Man meets God's law with resistance, His love with contempt. III. God's merciful approaches giving place to indignation and wrath. "Therefore as the fire devoureth," &c. Law being Law being resisted, and love despised, things cannot be as they were before; one of two things must happen-there must be either pardon or punishment. If pardon be rejected, only punishment remains. The images under which this is set forth in the text are most alarming. They show-1. That at last God's anger strikes at the root of our being -at the very substance of our life. The wrath of man at the worst rages only on the surface, but God strikes at the root (Luke xii. 4; Matt. x. 28). 2. God's anger smites the blossom of our being. All that constitutes the show, promise, and pride of our life, is scattered like dust. 3. When God smites in anger, He smites suddenly and swiftly, When God smites in anger, man can offer no resistance. What power to resist a hurricane has a tree whose roots are not only rotten, but "rottenness" How can the stubble withstand the fire, or the chaff defend itself against tongues of flame ?-J. R. Wood. (a) The spring of the law is love. With its "Thou shalt not do this," and "Thou shall not do that," the law presents rather an ungracious aspect. We like ill to be bidden, but worse to be forbidden. But does love never forbid? A mother, does she never forbid her child; but, on the contrary, indulge every caprice and grant all its wishes! How disastrous the fate, and brief the life, of a child denied nothing, indulged in everything, allowed to play with fire, or fire-arms; to devour the painted but poisonous fruit-to bathe where the tide runs like a racehorse or the river rushes roaring into the black, swirling pool. And he who frets against the restraints of God's holy law because it forbids this and the other thing, is no wiser than the infant who weeps, and screams, and struggles, and perhaps beats the kind bosom that nurses it, because its mother has snatched a knife from its foolish hands.— Guthrie. THE DOOM OF IMPENITENT ISRAEL In this threatening, fulfilled in the the variety of the scourges and swords that lie ready to His hand for the chastisement of the rebellious (6), and for the destruction of the incorrigible! IV. That in addressing Himself to the work of judgment, God is moved by the highest moral considerations. "Because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against His people." In His wrath, as well as in His love, He is holy in neither is there any caprice. V. That consequently God will not pause in His work of judgment out of any weak regard to the mere sufferings of wrong doers. It is against sin that His anger burns, and while sin endures the fires of His wrath will continue to flame. Eternal punishment! For impenitent transgressors there is woe upon woe, and no severity of suffering that they may endure abates the anger of the Lord against them. There is no such thing as salvation by personal suffering. See how all this is expressed in our text, from beginning to end. GENERAL CONCLUSION.-"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." The history of the Jews since Israel's day is a terrible comment on this declaration. PARTICULAR CONCLUSIONS.-1. As sinners, let us bestir ourselves to avert the consequences of our transgressions by a timely and genuine repentance (ch. lv. 6, 7; Hosea xiv. 1-4, &c.) 2. Having obtained mercy, let us be in the fear of the Lord all the day long. (John v. 14). 3. For our guidance in life, let us keep constantly before us the Biblical presentation of God, as a God of justice and of mercy ;-of justice, that we may be restrained from transgression; of mercy, that there may grow up in our hearts that love for Him which will cause us to find our highest joy in doing His will. (a) See my Homiletic Encyclopædia of Illus trations in Theology and Morals, Nos. 22882301. (8) As for example, conscience, the awakening of which Henry Smith has thus depicted: "There is a warning conscience and a gnawing conscience. The warning comes before sin; the gnawing conscience follows after sin. The warning conscience is often lulled asleep, but the gnawing conscience wakes her again. If there be any hell in this world, they who feel the worm of conscience gnawing on their hearts may truly say that they have felt the torments of hell. Who can express that man's horror but himself? Nay, what horrors are those which he cannot express himself! Sorrows are met in his soul as at a feast; and fear, thought, and anguish divide the soul between them. All the furies of hell leap upon his heart like a stage. Thought calls to Fear; Fear whistles to Horror; Horror beckons to Despair, and says, Come, and help me to torment this sinner. One says that she comes from this sin, and another says that she comes from that sin. So he goes through a thousand deaths, and cannot die. Irons are laid upon his body like a prisoner. All his lights are put out at once. He has no soul fit to be comforted. Thus he lives as it were upon the rack, and says that he bears the world upon his shoulders, and that no man suffers that which he suffers. So let him lie, says God, without ease, until he confess and repent and call for mercy." CORDS AND CART-ROPES. v. 18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart-rope (a). There is a certain oddity and grotesqueness in these words as they stand. It disappears as soon as we perceive that we have here an instance of Hebrew parallelism. (Compare chap. i. 18.) "Sin" is a noun, not a verb, and is a synonym for iniquity; to sin men yoke themselves as it were with "cords of vanity" or as with "a cartrope." "Cords of vanity" are such as have no substance in them, that will not stand any real strain; "a cartrope will stand an immense strain. Where, then, is the propriety of describing that by which the sinner binds himself to his sin by such opposite terms? In this, that in the first clause these bands are regarded from the point of view of a sound judgment, in the second from the point of view of the sinner's experience. Subjected to a real examination they are seen to be of no strength at all, and yet they suffice to bind the sinner to his sin as thoroughly as if they were strong as a cart-rope." What are these "cords of vanity"? They are false ideas—of God, of truth, of duty. This is plain from verse 19, which is an explanation of this one. There we have an illustrative case. Certain men are represented as bound to their iniquity by the false idea that God will not fulfil His threatenings against iniquity. Our text furnishes the solution of a mystery which often perplexes us in daily life. We see men cleaving to ruinous iniquities, and cleaving to them in spite of the remonstrances and entreaties of their friends and of God's servants. We who have felt "the powers of the world to come wonder that men do not repent and believe, and so escape from "the wrath to come." Here is the explanation : they are bound to their ungodly prac tices as it were with a cart-rope; and yet they are thus enslaved by what, when rightly tested, are only cords of vanity. They are like a horse tied to a post by a bridle-rein: it could snap the rein in an instant, but it does not attempt to do so because it has no suspicion of the weakness of the rein. Look at some of the "cords of vanity" by which men are bound to their iniquities; the exposure of their essential weakness may excite some who are now fettered and bound to make an effort to attain to moral freedom. I. One prevalent "cord of vanity' is unbelief in God's threatenings against iniquity. That God has threatened to do certain terrible things to impenitent sinners is admitted, but there lurks in the sinner's heart the idea that God is like certain foolish parents who threaten their children with punishments which they are much too good-natured ever to inflict. But whence did you derive this idea of God? Certainly not from His Word. He there distinctly forewarns us, that, though He is merciful and gracious, He will "by no means clear the guilty' (Ex. xxxiv. 7). Not from any intelligent examination of His dealings in providence. There neglect or infraction of law is invariably followed by punishment. If a whole nation were to neglect to sow its fields, would God be too good-natured to permit it to starve? But if God invariably punishes men for their infractions of His material laws, what reason can we have for hoping that He will not fulfil His threatenings against those who despise His spiritual ordinances? And why should we hope this? What reverence could we have for, what trust could we repose in, a God who did not fulfil His threatenings How could we then trust in His promises? Surely this is a "cord of vanity!" and yet how many are bound by it as if it were a cartrope"! II. Another cord is the reflection, "We are no worse than others." Men compare themselves with others, perhaps even more iniquitous than themselves, and so arrive at the conclusion that they are not in any great danger. They do this even in temporal things, -e.g., in the matter of drainage. The authorities of a country village or town will listen with the most complete indifference to the warnings of a Government inspector, that they are inviting an outbreak of fever or cholera; and the ground of their indifference is that they know of other villages or towns as badly drained as their own. But does that afford them any protection against the dangers. of which they are warned Men act as foolishly in spiritual matters. Because there are 80 many sinners they close their eyes to their own dangers or sins. Will God be either unable or afraid to punish transgressors because they are so numerous ? Surely this also is a "cord of vanity; and yet thousands are bound by it to their eternal destruction ! III. "We shall be able to shake ourselves loose from our evil habits by and by." They imagine that they can repent and reform at any time, and they are firmly resolved to do so before death. Perhaps there could not be found a single sinner who does not secretly cherish in his breast wicked Balaam's desire, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!" But this idea that men can repent and reform at any time is a delusion. As men continue in sin (1) The power to reform decays. (2) The desire to reform dies out. The love of sin takes entire possession of the man. It enwraps him as ivy unchecked will enwrap a tree; at first with no more strength than a child's finger, in the end with the strength of a thousand giants. It is the oldest sinners who cling to their vices most desperately, who are bound by them as by cart - ropes. (3.) The opportunities for reform rapidly diminish and often end unexpectedly (Prov. xxix. 1; 1 Thess. v. 3). Inquire by what cords of vanity you are bound. Break them! (Dan. iv. 27.) Look to Jesus, who came into the world for the very purpose of setting at liberty them that are bound. (a) See Notes on pp. 121, 122. THE PROPHET'S CALL. vi. 1-13. In the year that King Uzziah died, &c. We have here the history of Isaiah's call to his great life-work. Perhaps in a modern biography this chapter would have been placed first. But there was wisdom in placing it where it stands; it was well to give us some insight into the real character of the men among whom Isaiah was called to labour, for thus we are enabled more easily to understand the nature of the mission on which he was sent (a). Studying this chapter as a history of the prophet's call, I learn I. That a threefold spiritual preparation is needed for effective service of God (B). It is generally admitted that some kind of preparation is needed, e.g., for the ministry of the Gospel; but it is not generally recognised that a merely professional preparation is of no avail whatever. A man may pass through the whole routine of college life, both literary and theological, and yet not be a prophet of the Lord. Such preparation is not merely not enough, it is not even essential. "Schools of the prophets" may exist without sending forth a single prophet, and God calls many prophets who have never been inside a school door. This is true of every kind and form of God's service, e.g., the Sunday-school, the home, Christian literature. In every case a threefold spiritual preparation is necessary. Without it we may pretend to be God's servants; but the disguise will always be imperfect, and we shall always be betraying what we really The can serve God effectively, we must to 1. II. Those who have undergone this preparation will devote themselves unreservedly to God's service. There will spring up spontaneously within them a desire to serve God. They will not need to be pressed into this service; they will volunteer (ver. 8). 2. They will not be deterred by the diffi culty or painfulness of the service to which they are called. It was a hard and distasteful service that was demanded of Isaiah-to prophesy to an unbelieving and scoffing generation (ch. v. 18, 19); to enter upon a ministry that would leave men worse than it found them (vers. 9, 10). Nor was this ministry to be brief; it was to be prolonged through many years (vers. 11, 12). Note: in sending Isaiah on such a ministry there was nothing inconsistent with the Divine righteousness or goodness. God's truth must be proclaimed, whether men will heed or reject it; and the inevitable effect of such proclamation of the truth is to render those who reject it more stupid and wicked than they were before (2 Cor. ii. 16; John ix. 39). But, painful as it was, Isaiah did not shrink from it. Nor do any who have passed through such a preparation as his. They do not ask concerning a work or duty, "Is it easy?" "Is it pleasant?" but, "Does God call me to it?" Paul: (Acts xxi. 13). III. There is great encouragement for those who have unreservedly devoted themselves to the service of God. I. What God demands from them is not success, but faithfulness. He did not require Isaiah to convert his fellow-countrymen, but to prophesy to them faithfully. There his responsibility began and ended. So is it with preachers, teachers, and priests to-day. Men measure by success, but God by faithfulness. What a differ ence is the result, e.g., in such a case as that of Carey, who laboured for years without making one convert! or in such a case as Isaiah's ! 2. No faithful servant of God will ever labour without some success. Isaiah was not to toil altogether in vain. There was to be a wide-spread apostacy of his countrymen, but not a universal apostacy; a small remnant would still cleave to the Lord (ver. 13); and doubtless Isaiah's ministry did much to keep them in the paths of righteousness. So is it with us; much of our seed may be wasted, but not all of it (Ps. cxxvi. 6; 1 Cor. xv. 58). (a) This vision evidently contains the desig nation of Isaiah to his work as a prophet. It does not follow that he may not himself have put his book together in the form, or nearly in the form, in which we have received it. The early chapters as they describe the state of the people, not at one particular moment but through a course of years, announcing the punishments which must follow from that state with the blessings which could come out of them, are a living index to the subsequent prophecies and history. The place which they occupy, supposing it was assigned by Isaiah, cannot hinder us from accepting his own express words as a proof, that the year in which King Uzziah died was the critical year of his life, that which explained to him why he was sent into the world and what task he had to perform in it.-F. D. Maurice. (8) Once for all must he who was to be a prophet have become absolutely certain of the true relation of the world and Jehovah,-must have beheld, as in a distinct form, the sublime and holy character of Jehovah, and felt that he was directed by Him alone; once for all must he have recognised the divine power of truth against the whole world, and himself as living and moving in it alone; once for all must he have entered, with the effectual energy and act of his whole inner being, into the counsels of God, and found himself for ever bound by them, and endowed by these bonds with true power and freedom :-this was the first condition and the true beginning of all the work of the prophet, the holy consecration and the inner call, without which none can become a true prophet.-Ewald. THE TRINITY IN UNITY. (For Trinity Sunday.) vi. 1-3. In the year that King Uzziah died, &c. Scene of this sublime vision, the Uzziah died.” Why is this fact Temple; time, "the year that King mentioned Uzziah had profaned the |