The Pulpit Commentary — Micah — Section 63

built on Mount Moriah, and called the mountain of the Lord's houee. The temple was the greatest thing in the religion of the Jews; it was the "mountain" in their scenery. The true religion is to become a. mountain. The little stone will become a mountain, and fill the whole earth. In truth, the true religion, where it exists, is the biggest thing. In the imlividual soul it is the largest thing. It is the dominant power, it is the mountain in the scenery of !I good man's experience. Let all men pos~ess it, and then it will be to the whole world what it is to the individual. Jn sooth, true religion is either everything or nothing; supremacy is its essence-the supreme thought, the supreme love, the supreme aim. Two things are here stated about this mountain. 1. It is to become established. How is it to be established? By civil authority, legislative enactments? Our foolish forefathers have thonght so, and many of the dolts of this generation think so too. But this to the last point is unpbilosophic and absurd. The weakness of religion in Christendom to-day may be ascribed to the futile attempts of unwise and ambitious men to establish it by law. You may as well endeavour to govern the planetary universe by the ten command- ments as to establish religion by civil laws. 2. It is to becmne conspicuous. "In the top of the mountains." It will be seen from afar-the most elevated power of the world. It will be the chief thing in the markets, professions, and governments of the world, high up on the top of all. I!. THE TRUE RELIGION OF THE GOSPEL AGE WILL BECOME UNIVERSALLY AT'I'RAC- TIVE. "And people shall flow unto it." "This is a fi,,uurative expression, denoting that they shall be converted to the true religion. It indicates that they shall come in multitudes, like the flowing of a mighty river. The idea of the flowing of the nation is of the movement of many people towards an object like a broad stream on the tides of the ocean, and is one that is very grand and sublime" (Barnes). In this period the social element will be brought into full play in connection with true religion. Men will stimulate each other to inquire after truth. "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord." 1. They will st'I.Uiy its laws in order to obey them. "He will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his pa.Lbs." In those good times that are coming, men will study God'~ ways, and not man's theories, and study these ways, not as a matter of intellectual speculation, but in order to obey them, to walk in his ways. Religion in those days will be practical; it will be the law of every one's life, the great regulative force of society. 2. They will study its laws at the fuuntain-head. "For the Law shall go forth of Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Jerusalem was the fountain-head of Christianity. Christ commanded his disciples to tarry at Jerusalem until they should be endued with power from on high. There also he commanded that the first sermon should be preached, a sermon concerning repentance and remis- sion of sins; and there Peter opened his commission in his wonderful Pentecostal discourse. In those days men will go for religious instruction, not to patristic, puritanic, .Anglicrzn, or any other theological school, but to the fountain-head, to Jerusalem, where it is fresh and pure, most potent in spiritual stimulation and sugges- tion. Men in these days have gone far away from the theology of Jerusalem. In that theology there a.re none of those miserable dogmas that are now preached, but facts concerning a Person, and that Person none other than the Scm of man and the Son of God. IIJ. 'l'HE TRUE RELIGION OF THE GOSPEL AGE WILL BECOME POWERFUL TO TERllINATE ALL WARS. 1. Here is the destruction of war. "Beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks." The arts of war destroyed, in their stead will flourish the arts of peace. The sword and spear, what ills of immeasurable enormity they have inflicted upon the race I Implements of hell, instruments by which :ill the infernal passions of the human heart have been excited and gratified. War is anti- christ. 2. Here is the establishment of peace. "Shall sit every mau under his vine and under his fig tree." The words, "~it under his vine," are taken from 1 Kings iv. 25, eto. Most incredible must this prediction have been to the meu ofMicnh's time; but it will be accomplished, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts bath spoken it. If he ha! spoken it and it docs not come to pass, it must be for one of three reasons: (1) Insin- cerity; which cannot be entertained. (2) Change of purpose; which is equally inadmissible. (3) Unexpected difficulties; which is an absnrdity when applied to Omniscience.-D. T,  G4 THE BOOK OF MICAH. [OH, IV, 1-18,