. 7). '"l'he measure of every passion is tl,e operation of th-:i ngent. We must not measure the Divine strokes by the proportion of those blows which are inflicted by the greatest and most exasperatod mortal. Every blow inflicted by the fiercest tyrant can reach no further than the body, and the bndy is but the dwelling-place, not any part, of the soul. None can reach the conscience but he who made it. God is able, merely by letting a few drops of his wrath fall upon the guilty conscience, so to scald with a lively sense of sin, that the man sl.JaU live a continual terror to himself. His own brB&ilt shall echo peals of DB, Lill, 1-12.J THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 301