If God's message will not win upon Pharaoh, His plagues shall compel him; and therefore, when He sent Moses to him, He put a rod into his hand, as well as a word into his mouth. When God fully purposes to afflict a man, he 19 like a bird in a net, the more he strives and

flutters, the more he is entangled; for the Supreme Judge of all things is resolved to go through with His great work of judgment, and to make all obstinate, sturdy sinners know, that He has power to constrain where His goodness will not persuade.-South, 1633-1716.

We have here the promise of a redemption which God would accomplish for Jerusalem, and from the terms of the promise, especially taken in connection with the preceding statements (vers. 21-23), we may learn what God's idea of redemption is: it is to purge away all that debases and to restore all that is lost. In other words, redemption consists in restoration to the Divine ideal. Such was the redemption which God promised to accomplish for Jerusalem: such is the redemption which He offers to accomplish for us. Here we have

I. A correction of a common error. Most men, when they hear of redemption, think of it merely as salvation from suffering, rescue from the peril of hell. This is a consequence of redemption, but redemption consists in the cleansing of our nature from all defilement, and in our restoration to the Divine ideal of humanity (Col. iii. 10; Eph. iv. 24, 13). God is going to do something grander for us than save us from hell. He is going to make us "meet" for heaven (1 John iii. 2). It would be truer to say that God's idea of redemption is "salvation by suffering." than to say that it is "salvation from suffering." The figure used in the text is expressive of the keenest suffering "I will purely purge away thy dross." But dross is purged away by fire Suffering is one of the instru ments which God most frequently uses to save men from sin.

II. A model for preachers. Guided by a Divine inspiration, the prophet does not speak of happiness, but of

purity and righteousness; he names these as the great favours which God was about to bestow upon His people. So should preachers to-day strive to make men understand that these are the greatest blessings which God can confer upon man. All other blessings spring from them; as all social blessings are secured to a community when its "judges" are righteous and its "counsellors" fear God. Let preachers do their utmost to make it plain to the men of this generation, that just as if we have the sun we shall have light and heat, so if they have purity, they shall have peace; if they attain to holiness, they shall attain to a nobler and completer happiness than those who long for happiness merely ever dream of.

III. An ennobling ideal to be striven after by all men. Happy is the man who has a great purpose in life. And what is the purpose with which a study of our text should inspire us? Not merely to "flee from the wrath to come," but to become "partakers of the Divine nature," and so to attain to God's ideal of humanity. God is striving to restore us to His own likeness let us do all that in us lies to help on this restoration (Phil. ii. 12, 13). The "salvation " we are to "work out" is not salvation from guilt (that is Christ's work, accomplished by Him once for all on the cross), but from the indwelling corruption which is to us what dross is to the precious metals. Nor are we merely to seek to put away that which is evil (a); we are to strive to set up in us all noblenesses which are to

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character what " "judges" and " sellors" are to a city (2 Pet. i. 5-7; Phil. iv. 8). Blessed is the man who has this ideal in life. I. He is saved from fear, the haunting dread of failure which oppresses those whose supreme desire is merely to be saved from hell. II. He has a sustaining hope, based upon the sure promises of God's Word (1 Pet. i. 10, 11). III. He has a present and growing joy, such as can come only from self-conquest and moral progress. The joy of "the just," that is, of the men whose steadfast aim is righteousness, is like "the path of the just" (Prov. iv. 18).

(a) Christianity ends not in negatives. No man clears his garden of weeds but in order to

the planting of flowers or useful herbs in their room. God calls upon us to dispossess our corruptions, but it is for the reception of new inhabitants. A room may be clean, and yet empty; but it is not enough that our hearts be swept, unless they be also garnished, or that we lay aside our pride, our luxury, our covetousness, unless humility, temperance, and liberality rise up and thrive in their places. The design of religion would be very poor and short should it look no further than only to keep men from being swine, goats, and tigers, without improving the principles of humanity into positive and higher perfections. The soul may be cleansed from all blots, and yet still be left but a blank. But Christianity is of a thriving and aspiring nature, and requires us to proceed from grace to grace (2 Pet. i. 5-7), ascending by degrees, till at length the top of the ladder reaches heaven, and conveys the soul so qualified into the mansions of glory. -South, 1633-1716.

We have in the contest a picture of a dismantled city, a disorganised community; and here God tells us that He will undertake the work of its reconstruction. I. All the arrangements of society are absolutely in God's hands. "I will restore," &c. No man can overturn, or build up, but by His permission. On Him all projects of national, social, or ecclesiastical reconstruction depend for their success. That on which He smiles flourishes; that on which He frowns withers away. Let reformers and reconstructors of society remember and recognise this great fact, that God rules on earth as in heaven. II. All interruptions of social order are under the control of God. Revolutions occur not by chance, not by the will of man, but by the will of God. They occur only when, and continue only as long as He pleases. By Him judges and counsellors are swept away, and by Him they are restored. No nation is so broken that it cannot be uplifted by Him to power and glory, "as at the first." III. No social state can be purified but by religious processes. There are many philanthropic and political projects which have for their

aim national regeneration, but they are all foredoomed to come to nought, because they lack the religious element. Moral reformation must go before social advancement: a return to righteousness is the first step to national exaltation (a). IV. The great name will follow the true regeneration. "Afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, The faithful city." Not first the exalted title, but the illustrative cha racter; not first the splendid renown, but the glorious achievement !-Joseph Parker, D.D.

(a) Think not that any change in the form of government would cure that which is caused by the people's sin, or the common depravity of human nature. Some think they can contrive such forms of government as that the rulers shall be able to do no hurt; but either they will disable them to do good, or else their engine is but glass, and will fail or break when it comes to execution. Men that are themselves so bad and unhumbled as not to know how bad they are, and how bad mankind is, are still laying the blame upon the form of government when anything is amiss, and think by a change to find a cure. As if when an army is infected with the plague, or composed of cowards, the change of the general or form of government would prove a cure. But if a monarch be faulty, in an aristocracy you will have but many faulty governors for one, and in a democracy a multitude of tyrants.-Baxter, 1615-1691.

These verses are closely and vitally connected it is a mistake to separate them, as in the Authorised Version. Their meaning would be conveyed to the English reader, if they were translated-"Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness; and thereby also the transgressors and sinners shall be destroyed, yea they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed" (a). By judgment is meant the doom which in the preceding verses had been threatened against guilty Jerusalem (e.g., ver. 18): this "judgment" would be a manifestation of God's punitive righteousness, and the declaration is that the infliction of this "judgment" would have a twofold effect-it would redeem Zion and her converts, and it would destroy the transgressors and sinners.

The diverse effects of Divine judgments is a matter well worthy of our study. I. One effect of those judgments by which God manifests His righteous indignation against sin is to redeem His people from their transgressions. A prolonged period of peace and pros perity such as the Jews enjoyed under Uzziah is always perilous to the vital religion of a nation. Formalism is apt to prevail. The lines of demarcation between the Church and the world are apt to be effaced; "Zion" is apt to become merged in "Jerusalem." In love to His people, God is therefore compelled to send upon their nation great calamities. These lead to searchings of heart, and reformations of conduct and character. Men learn again to wait upon God, and reverently to regard His will (ch. xxvi. 9). The Church shines once more with the glory of spiritual conformity to God, and the result is that she is increased by converts from the world: to these also the season of judgment is also the season of redemption. But, II. Another effect of God's judgments is to harden the

obdurate. His chastisements lead some men to further acts of rebellion against Him (ver. 5). Like Pharaoh, they harden themselves more and more as God sends plague after plague_upon them (Exod. viii. 19, 32, &c.) Hence seasons of public calamity (such as that of the plague in London, &c.) have always been seasons of public crime. Transgressors madly dare Omnipotence to a trial of strength, and the result is their utter destruction.

Our subject as thus unfolded gives rise to the following practical reflections-1. In a season of national or individual prosperity we should be especially watchful and prayerful against conformity to the world (8). 2. We should not regard judgments that come upon our nation or ourselves merely as calamities they may be God's angels sent in truest mercy, and they bring with them to the people of God great moral and spiritual compensations. 3. Judgments, when they come upon us, afford us an admirable test of our real character if we be indeed the people of God, they will lead us to submission and to more earnest strivings after holiness; but if they awaken within us a spirit of murmuring, of repining, of resentment against God, we have good cause to suspect that our religion has never been the work of God in our hearts (7). 4. In the season of judgment we really have only one alternative before us to turn or burn. No stoutness of heart will enable us to resist God's consuming wrath against iniquity (Mal. iv. 1).

(a) The word "together" does not mean that the transgressor shall be destroyed together with the sinner; but that the destruction of this one class, called both transgressors and sinners, shall come in close connection, "in. gether with," the salvation of the penitent who are brought back to God by correction, as is said in the previous verses. The same sort of infliction that reciaimed the "converts" (ver. 27), hardened and sealed over to ruin

he says; the day is at hand when ye shall be caused to blush for your gods; you yourselves shall be withered oaks, and gardens without water; yea, your idols, and ye who have made them, for they are but things, the work of your hands, shall be burned together in unquenchable fire (7). The theme of these verses is therefore the doom of the apostates, and of the objects of their trust.

I. Idolatry is still the sin of our race. It is not confined to "heathen" lands. There is need in this land for a proclamation of the first commandment. For what is idolatry in its essence? It is loving and trusting some being or thing more than God. Every man's God is what he lives for. Hence the declaration that "covetousness is idolatry; it is one form of the widespread sin. II. The confidence of men in their idols is still limitless and exultant. Every idolater is persuaded that that which he lives for is worth living for; this is the conviction of the miser, the ambitious man, &c. III. The time is at hand when the falsity of this confidence shall be exposed.

There are coming upon those who cherish it calamities amid which they will seek in vain for comfort from their "idols." How often this is verified in daily life! In the withered, desolate condition of those who have forsaken the Lord how awfully is their folly demonstrated! IV. Yea, there is a day appointing in which all idolaters and their idols shall be consumed together. In the day of judgment the worshippers of Dagon, of Astarte, of Baal, and of Brahm will not be the only persons on whom utter destruction shall come : those who have made gold their confidence, &c., shall be burned up, together with their "gods." The objects of their trust shall be as powerless as is "tow" to resist flame, and they themselves shall be but as sparks," swept away by the blast of the Divine indignation.

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Application.-1. The day of judg ment is a great reality; it is no mere dream of theologians, it is A TREMEN

DOUS FACT with which we shall soon be brought face to face. 2. This fact should govern us in selecting the object of our supreme love and trust. 3. It should prevent us from envying those who have forsaken the Lord, because of the temporary prosperity in which they are rejoicing (8). 4. It should make us earnest in our endeavours to reclaim them from their apostasy while the day of Divine long-suffering and mercy still continues.

(a) In verse 29 is an instance of what seemed to Lowth's classical taste a corrupt reading "They shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired." But this variation of the persons of the verb is not unusual in Hebrew, and certainly no corruption. Indeed, if we look at Psalm xci., which is very artistically constructed, we shall see reason to think that what jars so harshly on a classically trained ear was a beauty to the Hebrew poets. -Strachey.

"Which ye have desired." He was speaking of "the sinners," he suddenly turns round to the men of his own generation, and says, "You are the men who are thus storing up shame and confusion.”—Kay.

(8) In the judgments and the restoration which the prophet foretells, he declares that the people shall learn the worthlessness of the idols which they have been worshipping under the oak-trees, and in the sacred groves and gardens. The worship of the high places was partly a local worship of Jehovah, which only became irregular and blameable in later times; but there was also a widespread worship of Baal, Astarte, and Moloch, the old gods of the Canaanites and other nations, in sacred groves and gardens, as well as on the hill-tops -a worship of impersonated and deified sensuality and cruelty-which sometimes even established itself within the precincts of the temple itself, and was still more readily blended with, or substituted for, the worship of Jehovah in the high places. And this idolatrous worship was going on in Judæa during the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham, at the same time with the temple services, as appears from 2 Kings IV. 3, 4, compared with 2 Chron. xxvii. 2. In the day of judgment and restoration, says the prophet, these men who have been flourishing in their sin like their oaks, and living in pleasures like those of their well-watered gardens, shall find that the idols to which these oaks and gardens are dedicated have no power to save them from a destruction which shall make them "as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water," images which will be the more forcible if we remem ber that in a southern climate trees fade rather from excessive heat than from season