The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 353

all our solitude may be lightened by bis presence, all our weariness refreshed by hls love. Ioto green pastures be will lead us, by still waters be will talk to us. And all the weary and heavy-laden may find rest iu bim.-W. M. S.. Vers. 1, 2.-Thru pidures of the human. Our attention is called to- L A PIC'l'URE OF HUMAN GOODNESS. A good man is represented as "the righteous," ~ "the merciful," as one who "walketh in uprightness." These characterizations rncludc: 1. The/ear of God-reverence for his Name, the worship of bis Divine Spirit, the recognition of his righteous claims, a supreme regard for his holy will. 2. The love of man-a practical acknowledgment of his claims on our sympatliy and our succour, a hearty and practical desire to promote his well-being. 8. The regulation of daily life, in all stations and spheres, by the laws of truth, purity, honesty, sobriety. A righteous, merciful, and upright man is one who will he making an honest and earnest endca "l'our to realize all this in his character and his career. Nothing less will satisfy his aspiration. II. A PICTURE OF HUMilf THOUGHTLESSNESS, "Tht, righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart." When a community-nation or Church-has not been living and walking in the light of the Lord, it becomes dull of apprehension, spiritually blind, incapable of e~timating the true character of events. 1. It fails to appreciate the wort11 of one good man's life. What an incalculable blessing a single true, pure, and holy life may be, and indeed must be! and what a fountain of good is dried up when one who leads such a life is ta.ken away! It ie a bad time, indicative of evil and prophetic of decline and death, when human worth is disregarded. 2. It fails to-feel the injury and wrong done by arbitrary violence; it ought to resent it with keenest indiirnation, and to take vigorous steps to arrest and remove it. 3. It fails to recognize a valuable mitiga- tion: "None considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come." It is natural enough for men to wish to go on into the future, that they may see what is coming, and that they may help to 8hape the event; but the wise and thoughtful will consider that there may be a future impending from which they would earnestly pray God to save them. It was not a threat, but a promise, sent to Josiah, "I will gather thee to thy fathers . . . neither shall thine eyes see all the evil which I will bring upon this place" (2 Kings x.xii. 20). Many are they who have outlived the period of prosl'erity and peace, to whom an earlier death would have been a happier lot. We cannot be sure that a sudden and even (what we call) a premature death may not be a most merciful removal from intolerable pain, or from overwhelming temptation, or from grievous burdens and sorrows. We sing, " Our times are in thy hand," and we do well to continue, "0 God, we wish them there." ID. A PICTURE OF BUMAN REPOSE. "He shall enter into peace : they shall rest in their beds." From the tumult and the strain, from the battle and the burden of life even the rest of the grave is welcome. But how much more welcome to the weary spi;it is that rest which jesus Christ has revealed, and which remaineth for the people of God !-rest in the home, in the likeness, in the glory, in the untiring service of the ascended Saviour.-C. Ver. 10.- Weariness in ,inful error. Whether the guilty error of Israel consisted in its departure into idolatry, or in its having recourse to the _arm o_f flesh instead of to the power of its Divine Redeemer, we reach the same conclusion, viz.- I. THAT BIN GOES TO TEDIOUS LENGTHS IN ITS WANDERING FROM Goo. It is" wearied in the greatnrss of its way." Whatever may be the particular course which iniquity may take-whether it moves in the direction of disbelief, or of covetousness, or of any one of the vices, or of worldliness-it goes far enough to find that the path of sinful error is n long and tedious road, that it is one in which the soul finds no lasting satis- faction, that there continually recurs a sense of want and spiritual craving, a hungering of the heart for that which is not supplied. Their name is legion who find their own chosen course of sin a weary round, an unsatisfying pursuit. ll THAT, SPITE OF ITS OWN WEARINEBB, IT PERSISTS IN 1TB UNHALLOWED PATH. It is weary enough, yet it "says not, There is no hope." It finds just enough to ma_in- tain some kind of existence-" the life of thine hand "-to go on without bemg altogether changed and reatored. Are there not multitudes of men who are dragging ea, LVII, 1-21.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 365