HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-5.-Longing for the appearance, of God. "Widely yawns the gulf between Israel and her God. A revelation on the widest possible scale is necessary to smite down unbelief and annihilate opposition; God himself must appear." I. FIGURES OF THE MANIFESTATION OF Gon. 'l'he rending of the heavens. For the time of trouble is as the hiding of the face of God behind thick clouds (Job xxii. 13, 14), The word given, rend, is very strong-tear asunder, as garments in grief (Gen. xxxvii. 29; 2 Sam. xiiL 31), or as a wild beast the breast of any one. The faithful firmly believe that he will find a way to show himself through the densest darkness of the most unhappy time. The idea is that of a coming in power to destroy his foes (cf. Ps. xliv. 5, 6). The shaking moantain, the fire causing the boiling of the waters, the terror of the nations, and the terrible deeds of J ebovah-all this imagery belongs to the memory of the Exodus, where he proved himself to be the living God. II. EVANGELICAL .APPLICATION. Ver. 4 is cited by St. Paul as illustrating the effect of the gospel in producing happiness and salvation (1 Cor. ii. 9). If the prophet urges that no god had ever done what Jehovah had done, and no human being had witnessed such manifestations from any other quarter, the apostle applies the thought to the manifestation of God in Christ. For waiting mm salvation is prepared. Piety may be defined-is so defined in Scripture-as waiting upon God (Ps. xxv. 3, 5, 21; xxvii. 14; xxxviL 9; cx:u:. 5). God had given manifestations of his existence in the past, of his power and goodness, which bad been furnished to none other than his friends. And to those interpositions the suppliants appeal as a reason why he should again interpose and save them in their sore calamities.-J. Vers. 5-11.-The cry of humi"li,a,twn and of hope. I. THE CONFESSION. "Woe are we, for we are unclean! " Like the leper, dwelling alone without the camp (Lev. xiii. 44-46), so is the 1;eople; as he is cut off from the society of men, so they from the converse of God; or as something ceremonially polluted and defiled (Lev. v. 2; Deut. xiv. 19), or morally defiled (Job xiv. 4). The language carries a feeling of intense abhorrence. Under another figure, their penal offences have "carried them away like the wind," whither Jehovah is not; and they are as the leaves fallen and faded, from which all beauty bas disappeared. In this degeneracy the very conscience and the reUgious instinct is dead, or in a state of lethargy. "How aptly is the state of a sinful world described! How indisposed to rouse itself to call upon God I" No man rises to God without an effort; and unless men make an effort for this, they fall into the stupidity of sin as certainly-as a drowsy man sinks back into deep sleep. So nerveless are they, they cannot" stir themselves" to take hold on God. He, on the other band, seems to have bidden his face from them, and to have given them over into the hand of their sins-if this be the true rende1ing. Their iniquities tyrannize over them; they pine in them, and moral life seems, under such conditions, hopeless. ll. Tm: PLEA OF THE CHURCH. I. ,Sl,e reminds him of the fatherly rel,a,tion. This incluclrs creative energy and providential will. He haR made them and moulded them, 11.s ciay is moulded by the potter. He, therefore, must restore them, and he alone; for ou. LXIV. 1-12.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 463
they e.re wholly in hie he.nd, e.nd under his control. "The whole verse is an acknow- ledgmont of the BOVlfreignty of God. It expresses the feeling which all have under the conviction of sin, when sensible that they are exposed to the Divine displeasure for their tre.nsgreseione, Then they feel, if they are to be saved, it must be by the mere sovereignty of God; and they implore his interposition to 'mould and guide them at his will.' Only when sinners have this feeling do they hope for relief; and then they feel that if they are lost, it will be right; if saved, it will be because God moulJs them as the potter does the clay.'' 2. She reminds him of other motives for his interference. His holy cities have become waste, the holy and splendid house of Jehovah reduced to ruins, with all its precious objects. The land and the temple were alike dedicated, consecrated to God, hallowed also by the memory of ancestral piety. And what attach- ment stronger than that to places of worship where our forefathers engaged in the service of God? "It would be difficult to find any passage in the Ilible, or out of it, to equal this in pathos. Here was an exiled people, long suffering in a distant land, with the reflection that their homes were in ruins, their splendid temple long since fired and lying in ruins, the rank grass ~rowing in their streets, thdr country ove1Tun by beasts and with a rank vegetation. To that land they sighed to return; and here, with the deepest emotion, they plead with God on behalf of their desolate country. We should go to God with deep emotion when his Church is prostrate, and then is the time when we should use the most tender pleadings, and our heart should be melted within us." We are reminded also of the lesson of childlikeness in prayer. Why should we ever be a.shamed of the child-heart and the child's utterance, "crying in the night, and with no language but a cry"? " Wilt thou hold thy peace 1" If there is any mean- ing in the names " Father" and "child " in religion, then such language is natural, reverent, fustijiable ; and the energy of the soul from which it springs is prevai7ing with the All-powerful and the All-merciful. "Here is a model of affeciionate and earnest entreaty for Divine interposition in the day of calamity. Thus may all God's people learn t.o approach him as a Father, and feel that they have the iuestimable privi- lege, in times of trial, of ma.king known their wants to the Most High. Thus pleading, he will hear us; thus presenting our ea.use, he will interpose to s:i.ve us."-J.