The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 316

That there might be no ground whatever for the exclusive appropriation or God by the J ewa, God Sll}'S, "Blessed be Egypt my 1>eople, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine ioheritl\nce." The nature of God's relation to th~ entire race is the founda- tion of religious truth. All our religious ideas are toned by the view we t.ake of this relation. Men but feebly grasp the notion oi one only G"d, supreme in and over all things. They can much more readily grasp the conception of many gods, each one supreme in his own limited department. \\'hen God giYes a particular revelation to one nation, that nation is tempted t0 say, "God is specially our God. He belongs to us, and to nobody else." So St. Paul's appeal needs to be heard again and again, "Is be the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles?" No doubt we shall all agree that there is but ons Creator, and that he who made all provides for all. He is interested in all humanity; "his tender mercies are over all his works." But what a singular distinction has grown up in our minds I We have come to think that this one God is interested in the physical well-being of the million heathen, graciously watching over life, and health, and food, and pleasures, and relationships, but not really concerned for their moral and spiritual well-being. We do not find ourselves unutterably distressed, as we should be, with the thought, which is in many of our minds, that the million heathen brothers are outside the pa.le of God's revelation, and eternally lost. But surely, if God made men moral beings; if there is, in the wildest savage, the sense of right and wrong ;-then God bears saving relations to the moral life of man everywhere. He must see and reward the man everywhere who offers him worship, as he apprehends him who struggles for the good as he knows it. He must see and punish the man everywhere who yields to the evil which he knows to be evil. So St. Paul thought, breaking free from the e:i.clusi ve bondages of his Juda.ism. And so St. Paul teaches us to think. We must not venture to sweep all the vast mass of humanity, outside Christianity, into some terrible nnder-world of woe. There is but one God for them and for us. Everywhere he is Light, a.ad be is Love-Light and Love in his response to every poor heathen soul as truly as tu us Christians. No matter what may be the name by which the heathen seeker may call the great Spirit-be it 'I'angaroa, or Morimo, or Tsikuap, or Varuna, or Brahma-he seeks the One, the Living, the Source of all. And he may gain the answer- ing smile of the one God's acceptance. St. Paul is very plain and very firm in his statement: "When the Gentiles, which have not the Law, do by nature the things contained in the Law, these, having not the Law, are a la.w unto themselves: which show the work of the La.w written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another." We may wisely try to brea.k down this tendency to limit the operations of God's grace just to ourselves. Mission work is breaking it down, by wakening our sympathy with seeking souls. The study of compa.rative religions is brea.king it down, by showing us, hidden deep in heatben religions, penitence, confession, humility, love, faith, consecration, prayer, hope, virtue, and submission. Everywhere we find yea.ruing hearts, the sense of sin, the prayer for pardon, the dependence of faith, the cry after God, who is "God of the whole earth."-R. T. Ver. 9.-Lessonsfrom Noah's times. In the ancient time God was wroth with man- kind when he" looked upon the ea.rth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corn.:.pted his way npon the earth." Then in Divine judgment he swept the earth clea.n with a. flood of great waters. But in wrath he remembered mercy: a restoling- day came, and in that day God was pleased to enter into covenant with the race, and make solemn pledge and promise that never a.gain should "all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, nor should there any more be a flood to destroy the earth." Isaiah saw a parallel to this in the Divine dealings with the idolatrous kingdom of Israel. It had become so utterly corrupt that ordinary forms of cha.stisement would not suffice; overwhelming jndgmente were demanded. 'l'he Divine wrath found expression in the destruction of the nation, and the bitterness of the Ilabylonish ca.ptivity. But mercy limited judgment; a restoring-time came, and brought with it new covenant assurances and promiees: "My loving-kindness from thee shall not remove, neither shall the covenant of my peace totter, saith he that bath compassion on thee, Jehovah." . In this we are to see exhibited in hiBtory~lier and later-the methods of Divine dealing which may apply also to us. OlL LI". 1-17.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 827