Ver. 13.-The wn,iversal sabbath-law. "Not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words." The peculiarity of the day, the essential thing about the day, is that it is God's day, not ours. We only keep it aright when we lceep it for God. We misuse it when we fill it with any ends of our own. The one sabl>ath-work is a special effort to honour and obey God, and we shall surely find that the one-day effort helps us in establishing and confirming the everyday habit. Do only God's pleasure on the sabbaths, and it will be easy to put God's will and pleasure.first every day. Importance attached to keeping the sabbath in Babylon, because it was the most prominent thing in which the people publicly witnessed to their separation from idolatry, and allegiance to Jehovah. Faithful observance of it was the test by which the faithful ones were known. Eqnal importance attaches to the keeping of the sabbath in our day. It is, as much as ever it was, the searching test that reveals all the humble and faithful followers of God. 8till a Christian is known by the Sunday test, "Does he seek his own pleasure on God's day?" Henderson well says, "The observance of the sabbath has, in all ages, been found essential to the maintenance and prosperity of spiritual religion." Blackstone says, "A corrnption of morals usually follows a profanation of the sabbath." It should be carefully noticed that this prophet, who is so stern against forms and ceremonies in religion, is thus severe in demanding loyalty to the day which is not ours, but God's. So familiar a subject needs no more than an outline of thought; illustrative material will readily be suggested. I. WE MUST KEEP TBE DAY. A.s a separate day. Showing its distinctness from other days in the change made in our life-habits and associations. Some illustrations may be taken from our keeping wedding-days or birthdays. At such times onr minds e.re full of some particular persons-the da.ye are kept in their honour. So we should separate Sundays for God. II. WE SHOULD ENJOY THE DAY. Here is a paradox:. We are not to do our own pleasure on the day, but we are to find our pleasure in the day. Sunday should be the brightest day of the week. III. WE OUGHT TO HONOUR Go» ALL THE DAY, What precisely, in an age, a town, a community, a family, or a life, the best honouring of God is, the preacher must think out and present in his own way.-R. T.
EXPOSITION. That he does not help is owing to the CHAPTER LIX. iniquities of his people, which have sepa- Vera. 1-8.-A GENERAL REBUKIII OIi' rated between him and them (ver. 2). It lsnAEL FOB ITS MANIFOLD SINS, The com- is the same fa.et which has made his ear heavy. He cannot hear prayers tho.t a.re mand given to the prophet in eh. lviii. 1 not sincere-not from the heart. to "show God's people their transgression, Ver. 2.-Have separated; literally, ha'fle and the house of Jo.cob their sins "-partly been separating. The force of the form used executed in eh. lviii. 4-7 o.nd 18----is now is continuous, and implies that Israel had further carried out by a scathing denunoia- now for a long time been heaping up o. barrier between itself o.nd Jehovah. Your tion of various forms of wickedness, more or sins have hid his face; litorally, your s-ins less prevalent in Isr11ol, the effect of which ha-,,e caused his jaCtJ to be hidden from you, has been to separnte between Israel and ie. "have made him avert it." God, to" shorten God'e hand" and "make Ver. 3.-Your hands are defiled with his ears heavy." The passage has many blood (comp. oh. i. 15, 21). (On the "inno- cent blood" shed by the Jews of the Inter analogies with eh. i. 2-23. Judll!an kingdom, see 2 Kings xxi. 6, 16; Ver. 1.-The Lord's hand is not shortened; :u.iv. 4: x.xv. 25; 2 Chron. :uiv. 21; x.xviii. I.e. God is not less able to help than of old: 9: :uxiii 6: :u.xvi. 16, eto.) It consisted hia "hand" has lost none of it.a power. in (1) saorifloes of obildren to Moloch; (2) ISAIAH-II, 2 C 886 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [ou. Lll, 1-21.