Vere. 1-3.-Divine reproaches. In the two previous chapters we find the prophet, pleading in the name of Israel, had urged that God kept strange silence when his people were so long held captive, and their land lay so desolate. In this chapter we have the Divine answer to the prophet's plea. There was good reason for the long delay. Instead of the people reproaching their God, their God might much more reasonably reproach them, for they had rejected his long and earnest appeals; they had put the stumbling-blocks in the way of their own restoration. They wers not "straitened in God;" they were "straitened in their own selves." "Be bas called his people, but in vain; they have been obstinately deaf to him, unfaithful, and superstitious. The unraithful shall be punished; but a faithful remnant shall be saved and restored to Zion, and from them the promises shall take effect" (Matthew Arnold). The Divine reproaches here may be regarded as addressed to three classes-the negligent, the wilful, and the insolent. I. DIVINE REPROACHES OF THE NEGLIGENT. There are always amon~ us those who give no heed to God, whether he spe:,.ks in thunder-voice, or with the still small voice; in judgments or in mercies; from Sinai or from Zion. This is the most perplexing difficulty with which God's ministers have to deal. Men hear, but give no heed. They _ even recognize the truth and importance of what is declared, hut fail to see any relation in which it stands to them. No harder work is set before the servants of God than to break down pride and self-satisfaction, and awaken personal concern. Indifference to heavenly and Divine things keeps men away even from God's "feast of fat things, and wines on the lees well refined." Ministers have constantly to be the arousing trumpet- blast, which cries," Awake thou that sleepest,and arise from the dead,and Christ shall give thee light." II. DIVINE REPROACHES OF THE WILFUL. The secret of wilfulness is ·over-confi- dence in self. A man persuades himself that it "is in man that walketh to direct his steps." Or, as Isaiah puts it., a man is quite comfortable, walketh "after his own thoughts," even though he goes in a way that is not good. Such a man opposes all Divine voices and messages, bece.uss he finds the beginning of every one of them is this," Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God." Wilful people will have their way, but they will not have God's way. III. DIVINE REPROACHES OF THE INSOLE1'"T. (Ver. 3.) "Provoketh me to anger continually to my face." It is strange that we must recognize a more hopeful condition in active opposition to God, than in dogged and sullen resistance, or in weak indifference. The man who can oppose has strength of character, and Divine reproach may be con- vincing to him.-R. 'l'.
Ver, 5.-The pride of superior holiness. Dr. W. Kay has a suggestive note on this verse: "A deep insight is here given us into the nature of the mysterious fascina- tion which heathenism exercised on the Jewish people. The Law humbled them at every turn with mementoes of their own sin, and of God's unapproachable holiness. Paganism freed them from this, and allowed them (in the miust of moral pollution) to cherish lofty pretensions to sanctity. The man who had been offering incense on the mountain-top despised the penitent who went to the temple to present • a broken and contrite heart.' lf Pharisaism led to a liks result, it was because it, too, had emptied tho Law of its spiritual import, and turned its provisions into intellectual idols.'' lBAUR-Il, 2 I 482 TIIE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [01!, LXV, 1-25,
Henderson says, "The conoeit of imaginary holine11S, accruing from certain external relations, and the performance of certain ritual or bodily exercises, such as the Jews have long entertained, and which is also awfully prevalent among nominal Christians, Jehovah here declares to be peculiarly offensive to him." The illustration of this "stand-by" attitude is found in our Lord's parable of the Pharisee 11nd the publican. I. HOLINESS OF RITUAL. Religion may be II doing or II being. The religion of doin"' is t~e minute 8:nd careful observance of ritual. It may be ritual as appointed by God~ or_ 1t _may be ntual ~ arr~ngcd by man. ~ ce~tain goodn~ss, ri?;hteousness, bringing. with 1t much self-sat1sfaction, and a great d1spos1tion to despise others, may come out of a religion of doing. Thonsa.nds have been fascinated by it in every oge. And yet it is but an external matter, of the senses aud of the mind; and it has always been found possible to keep it up along with heart-impurities and life-immoralities. The ritualist is not at all bound to be II clean-living man. Pharisees thought themselves holy, on the ground of their precise obediences; and it was a Pharisaic commonplace to live in self-indulgence and sin. Matthew Arnold, writing of such mere ritual holiness, says, "Doing all this out of superstition, and out of the vain notion that it will be of religious avail to them, they insolently repel their unsuperstitious and faithful brethren as less holy than themselves." In a thonsa.nd ways, and constantly, i.t is needful to press on attention that ritual is an ai,d to holiness, not holiness, and the danger of ritual is (1) that it may blind us to the goodness of those who are not holy in the same way; and (2) it may make us indifferent to the claims of spiritual holiness. II. HOLINESS OF HEART. (See the kind of holiness acceptable to God, shown in a former homily on eh. !xvi. 1, 2.)-R. T.