The prophecy opens with, 1. A high charge against the Jewish church and nation, (1.) For their ingratitude, ver. 2, 3. (2.) For their incorrigibles, ver. 5. (3.) For the universal degeneracy of the people, ver. 4, 6, 21, 22. (4.) For their rulers perverting of justice, ver. 23. 2. A sad complaint of the judgments of God, which their sins had brought upon them, ver. 7—9. 3. A just rejection of their formal worship amidst this general defection and apathy, ver. 10—15. 4. An earnest call to repentance and reformation, setting before them life and death; life if they complied with the call, and death if they did not, ver. 16—20. 5. A threatening of ruin to those that would not be reformed, ver. 24, 28—31. 6. A promise of a happy reformation at last, and a return to their primitive purity and prosperity, ver. 25—27. 1. THE vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, before Christ which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahas, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. The first verse is a kind of title to the whole book. The author is Isaiah, which signifies the salvation of the Lord: his father was Amoz, not Amoz the prophet, but a different person, and of a different name. It is called his vision, as being delivered to him in this way, and, as he had himself a clear understanding of what he spoke, he delivered it very perspicuously to others. The great subject of the prophecy is said to be Judah and Jerusalem, little mention being made of the rest of the revolted Israelites; and when notice is taken of other nations, it is because of their connection with the Jews, and their captivity by them, or deliverance from them. Under four kings before the plea, destroyed their city and temple together. Note, (1.) The greatest enemies to the power of godliness are often those who are most rigid observers of the form. (2.) Whilst inward iniquity is harboured, and the heart continues estranged from God, the most liberal charities, or the largest gifts to God's altar, will be rejected with abhorrence. (3.) Many in a fright will be driven to their knees and their prayers, who are not driven from their sins, and therefore pray in vain. (4.) So far are all the outward services of religious worship from pleasing God, where the soul is unconverted and self-righteous, that he abhors the sabbatas and the solemn meeting; so that the very duties on which the formalists depend, will prove their damnation. b Jer. 10. 16. c Cf. 6v. 10. 14. &6var. 6. 17. Am. v. 17. Rom. 20. p. 1 Pet. 10. 11. 7 Or. 6p. 6. 6 Chap. 6in. 18. e Pet. II. 7. Rev. vii 16. f 7c. i. 8. 16. ¶ 1 Wash ye, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes, 'ceale to do evil, 17. Learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the opprefied, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 18. Come now and let us reason together, faith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, 'they shall be as white as know: though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. 20. But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. Since the ceremonial worship was declared ineffectual, the prophet directs them to the only sufficient means of acceptance with God. 1. By washing and making themselves clean, which all their visual ablutions never could effect; and therefore they must come by faith, under the sense of their guilt and pollution, to the sincretion which should be opened in a Swining's blood. Note, We might as soon think to wash the Ethiopian white, as to remove one foot of sin from our souls by any other method, than through the atoning blood of Jesus. 2. As washed from their sins they must amend their lives; anything away all known evil, making restitution for every act of injustice, and ceasing from allowed sin. They must not merely rest in negative holiness, but exercise themselves unto godliness in the practice of every good word and work, under the influence of divine grace, and with a single eye to the divine glory. And he instances wherein this courts of well-doing consists, under the two great points of mercy and justice, which would please the Lord better than the most costly sacrifices. Note, (1.) Where the blood of Jesus cleanses from the guilt of sin, the Spirit of Jesus will deliver from the power of it; and in vain do they hope for the one, who continue strangers to the other. (2.) Though perfectly to cease from sin is the lieffedness reserved for us above, yet here we shall obtain the utilimony of a good conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincecity we have our conversation in the world. (3.) A Christian has no time to be idle; much hath he to learn; much to do; and all his attention and care will be little enough for the great work that is before him. 3. He silences an objection which might be raised in the minds of those, whose deep views of past guilt might discourage them from returning to God, as if their sins were beyond pardon and hope. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as place: though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool; however great and aggravated their iniquities, they need not be discouraged: nay, are invited to come, yea, to come now without delity, and let us reason together, faith the Lord; though on the footing of their own deeds or duties they could not appear in any will at God's bar, yet, when God put that prevailing argument in their mouths of the promises of full and free pardon through the blood and righteousness of a Redeemer, then they might come boldly to the throne, and fear no condemnation; the plea would be accepted, the sinner justified from all things. Note, That blood of Jesus which alone can cleanse from the least sin, as easily and effectually cleanses from the greatest: let no returning sinner despair. 4. He sets before them the blessing and the curse. If ye be wishing to submit to this advice, to wash and be clean, and obedent to the word and ways of God, ye shall eat the good of the land, the land of Canaan, in which their abode would be sure, as long as their fidelity was maintained; and a better country than this also is the portion of the faithful servants of God. But if ye refuse to hearken to these admonitions, and rebel against the government and ministers of God, and against his incarnate word the Messiah, then their ruin was determined; the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, the sincretion is fixed and irrevocable; Ye shall be devoured with the sword of the Babylonians and Romans, executing upon them God's temporal judgment, and by the sword of eternal vengeance after death pursuing them to the lowest hell. Note, (1.) If sinners persist, it will not be for lack of warning; their blood is upon their own heads. (2.) They who will not submit to God's sceptre, must suffer under his sword. (3.) When sinners persist in their rebellion, they reject their own mercies, and God's justice in their condemnation will be manifest to all. Vo 2. II. 21. ¶ 1 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment, righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. 22. 2 Thy silver is become dross; thy wine mixt with water: 23. 3 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: 4 every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards; 5 they judge not the fatherless, neither doeth the cause of the widow come unto them. 24. Therefore faith the LORD, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, 7 I will ease me of mine adversaries, 8 and avenge me of mine enemies. 25. ¶ And I will turn my hand upon thee, and 9 purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin. 26. And I will enforce thy Judges 1 as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward 2 thou shall be called, the city of righteousness, the faithful city. 27. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and 3 but converts with righteousness. 28. ¶ And 4 the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed. 29. For they shall be ashamed of 5 the oaks which ye have desired, 6 and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen. 30. For ye shall be 7 as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. 31. And 8 the strong shall be as tow, and 9 the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and 10 none shall quench them. As Jesus wept over the devoted city, the prophes, moved with a portion of his compassionate spirit, laments the wickedness he beheld. 1. An awful change had passed on Jerusalem: the once faithful city is become an harlot, turning from the worship and service of God, and profitstung herself to all the abominations of iniquity. It was in past days famed for justice, full of judgment, her magistrates distinguished for integrity; righteousness lodged in it, as it chosen for her favoured abode. But how aweful the contrasts 2 and murderers, who first murdered the prophes who witnessed of the just One, and then at last murdered the Son of God, Mat. xxiii. 37. Acts vii. 52. Pure once, and bright as silver, dross now only remained; their practice corrupt, and their principles depraved. Thy wine is mixed with water; the lively oracles of God adulterated and abashed by false glories, and human traditions; so that it was become of no effect. Thy princes are rebellious, ringleaders in sin; and companions of thieves, connviving at their crimes; and, for the protection they afforded, sharing of the fruits of their robberies. Gifts and bribes were their known delights, and ever carried the cause at their bar; whilst the poor, the fatherless, and widow, who had nothing to give, were suffered to be oppressed without redress; and such was exactly the character of the Jews in our Saviour's days, See Rom. ii. Note, (1.) Prostitution of justice for gain is more infamous than the justification of the harlot for hate. (2.) Injustice and bribery on the seat of judgment are a heavier curse on any people, than the ravages of the world handists: against the one we may guard, from the other there is no redress. (3.) We must not only abstain from injuring the poor; we are criminal if we neglect to vindicate them from oppression, and to expoke the cause of the afflicted. (4.) The former good examples of preaching magistrates, or illustrious progenitors, respect double darkness on their degenerate successors. 2. God with indignation awakes to execute vengeance on his enemies. Ah, I said safe me of them, as a loud under which the earth groaned: or, I will take comfort of them, pleased with the execution of righteous judgment upon them. And this he confirms by a recital of his glorious titles, The Lord of bells, the mighty One of Israel, able to fulfill all his threatenings, and before whom every foe must fall. Terrible was the execution of this threatening in their first destruction by the Babylonians, but most fearful, when, having rejected and murdered the Lord of life, he employed the Roman sword, and commanded these his enemies, who would not that he should reign over them, to be slain before him. 3. A part shall be recovered, converted, and saved. I will turn my hand upon thee, revive the decayed state of religion, puting their dross away in the furnace of affliction, and taking away the tin, the adulterations they had mixed in their worship, and the corruptions of their practice; reffering their judges as at the first, and counsellors as at the beginning; and then they would recover their former credit and honour, as she city of righteousness, the faithful city, redeemed by judgment executed on their sins; and being now converted unto God, his righteousness became engaged for their recovery. And this was the case in a measure under Hezekiah's reformation, and may look to their reformation from Babylon; but especially regards the day of Christ, when, by the powerful grace of God in the gospel, such multitudes of Jews were converted; their sins, as dross, purged away; their self-righteousness, like sin, renounced, as false and base alley. The apostles, as judges, were C. raised The third riled up to recover them from the worst enemies, sin and Satan, and to counsel and direct them in the way of truth and holiness. Being incorporated in Christ's church, they would become a praise in the earth, a people clothed with righteousness imputed and impressed, and faithful to Christ, his gospel, and ordinances. His Zion is thus redeemed by the judgment executed on the divine Redeemer in her stead, and his comers with righteousness, in a way perfectly consistent with the holiness of God, whose righteousness eminently appears displayed in the salvation of the gospel. Note, (1.) Every man by nature and practice is the slave of sin, that worst of slavery, till redeemed by grace. (2.) The work of conversion belongs to God alone; he must turn us, or we never shall be turned. (3.) The Redeemer's righteousness is the great meritorious cause of our conversion; hereby God can be just, when he is the justice of him that believes on Jesus. (4.) When we recover the favour of God we had forfeited, we shall be restored to the honour we had left. 4. The destruction of the enemies of Christ and his people is as sure as their salvation. Together they will perish, v. 28. Their false confidence shall fail and confound them, v. 29. Stripped as the oak in winter, they shall be left naked and bare, and withered as the garden that hath no waters, v. 30. The strong shall be as unable to resist, as the tow before the devouring fire; and the maker of it, the idol; or his word, all the devious of the transgressors, shall be as a guard of fire, and they shall burn together, and some shall quench them; which will eminently be fulfilled in the day of final resumption, when God shall execute judgment upon the ungodly, and the man of sin and all his followers, who have forsaken the ways of truth for lying vanities, human traditions, false doctrines and worship, and abominable idolatries, will have their portion together in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death, See Rev. xx. 10. With this chapter begins a new sermon, which is continued in the two following ones. The subject of it is Judah and Jerusalem, ver. 1. The prophet foretells, 1. The glory of the gospel-church in the latter days, ver. 2, 3. and the great power of should introduce into the world, ver. 4. whence he infers the duty of the house of Jacob, ver. 5. 2. The rejection of the Jesus for their sins, ver. 6-9. 3. That God by his judgments would humble them, ver. 10-17. 4. That they should themselves be ashamed of their confidence in their idols, and in an arm of faith, ver. 18-22. 1. THE word that Isaiah the son of Amos saw, concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2. And 'it shall come to pass in the last days, that 'the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted 'above the hills; and 'all nations shall flow unto it. 3. And many people shall go and say, 'Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, and 'he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for 'out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem, a. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall 're-buke many people: and 'they shall beat their swords into plow-liners, and their spears into pruning-books: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 5. O house of Jacob, come ye, and 'let us walk in the light of the LORD. We have here a glorious prophecy of the establishment of the kingdom and church of Christ in the last days, the days of the Messiah. The gospel is the last dispensation, nothing now remains but the great consummation of all things at the second appearing of the great God and Saviour. 1. The mountain of the Lord's house, his church, firm and immovable, shall be established in the top of the mountains, in Christ, who is the head of all principalities and powers, and, with a superiority over all the kingdoms of the earth, shall be coached above the hills, the antichristian powers, whether papal, pagan, or Mahometan, being subdued before it. Note, Whatever oppositions the church for a time may groan under, in this end the will see all her enemies at her feet. 2. All nations shall flow unto it; many out of all lands shall be incorporated into it, and, having tailed the blessedness of Christ's service, shall be zealously solicitous to propagate his holy religion, and engage others to go with them. Many people shall go and say, Come ye along with us, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, his church, and to the house of the God of Jacob, the place he hath chosen for his blest abode. And, as an argument to enforce their exhortation, they urge, and he will teach us of his ways, his holy, happy ways of grace, mercy, and peace; and we will walk in his paths, instructed by his word, and strengthened by his Spirit. Note, (1.) The gospel shall have a more glorious and universal spread than ever yet it hath had. (2.) They who are Christ's people, are not only made willing to follow him themselves, but are zealous to engage others to come and partake of the same blessing. (3.) None can teach us effectually, but God himself. Though the best means may be employed, unless he gives the increasers, Paul plants and Apollos waters in vain. (4.) They who would go to the mount of God, must go up, in opposition to corrupt nature, and expect many difficulties in the absent from the world and Satan; but every pain will be amply repulsed, when we shall reach the summit. (5.) They who are taught of God are made obedient to his holy will; their knowledge hath a sanctifying influence, engaging them to walk and please God. 3. The means God will employ for this purpose. Out of Zion shall go forth the law, or doctrine; the gospel, the law of the Spirit of life; and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, where the incarnate word appeared, and from whence he sent forth his apostles to preach the gospel unto every creature; which hath been done in a measure, continues still to be spread, and will more eminently be propagated than ever, before the second coming of Christ. 4. The blessing of Christ's government is declared. He shall judge among the nations, holding the wages of universal dominion, and ruling with the most consummate equity; and shall rebuke many people, convince and convert them from the error of their ways by his word and Spirit. Peace then will bless the earth, such as hath never yet been known: They shall beat their swords into plow-liners, and their spears into pruning-books: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. In part we see this fulfilled; so far as the gospel obtains power and influence on the heart, it leads us to follow peace with all men; but the state of perfect harmony here described remains yet to come, when Christ shall reign over his saints gloriously. 5. The Gentile church addresses the Jewish people, solicitous for their conversion: O house of Jacob, come ye, and join us in the worship and ordinances of the gospel; and let us walk in the light of the Lord, in the light of the Sun of Righteousness, the divine Redeemer, whose word is our bright guide through time unto eternity; and whilst by faith and love we cleanse to him, and look up in prayer for continued support, he will lead us by his counsel, till he shall bring us to his glory. 6. Therefore 'thou hast forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the earth, and 'are hamblesers like the Philistines, and 'they please themselves in the children of strangers. 7. Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures: their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots. 8. Their land also is full of idols: they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. 9. And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: 'therefore forgive them not. These words contain a reason for the divine conduct in the rejection of the Jews, and vocation of the Gentiles. 1. Their fine were great: they introduced the magic and foreries of the earth; imitated, in their arts of divination, the Philistines; and preferred the children of strangers to native Israelites, v. 6. Though God had forbidden them to multiply riches, and chariots, and horses, to appear formidable to their neighbours, yet they anxiously laboured to procure these as their confidence, instead of God's promise and care, v. 7. Though he had so awfully warned them against idols, they had filled their land with them, v. 8. and high and low joined in the idolatrous service, v. 9. This description suits the times in which the prophet spoke, better than their flats after their return from Babylon; and every preceding generation, as well as that which immediately rejected Christ, contributed to fill up the measure of their nation's guilt. Some refer this to Antichrist and his followers, who call themselves the people of God, but shew the marks of an apostle church. The juggles, tricks, and frauds of Romish priests are well known; their convents filled with children of strangers; or they please themselves in unnatural lusts with such, whence Rome is called spiritually Sodom, Rev. xi. 8. They enrich themselves by masses, indulgence, life, and, attended with great pains of chariots and horses, their ecclesiastics appear in all the magnificence of worldly splendor. Full of idols; worshiping images of pretended saints, and of many who never existed; and all sunk in the same hateful idolatry: like priest, like people. 2. Their doom was heavy: God had forsaken them, given them up to a reprobate mind; they would never be forgiven, either in this world or that which is to come, but all such practices be punished with eternal vengeance. This was verified in the amazing defoliation the Roman brought upon the Jewish people, when the body of the nation was so terribly destroyed; II Baton Chord Proved, and shall be more fully accomplished in the eternal ruin of all the impenitently wicked in the day of God. 1 Ver. 10. 2. Rev. 3. 1. 4 Ver. 10. Chap. v. 13. de corr. 11. 1 Cor. 1. 31. 1 Emb. and 1—2. 2 Ann. 6. 3 Emb. in 6. 4 1 Cor. 6. 5 Pf. abid. 1 Hab. Pallons of adva. 2 Ver. 11. Chap. sub. 11. a Ver. 10. Had. c. 8. Luke 1:10. 30. Rev. 4. 18. &9. 6. 6 a Thal. 4 Chap. 1:10. 11. &corr. 7. 6 Ver. 2:19. a Pf. rebid. 3. Jer. 1:10. 5. 7 Jn. 1:10. 3. 10. ¶ Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the duft, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty. 11. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. 12. For the day of the LORD of hofts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low; 13. And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashar. 14. And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, 15. And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, 16. And upon all the ships of Tarhih, and upon all pleasant pictures. 17. And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low; and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. 18. And the idols he shall utterly abolish. 19. And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. 20. In that day a man shall call his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made, each one for himself to worship, to the moles, and to the bars: 21. To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. 22. Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of? The following: but this will abide upchanging the time. When all created nature links in mind, the name of God therein an agent, shall appear complete before the throne of judgment, and plead this rightowards, as their only title to eternal glory, v. 6. (6.) They need not fear the reproaches and reviling of men, who have an interest in this rightowards and salvation: they are to expect their crisis, but it is their glory, not their shame. (7.) Christ will silence and destroy shortly all their enemies; and when, through the ages of eternity, those who have made his rightowards their trust, shall be rejoicing in glory, they who have rejected it must lie down in tsunami, where their worm doth not, and their fire is not quenched, v. 8. p. 1st. c. 1. 9. ¶ 9. Awake, awake, ¶ put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. ¶ Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? 10. Art thou not it which hath defied the sea, the waters of the great deep, that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ranfomed to pass over? 11. Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. 12. ¶ I, ever I am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grafs? 13. And forgeteth the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth? and hath feared continually every day, because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor? 14. The captive exile hailmeth, that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the air, nor that his bread should fail. 15. But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roved: the LORD of hofts is his name. 16. And I have put my words in thy mouth, and have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and lay unto Zion, Thou art my people. God had promised to bring near his salvation; the church immediately in prayer cries to him to hasten it in his time. 1. His people pray that he would awake, and put forth his mighty power for their salvation: not that he ever fleeps or flumbers; but, when the faithful are diminished and brought love, he seems to forget their distresses. Confident of his power, they plead their former experience of it, when in the plagues of Egypt he made him his arm, and, in the deliverance of Israel from that house of their prison, wrought such miracles on their behalf. Confident of his love, they promise themselves a family sailor; that he will bring them to Zion with songs, banish their sorrows, and crown them with everlasting joy, v. 9—11. This may refer to the restoration of the Jews from Babylon, or to the church of Christ, when Babylon mythical is fallen. And it is applicable to every believer, who here, better with morners, is driven to God in continual prayer for help and succour, through grace is enabled to triumph over all difficulties, and in death gone to the heavenly Zion, where all his tears will be for ever wiped away, his sorrows be eternally banished, and joy unfeasible and full of glory given in his bosom; whilst amidst the erraptur'd hofts of saints and angels he joins in the everlasting lungs of a Redeemer's praise. 2. God, whose ears are ever open to the prayers of his people, answers them to their utmost satisfaction: I, roam I am he that unpleasant you; and when he, who is the fountain of mercy, and the God of all confessions, gives such an assurance, what can we need more? (1.) He comforts them under their fears. Who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a man that shall die, &c. However the oppressors threatened, the greatest before God were but dying worms, and frail as the withering grafs; and therefore their continual fears were groundless and unenforceable, v. 12. Now, they were dishonourable to God, and shewed a forgetfulness and dismay of his almighty power and grace, who hath established his church more firmly than the pillars of heaven, or the foundations of the earth, and in an instant could fly the oppressors, as in the case of Pharaoh and Sennacherot, v. 13. Now, (1.) A sense of the vanity of man will greatly tend to deliver as from the fear of offending in the way of our duty; for what is the wrath of a dying worm, compared with the favour of the living God? (2.) We often create ourselves needless disquiet, and tremble at consequences and events which never come to pass. (3.) The cause of all commenting that is our unbelief. One thought of God, with fixed dependance upon him, would bear an above all fortress and threatening. (2.) He will know them from their hands. The captive exile deploreth that he may be 'depot': it is a natural desire, and he is disastrous for the time to come; and that he should not die in the air, the battle of his prison; nor that his bread should fail, and he be banished. And such might be the fear of sinks of the Jews in Babylon, and is the case of the faithful at times, when under temptation they are ready to despair of themselves, but God will not suffer about to perish. I am, the Lord thy God, and therefore will never leave nor forsake thee, that divided the sea, which moves roared; as when he once opened a way for his ranfomed to escape out of Egypt, he will be from Babylon; and thus shall all his captive exiles be set free, whatever spiritual bondage for a time they may endure: the Lord of help is his name, and therefore able to accomplish all his promises. (3.) He will fulfil his word to the uttermost in the establishment of his church. I have put my words in thy mouth; Christ, the great prophet, being authorised and sent of the Father to publish the gospel: and have entered this in the shadow of my hand; protected him, and his ministers commissioned by him to preach his word, with whom God is to the end of the world, maintaining them against all opposition; that I may point the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth; the gospel church, bright as the heavens in purity of deliques and worthy, and fixed and strong as the foundations of the earth, against which the gates of hell can never prevail: and joy unto Zion, Thou art my people; the Spiritual Zion, where Jews and Gentiles, incorporated together, become one fold under one shepherd. 17. ¶ 9. Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hath drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrong them out. 18. ¶ There is none to guide her among all the sons whom the hath brought forth: neither is there any that taketh her by the hand, of all the sons that the hath brought up. 19. ¶ There two things are come unto thee: who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee? 20. ¶ They long have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rabules of thy God. 21. ¶ Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken; but not with wine. 22. Thou faith thy Lord, the LORD, and thy God: that pleadeth the cause of his people, behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, from the dregs of the cup of my fury, thou shalt no more drink it again. 23. But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee: which have said to thy soul, how down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street to them that went over. When God does not forgive, he will destroy. We have here the defoliations denounced, either upon the Jewish people, or upon the antichristian foes, to both which the words are applicable. 1. He bids them enter into the rock, as deriding their vain confidence, and shewing them how unable they will be to stopen; when for fear of the Lord, and the glory of his majesty, they should fork to hide their guilty heads. Nite, (1.) At God's bar, the flouted! beared finner will tremble. (2.) Vain will be every refuge in the day of judgment; no rock, no mountain can cover the guilty, when God ariseth to shake terribly the earth. 2. The pride of sinners shall then be laid low, the lofty looks shall sink into depiction and despair, and the haughtiness of the insolent lick the duft; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, in his judgments executed upon his enemies, and in his kingdom, which then shall be established for ever, and never more be disturbed by any antichristian foe. Nite, Pride must come down; if we now fall not on our knees in humiliation, we must fall deep into hell under our sins. 3. The particulars of God's judgments upon the proud and lofty are mentioned. Though firm as mountains, and tall as cedars, they will be overturned; though guarded by the strongest fortunes, they cannot stand, all their confidence will fall them, and their glory vanish; their ships be destroyed, their pleasant pictures defaced, their idols abolished. The kings of the earth, and great men, and chief captains, who supported the beaft, and the false prophet, and committed fornication with the great whom, will be ruined with her; their armades fitted out to war against the faints of God, will be dispersed and defrayed; their curious paintings of madonas, faints, crucifixes, and the like idolatrous ornaments of their churches, will perish together, and their images, at which they paid their blind deviations, be for ever abolished. 4. The worshippers, convinced of the vanity of their idols, will renounce them, or despairing of relief, in anger call them to the moles and the bits, frightened with God's judgments, and flying to the clefts of the rocks for shelter. Nite, (1.) Sooner or later the vanity of idols will appear; whether the grosser idolatory of images, or the more refined, yet equally abominable idolary of inordinate affection, placed on gold and silver, or any other creature; none of which will profit in a day of wrath. (2.) Many are driven from their sins who never repent of them; either are so terrified, that conscience deters them, or the inconveniences and sufferings they sustain, without them; or opportunity is wanting to commit them, but still the unmerished love of them remains in their hearts. 5. The prophet concludes with an exhortation to cross from man; either directed to the Jews, who trusted on Egypt for help against the Babylonians, or to the followers of antichrist, who put such trust in the blasphemous pardons and indulgencies ished from the papal chair; or in general to all, not to trust in man, even the greatest, for salvation, because he is a worm; for wherein is he to be accounted of? the Egyptians would help in vain, the great vaunts of the man that calls himself Christ's vicar, and God upon earth, are empty boasts of arrogance, and all human excellence nothing, and less than nothing, and vanity. Nite, We cannot put too little trust in man, nor too great confidence in God. They who cease from the one, to live wholly upon the other, will find a rock instead of a reed. Jerusalem here appears funk under her calamities into the flupper of despair; or, like Ezekiel's dry bones, in a state of death. 1. God sails aloud, Awake, awake! and his voice can raise the dead, and rouse the soul from the depths of despair. Deplorable indeed was her case; for previous provocations she had been made to drink the cup of fury and trembling to the dregs. Most awful judgments had been poured upon her, and, like one intoxicated with wine, weak and feeble, she became an easy prey to the invader, v. 17. None of all her sons was able to help or support her; king, priest, and prophet had failed, v. 18. Two things had come upon her, a state of abject misery, and not a friend to comfort her. Famine, desolation, destruction, and the sword, had cut off all ranks, v. 19. and the few who were left, though despairing, were furious; though fainting with hunger, impatient under God's rebukes, and quarreling with his providences, instead of meekly humbling themselves for their sins, v. 20. Now, (1.) If judgment thus begin at the house of God, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? (2.) When we have been unfaithful to God, let it not be thought strange, if our nearest relatives prove unfaithful to us. (3.) None can comfort the soul, against whom God rises up in disfeasance. (4.) Too many under God's visitations, instead of being abated by them, madly quarrel with his providences. (5.) They but entangle themselves the more, and add to their plagues, who struggle to his net. 2. God's compulsion towards them fail not: though they deserve wrath to the uttermost, in the midst of judgment he remembers mercy. Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine; stupified with the weight of calamities, and an object of God's pity. Thou faith thy Lord, the Lord thy God, who, notwithstanding all provocations, hath not utterly cast off his people, nor will renounce his relation to them; that pleadeth the supply of his people, to the confusion of their enemies; Thou, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling. The image is too blurry to recognize any text content. trunking, must the drugs of the cup of my fury; the punishment inflicted is enough: then flesh no more drink it again; the fin forgiven, there shall be no more curse: and I will put it into the hand of these that afflict thee; of the Babylonian, and, in future time, of Babylon mystical; which have said to thy soul, lives down, that no may go ever; not only enslaving their bodies, but tyrannizing over the souls of men, the distinguishing mark of the antichristian church, who set up an infallible hand, and require implicit obedience: and then heft said thy body as the ground, and as the forest to them that went ever; reduced to the most abjects these of dithrels, See Rev. xi. 2. but now the time is come to vindicate their quarrel, and execute judgment on their oppressors. Note, (1.) It is often the case of God's people to be in exbulation, and greater afflictions seem yet to await the church, than any she hath yet experienced. (2.) It is the support of the faithful in all times of suffering, that they cannot be separated from the love of God. (3.) However the cause of pestilence may be oppressed, it will appear triumphant at the halt. (4.) They who have been perfectors of God's people, will find him the avenger of their wrongs. The prophet in this chapter goes on to foretell the defoliations that were coming upon Judah and Jerusalem for their sins. God threatens, 1. To deprive them of all the fapports, both of their life and geverminant, ver. 1—3. 2. To leave them to fall into confusion and dispirity, ver. 4. 3. 12. 3. To deny them the blessing of magistracy, ver. 6—8. 4. To strip the daughters of Sion of their ornaments, ver. 17—24. 5. To lay all wails by the sword, ver. 25. 26. The first that provoked God to deal thus with them, were, (1.) Their defiance of God, ver. 8. (2.) Their impudence, ver. 9. (3.) The abuts of their power, ver. 12—15. (4.) The pride of their daughters, ver. 16. And in the midst of the chapter the prophet, [1.] Affects the ophecies that it should be said with them, notwithstanding those general calamities, ver. 10. [2.] That it should go ill with the wicked at last, however God might now in judgment renounce more, ver. 11. Of that the nations of the earth at this day, would hearken to the rebukes and warnings which this chapter gives! 1. FOR behold, the LORD, the LORD of hofts 1. doth take away from Jerusalem, and from Juddah, the flag and the staff, the whole flag of bread, and the whole flag of water, 2. The mighty man and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, 3. The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. 4. And I will give children to be their princes, and 5. bates shall rule over them. 5. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the bats against the honourable. 6. When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, Jolley, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand: 7. In that day shall he a swear, saying, I will not be an healer; for in my house is neither bread nor cloathing; make me not a ruler of the people. 8. For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory. God had commanded them to cease from man and creature-confidence: those he bent threatens to destroy, and mentions his glorious titles; the Lord, the Lord of befts, able to the uttermost to execute the forerene he pronounces. 1. Famine should come upon them, v. 1, and terribly it raged in Jerusalem, both when befieged by Nebuchadnezzar, and afterwards by Titus, which last destruction seems to be chiefly the subject of this prophecy. 2. Defolations should be spread on every side, their mighty warriors fallen, and none remain to lead their armies; no judge left to administer justice, no prophet to instruct or comfort them. The power had been taken from them to decide in matters of life and death, forty years before their destruction. John avii. 31. but after they had revolted, and were befieged by the Romans, a state of utter confusion began within the walls; the prudent and the ancient were removed by famine, or the found, v. 2. Nor so much as an inferior officer left, or one honourable man or counsellor to be found; or when all order was dissolved, neither office, honour, or wisdom maintained any longer reverence or attrition. The cunning artificer ceased, when all business was at a stand; and the eloquent orator silenced, when his voice could be no longer heard for the tumult, v. 3. 3. The government devolved on those who were weak as infanies, and unable to refrain the general disorder, v. 4; or men of illusion, as in the margin; every arrogant factions spirit, who headed the populace, and from whence a force of violence and strange disorder must ensue, as was the case when, during the siege of Jerusalem, factions rent them in pieces, and every street afforded scenes of murder, rapine, and violence; all respect for age and station was lost, and lawless anarchy reigned, v. 5. 4. So desperate would be their state, so ruined and debated, that every one who had ought to lose, would decline the administration; though pressed to be their ruler, as having cloathing when the rest were naked, as well as fansished; and that the ruin might be under their hand, in order to alleviate, or extricate them from it, v. 6. but not a man could be found, who would accept the office: seeing their state desperate and incredible, each 1 Jer. 1:11. 2 Lev. 1:10. 3 a Kings 1:10. 14. 4 Heb. A man endnot to commence. 5 Rebid. 2. 16. 7 Heb. Man of illusion. 8 Chap. 10. 19, 21. 1 Heb. Life of the hand. Gen. 1:9, 10. Rev. 6. 5. 8 Heb. Sister op. 1 Chap. 9. 19. Before Christ each would swear himself incapable of healing the deadly breaches, and that he had neither food nor cloathing to maintain such dignity, or relieve their wants, v. 7. 5. The cause of all this misery was their sins: because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, and especially against his Christ, in their malignity and cruelty, reviling him in an imposition, and crucifying him as the greatest of malefactors; to provoke the eyes of his glory, who, justly offended with such insult and rejection of himself and his gospel, caused this wrath to come upon them to the uttermost. From the whole, we may learn, (1.) That sin unrepented of, will be sooner or later the ruin of every nation, and each individual sinner. (2.) It is among the sad symptoms of God's abandoning a people, when he sends them a famine of his word, and removes the ministry of his gospel from them. (3.) The kingdom is in the way to speedy ruin, when folly and weakneils are at the helm, and popular tumults dare interrupt the administration of justice. (4.) There is no healing, those whom God hath wounded; vain are all the means of grace to a reprobate mind. 9. ¶ The shew of their countenance doth witness against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom, they lode it not: a wo unto their soul, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. 10. Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. 11. Wo unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him. 12. At for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them: O my people, they which lead thee, cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. 13. The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people. 14. The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor it is your healtes. 15. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? faith the LORD God of hosts. We have here, 1. An awful woe denounced upon a wicked people. We unto their souls! the judgments were great, through the weakness and wickedness of their rulers; who, though effeminate as women, and unable as children to protect them from their enemies, harassed and oppressed them, v. 12. that was the least part of their misery; their souls, their immortal souls, were more terribly exposed to the eternal wrath and curse of God: they have rewarded evil to themselves, their ruin is their own choice, and their sufferings the just reward of their sins. Note, (1.) If we lose our souls, we lose our all. (2.) In the day of God, the sinner will have none to blame for his misery, but himself. Several grievous provocations are here mentioned, (1.) They sin with an high hand, take no pains to conceal it, nor blush; with hardened impudence, openly avowing their abomination as Sodom, shameless before men, and fearless of God, v. 9. Note, (1.) Habitual sin hardens the conscience. (2.) They who are past shame, are on the brink of ruin. (3.) Sodom's sin will have Sodom's vengeance. (2.) Their priests were their corrupters; they who should have led, deceived them by false doctrines; they who should have rebuked, cried peace to them; they whose examples should have reformed, hardened them, v. 12. such were the Pharisees in our Lord's day. But were they the only false teachers, the exaltors of human merit, the false prophets of peace, and examples of iniquity? How many a priest will this suit in every age? (3.) Their magistrates were oppressive, devouring the poor whom they should have protected, and greedy of gain, sought only to kill their coffers, instead of exercising mercy and doing justice, v. 14. 2. For these things the Lord standeth up to plead, expounding with them on the wickedness of their ways; What mean ye, he, and standeth to judge the people; either to vindicate his people from their oppressors, or rather to execute judgment upon the wicked, and this without respect of persons; the ancient, and princes, as deepest in guilt, will be the first in punishment. Note, (1.) When God standeth up to plead, what sinner but must tremble? why will they not consider their ways, and prevent their ruin? (2.) The greatest find no favour at his tribunal; more can appeal from his sentence; height of station only brings aggravation of sin and suffering. 3. A distinction will be made amidst these judgments. The righteous few shall not suffer with the wicked. Say ye to the righteous, who in Christ Jesus is accounted such, and by his grace renewed in the spirit of his mind, it shall be well with him: peace of conscience, the sense of God's love, and the hope of his glory shall be his support in whatever national obligations he may be involved, for they shall not the fruit of their doings; as they have not provoked the judgments, they shall be delivered from them, or supported under them. We unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him in time and in eternity; all his sufferings are imbittered, his prospects dark, his life miserable, his death terrible, and after death accurted; he is doomed to devouring fire, and everlasting burnings. Wo indeed to the wicked, when the reward of his hands shall thus be given him! Before Christ 16. ¶ Moreover, the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with shrewded forth necks, and wanton eyes, walking, and mincing at they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: 17. Therefore the LORD will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their secret parts. 18. In that day the LORD will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon. 19. The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, 20. The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the head-bands, and the tablets, and the ear-rings. 21. The rings, and nose-jewels, 22. The changeable fusts of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crippling pins, 23. The glaffes, and the fine liners, and the hoods, and the veils. 24. And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell, there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle, a rent; and instead of well set hair, baldness; and instead of a flomacher, a girdling of fackcloth; and burning instead of beauty. 25. Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. 26. And her gates shall lament and mourn, and the king defolate, shall sit upon the ground. 2 Pet. ii. Or cripple. Christ. Exem. 27. Comp. 1:10. 1. Hab. ii. 5. Or not. 1:10. 2. Or borne of secret ornament. Or fearing of ornaments. Mic. i. 16. Lom. i. 4. D. 4. 10. Loks 10. 4. Hab. Classif. 1. Emption of adolescents. The daughters of Zion had contributed to swell the national guilt, and must therefore share in their plagues. 1. Their sins are vanity and lewdness. Proud of their perfoms and ornaments, with elevated beads, and shrewded forth necks, they treated with an air of disdain their inferiors; whilst wantonly they cast their amorous glances around, and all their motions bespoke desire of admiration. Note, (1.) Wanty is woman's beletting sin. (2.) They who lay shares for others, are justly chargeable with every evil consequence that follows. (3.) A wanton eye betrays an impure heart. 2. Their punishments would correspond with their sins. Loathsome disease should deform and humble the proud beauty, v. 17. instead of their full wardrobes of various dreffes, they should be stripped naked to their shame; their ornaments (the exact meaning of the several particulars of which is scarcely to be ascertained, and is of little moment) which fashion disheard, and their vain hearts affected, pleased with the sinner, and never thinking they had enough, must all be plundered; themselves enslaved, and led into captivity, a girdling of fackcloth would be their miserable covering: instead of perfumes and fragrance, they would be nauseous through poverty and ulcers; their thinning girdles would give place to rags, tattered and rent; their braided locks, dreffed with such curious art, now torn for anguish, or falling off through fackards, would leave them bald; and the scorching sun, or burning carbuncles, disfigure that fair face, which in the glab had led to often to self-violatory; whilst their husbands should be slain by the sword, and no man left to marry them. Thus funk under universal defolations, the gates of the very city would mourn; and Jerusalem, as a disconsolate widow, in the dust bewail her irreparable ruin. Note, (1.) The sins of lewdness often make those loathsome, who were once most lovely. (2.) Extravagant sinner easily leads to pinching poverty. (3.) Beauty is a dangerous gift, and often proves the bane of its possessor. (4.) Decis according to our station is becoming, but to be curious and expensive is to turn the covering of our shame into an increase of our sin. In this chapter is foretold, 1. The foreremity of men that should be left in Jerusalem, ver. 1. 2. The referendum to peace and purity in the days of the Messiah, ver. 2—6. 1. AND in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach. This verse properly belongs to the foregoing chapter, where the ravages of the sword are mentioned, and should be so great, that by reason of the few men left, contrary to the established rule of their sex, and the ordinance of God, seven women should take hold of one man, putting him to their bed, and commit to share him as their husband; and instead of expecting a main- tenance Babes Christ Pleu tenance from him, offering to provide for themselves, as an argument to gain his comfort to their proposals; at any rate desiring to have a husband, and not to be compelled to a single life, which among the Jews was reckoned very repracticable. Perhaps it intimates also the immodesty of their hearts, as if the reproach of virginity to them was more irksome, than the reproach of vice. Note, As modesty as the great ornament of the female sea, the want of it makes them most detested and loathsome. 2. In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. 3. And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: 4. When the LORD shall have walked away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning; 5. And the LORD will create upon every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies a cloud, and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for upon all the glory shall be a defence. 6. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain. 4 Chap. ix. 11. 1 Pl. xviii. 11. Rev. vi. 1 &viii. 2 Or to the after. iii. 4. 1 Mal. iii. 4. 1 Exod. viii. 11. 1 Zoch. ii. 2. 1 Ioh. &morning. The prophet in this chapter declares the Son of his people, and the judgments which would injure. 1. By a parable of an unfruitful vineyard, representing the great Savior's God had defended upon them, their disappointing of his expectations, and the vain they had thereby defended, ver. 1—7. 2. By an enumeration of the Son that did abound among them, with a dreaming of punishment, corresponding to their Son: (1.) Cetricalcy, which will be punished with famine, ver. 8—10. (2.) Riding and abandonment, ver. 11, 12, 22. to be punished with captivity, ver. 13—17. (3.) Presumption in Sin, and defying God's justice, ver. 18, 19. (4.) Confounding the distinctions between his fear and sin, and in undermining the principles of religion, ver. 20. (5.) Self-savest, ver. 21. (6.) Perceiving justice; for which a great and general desolation is threatened, ver. 24, 25, by a foreign invasion, ver. 26—30. 1. NOW will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard: My well-beloved hath a vineyard in the very fruitful hill. 2. And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine-press therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. 3. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. 4. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it; wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? 5. And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard; I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. 6. And I will lay it waft: it shall not be pruned, nor digged, but there shall come up beers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. 7. For the vineyard of the LORD of hoffia is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry. To bring these fences to a sense of their guilt and danger, they have lost upon life, and precept upon precept; every winning means is tried, whether by affecting parables or plain address. The prophet here in poetic measure and parabolic figure warns them. He calls it a song of the well-beloved, and addressed to him, to Christ, the beloved Son of the Father, and the object of chief regard and affection to every faithful soul. Under the parable of a vineyard, he shows, 1. The peculiar care God had taken of them. He had placed his vineyard in a very fruitful hill, where ever, wine, oil, and every earthly blessing abounded; fenced it in from the rest of the world, by a covenant of peculiar separation, and protected them night and day by his Almighty power; gathered out the stones thereof, the Canaanites, hard and obdurate as stones; planted it with the choicest vine, the seed of Abraham his shadow, and gave them the knowledge of his true religion and pure worship; and he built a tower in the midst of it, the temple where his presence rested in the midst of them, their glory and defence; and also made a wine-press therein, his altar, on which their oblivions might be poured out, and their sacrifices offered. Note, In all our privileges and blessings, whether temporal or spiritual, God's hand should be acknowledged by us. 2. The reasonable expectations he entertained, and the disappointment he met with. He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes; instead of the fruits of righteousness, poisonous principles, hypocritical professions, or openly infamous practices. Note, (1.) If God hath given us outward 1. Pl. Ios. 8. 2. Can. viii. 11. In this chapter we have, 1. The vision which Isaiah saw of the glory of God, ver. 1—4. The frighte it put him into, ver. 5. and the relief given him, by an assurance of the pericles of his Son, ver. 6, 7. 2. The commission which he received, ver. 8. 3. The observance of the Jews notwithstanding their definition forctual, ver. 9. 4. The rumours that should be issued, amidst the general destruction, ver. 13. 1. IN the year that 'king Uzziah died, I saw also the LORD 'stinging upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. 2. Above it stood the Seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he slid 'fit. 3. And one cried unto another, and said, 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts,' the whole earth is full of his glory. 4. And the poets of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Isaiah had before, at God's command, begun his prophetic employment; a solemn confirmation of it is made in this august vision, as a means to strengthen his faith, and quicken his diligence in the discharge of his important office. The date of the vision is the year Uzziah died, after a long and pious reign of fifty-two years; though during the latter part of it, the leprosy, under which he laboured, excluded him from the administration, which was lodged in the hands of his son. 1. What the prophet saw: I saw also the Lord stinging upon a throne, the Lord John Christ, withstood in the glory which he had with the Father before the worlds were; for to him is this expressly applied, John vii. 41. and contains one of the most inconceivable proofs of the official Godhead of our incernant Redeemer; high and lifted up, exalted above all bleffing and prairie, infinitely transforming all treated excellence; the King eternal, to whom every knee must bow, and every tongue confails: and his train filled the temple, either the bright angelic spirits, who grazed his pretence, or the irradiation that he had around him; or perhaps it may refer to his church on earth, filled with the gifts and graces which, on the day of Pentecost, were so eminently bestowed upon the apostles; by whose preaching, a vast succession of converts was quickly made. Above it, or near him, stood the Seraphims, the barters, the heavenly hosts, or those emblematic representatives of the ministers of the gospel, Rom. 1. 13. each one had six wings; with music he entered his feet, as unable to hear the transcendent brightness of the Redeemer's glory; with music he entered his feet, as to his best services unworthy of God; and took music he did by, delighted, ready and swore to obey God's high commands. Thus do Christ's ministers with shame acknowledge their forbearance and unworthiness to look up to God, and own the imperfection of their so-heit walk; whilst burning with soul, they are ready to fly at his word to preach his gospel, and fulfill his abelian. Not, (1.) We cannot entertain apprehensions of the glory of our Immanuel, according to his excellent greatness, if harpish knowledge. (2.) Before God, the highest creature stands a thamed; Before God shamed; and how much more cause hath man, a sinful worm, to bluffs and be confounded, when he appears before the throne of Jesus. (3.) Burning zeal for God, is the character of his faithful ministers. (4.) Delight and chastful readiness for God's work and will, is the way to rise to fellowship with angels. 2. What he heard. One cried unto another, with fervency and unanimity, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hoffs, the trisure God, glorious in all his attributes, and especially in his holiness; the whole earth is full of his glory, manifested in all the works of creation and providence, but especially of redemption and grace. Thus do God's ministers of flame on earth unite in preaching the one glorious gospel, and giving to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the pride of that holiness displayed in the justification of the sinner's person, and the sanctification of his soul, by the atoning blood of Jesus, and his efficacious grace. 3. The effect of this cry. The path of the dear merced at the voice of him that cried, denoting the removal of the temple worship and service; or the powerful effect of the gospel on men's consciences, shaking their vain confidence, and awakening their souls to a force of sin; and the heals was filled with smoke, in allusion to the cloud of incense, which covered the mercy-fear on the day of atonement, and intimating God's acceptance of his ministers services; or signifying the judgments that would come upon the Jewish people, when their city and temple should be destroyed; or finally, the smoke of the sinner's torment that ascendeth up for ever and ever. 5. ¶ Then said I, 'Wo is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hoffs. 6. Then 'flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off' the altar. 7. And 'he said it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. 8. Also I heard the voice of 'the LORD, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for' us? Then said I, 'Here am I, send me. 9. 5.—8. Struck with the astonishing vision, the prophet is confounded, conscious of his own sinfulness, and inability to stand before this holy Lord God. 1. He laments over himself. It is me, a sinful worm, for I am undone, if this holy God be strict to mark what is amiss; because I am a man of unclean lips, defiled in nature, and probably conscious of fear, and want of boldness in the delivery of the awful messages with which he was charged; and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, whose iniquities were, to his bitter sorrow, ready to draw down the heavy judgments of God upon them; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hoffs, the Lord Christ, whose perfection of holiness, like the bright beams of city, discovered those foots and impurities that in the dark before he did not perceive. Note, (1.) The more we know of God's purity and perfection, the more we shall discover of our own vibness and pollution. (2.) The highest stains of God, who know him best, are most lowly in their own eyes. (3.) A good man not only laments over his own corruption, but when he looks around, his heart is grieved with the filthy convulsion of the wicked, and he trembles for their approaching ruin. 2. A gracious message is sent him for his encouragement. The Son one of the seraphims unto me, on his humbling confession, having a live coal in his hand, signifying the powerful and lively word of the gospel, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar of burnt-offering, which was the type of the Lord Christ, whose atoning sacrifice alone can procure the sinner's pardon; and he said it upon my mouth, not to condemn his unclean lips, but to purify them from their pollution, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, intimating the application of the pardoning word of God to the sinner's soul, by which he is enabled to take the comfort of the promise; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged, or expiated, utterly blotted out before God, wiped away from his conscience, and perfectly expiated by the sacrifice of Jesus. Note, (1.) God delights to comfort the mourners in Zion; penitent prayers will find an answer of peace and joy. (2.) Nothing can heal the heartbroken under sin, but the precious balm of atoning blood applied by faith in the word of promise. It must be this coal from the altar, not strange fire, that can quicken the perishing food. (3.) They who would speak to God, or for God, with confidence, must first hear him speak to them pardon and peace. (4.) None are so far or able so feelingly to preach to sinner the grace of a Redeemer, as they who have, by experience, raised the riches of his love to their own sinful souls. (5.) The ministers of God, like burning seraphims, should fly to the relief of the poor and broken-hearted sinner, with the invigorating word of kind consolation. 3. Isaiah offers himself for God's service. God is intro- duced deliberating on the choice of a messenger, and the prophet is ready to go. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, the Father, speaking with his conquest Son and Spirit, whom shall I send on this dangerous errand, to reprove a hardened nation, and who will go for us? John xii. 41. Also xxviii. 25. an evidence of the trinity of the persons in the deity of the Godhead. Then said I, Here am I, send me: Since God had purged his pollution, he is now ready to undertake any service for his glory, however difficult of dangerous. Note, (1.) None can rightly speak for God, who have not a divine million from him, and have heard his voice reaching, their own hearts the truths they must deliver to others. (2.) The ordination of a minister is a matter of solemn weight, being it is so rare to find that zeal for God, that love for men's souls, that acquaintance with the mysteries of godliness, which are such effectual qualifications for a preacher of the gospel. (3.) If a desire to glorify God, and a delight to serve him in the gospel of his dear Son, does not engage us as volunteers in the service, each share of all worldly prospects, and regardless of all suffering, it were a horrid profanation to offer modesty for the ministry, merely because destined by our parents, or to procure a maintenance. 9. ¶ And he said, Go and tell this people, 'Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10. Make the heart of this people far, and make their ears heavy, and thus their eyes: 'let they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert and be healed. 11. Then said I, LORD, how long? And he answered, Until the cities he wafted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land he utterly defolate, 12. And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. 13. ¶ But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: 'as a test-tree, and as an oak' whose substance is in them, when they call their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof. 9. 9.—13. Isaiah having offered himself, his service is accepted, and his commission given him, Go; but he is informed, though to the most it would be utterly ineffectual, to a few it would be blessed with success. 1. He is commanded to tell this people, now abandoned to their own hearts lusts, Hear ye indeed the words of the prophets, but especially of Christ and his apostles, in reference to whose preaching this scripture is several times quoted in the New Testament, but understand not, either the glories of his person, or his doctrine; and see ye indeed his miracles so great and strange, but perceive not the proof of his divine million therein contained. Make the heart of this people far, and make their ears heavy, and thus their eyes: God gives them up to judicial hardness and blindness; because they desire not the knowledge of the truth, in judgment they shall be deprived of it, and find that gospel which was ordained unto life, to them a favour of death unto death: but they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert and be healed, to which the preaching of the word was adapted, or at least might see so far as to make some national information, which might avert the judgments God had resolved to bring upon them for the rejection of his Son, and therefore he left them to a reprobate mind. Note, (1.) Many are called by the gospel word, few laced by gospel-grace. (2.) The clearest truths of God's word are darkness to the fallen mind; the natural man recoveth not the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (3.) Wherever God's word is preached, it serves to harden those who receive it not in the light and love of it. (4.) They who are converted, will find the wounds healed which sin had made in their souls, whilst the impenetent perish in their iniquities. 2. He is informed of the desolation to be accomplished upon them, in answer to his question, How long should this impenetence and divine judgment upon them continue? even till the whole nation was destroyed and dispersed, the country depopulated, and utter ruin brought upon them by the Roman sword, v. 11, 12. and to this day, both their hardness of heart, and their terrible judgments are continued. Note, (1.) The ruin of men's souls is the necessary consequence of rejection of the gospel. (2.) Temporal judgments are often the punishment of national sins. 3. Though to the most the prophetic word would be fruitless, a remnant would be fared. But yet in it shall be a need, alluding to the Lord's portion of the tythes, a few referred amidst the general apostles; and it shall return, and be none, or be burnt; after their return from Babylon, the city and people should be confused with fire by the Romans: as a test-tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, though in winter they are stripped of all their verdure, the principle of life still remains, so the holy seed is the substance thereof; they shall behold, though in their wretched condition, a separate people, for the elect's Edd's fake that shall at last be gathered in; or for Christ's fake, who shall at last turn away ungodliness from Jacob. Note, (1.) Though the labours of God's misfitters may not be so extensively useful as they wish, they shall not be in vain; a few shall appear scals of their fidelity. (2.) For the sake of the faithful that are in it, the world is preferred; when they are gathered out, then cometh the end. (3.) Though our souls may sometimes, through temptation and desertion, appear as the trees in waters, if there be spiritual life within, we shall again bud and blossom as the rose. 8. a Kings 1. NEVERTHELESS, the dimes shall not be such as near in her vexation, when at the first of his people afflicted the land of Zebulon, and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations. 2. The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. 3. Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee, according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. 4. For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the fluff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, in the day of Midian. 5. For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood, but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. 6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, § The everlasting Father, The Prince of peace. 7. Of the increase of his government and peace: there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth even for ever: the zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. 8. The glorious person of our Redeemer and Saviour is set forth under a variety of views, a question of his excellent greatness, and admirably adapted to encourage the faith and hope of his people. For unto us a child is born, unto us the human nature, born for our sake, to be a Saviour to the uttermost, unto us a foal is given; the Son of God, already in the eternal counsels appointed, and as certainly to be incense: as if he had then been at the earth; and lead the views of his humanity might fallen him in our eyes, the infinitely transcendent dignity of his person is insisted upon; and the government shall be upon his shoulders; though an infant, yet a king, invested with all power in heaven and earth, and especially all blushing his throne in the hearts of his people: and his name shall be called, Wonderful; his incarnation, life, death, reformation, of, &c. are full of wonders; his love, grace, redemption, amazingly great and glorious; and all he is and doth, justly challenges the admiration of angels as well as men; a Counsellor, which may be joined with wonderful: he is of the sacred Three, by whose indborn wisdom all things were created, and by whose designs of providence and grace the whole world above and beneath is administered; and to his teaching are his people indebted for their salvation, who, in every difficulty guided by his counsel, are safely brought at last to glory; The mighty God, or God the mighty One; very God as well as very many, sharing in all the uncommunicable attributes of Deity, self-existence, eternity, omnipotence, life, and mighty therefore to save all that come to him as their Redeemer; The everlasting Father, though in person distinct from the God the Father, yet one with him in offence and the unity of the godhead; and particularly the everlasting Father of his people, the children given him according to the sense of the eternal covenant of grace, and to whom he is the author of everlasting salvation; The Prince of peace; the procurer of peace between God and man, the giver of it to the troubled conscience; his subjects are all peaceable, and ruling in their hearts, he keeps them in perfect peace whilst stayed upon him, and will bring them shortly to everlasting peace and rest in glory. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end; from small beginning it shall increase more and more, till the ends of the earth remember themselves, and turn unto the Lord; and the peace he gives shall be eternal as his throne; Ephraim shall set away Judah, our Judah was Ephraim; all animosities between his people will subside, and, Oh that the time were come for this happy union of all true believers in one heart and one mind: upon the scene of David, and upon his kingdom, the Redeemer, the Son of David after the birth, will be exalted, to order it, the kingdom of his Israel, and to establish it with justice and judgment, confirming his people in righteousness and true holiness, and executing judgment on their enemies, henceforth even for ever; for his dominion is that which shall not be destroyed; he ever lives and ever reigns, not only in time, but to eternity: the need of the Lord of hosts will perform this; his faithfulness is engaged to fulfil his promise, his power almighty to accomplish his purposes; and therefore not a jot or tittle shall fail. Happy therefore, eternally happy, are those souls who are brought under this government of Jesus, and, by experience of his grace establishing that kingdom within them, which is righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, can say with humble confidence, My King and my God. 8. The LORD sent a word unto Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. 9. And 'all the people shall know, even Ephraim, and the inhabitants of Samaria, that lay in the pride and flourish of heart; 10. The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the Sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. 11. Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Resin against him, and join his enemies together. 12. The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind, and they shall devour Israel with open mouth: 'for all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 13. For the people turneth not unto him that tiniteth them,' neither do they seek the LORD of hofts. 14. Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush in one day. 15. The ancient and honourable, be it the head; and the prophet that tracheth lies, he is the tail. 16. For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and they that are &led of them are a destroyed. 17. Therefore the LORD shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite, and an evil deer, and every mouth speaketh it folly: 'for all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 18. For wickedness burneth as the fire, it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of fowls. 19. Through the wrath of the LORD of hofts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: 'no man shall spare his brother. 20. And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be fatified: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm. 21. Manaffeh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manaffeh; and they together shall be against Judah: for all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. The same prophetic word which brings tidings of mercy to some, denounces the judgments of God on others. They who disregard his anger, shall feel the lighting down of his indignation, and know by dire experience how fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God. The kingdom of Israel hath her shortly approaching doom denounced; a moment's respite is in mercy given before God strikes he warns, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come unto repentance. 1. A high charge is brought against them for sundry crimes and misdemeanours against the Majesty of heaven. (1.) They braved God's throanings with daring insolence. Though the Afghian had demolished their houses in the siege, they vaunted how soon they would restore them in greater magnificence, changing the bricks for them alone; and when the Yecamores were cut down for the befinger's use, to burn or facilitate their approaches, they basified they would supply their place with coders. Note, Impenitence under warning providence, is a sad symptom of approaching ruin. (2.) They were incorrigible, v. 13. nor in their deepest distresses deigned to humble their souls and seek to God. Note, If corrections bring us not to our knees now, God's fierce wrath will be poured out, and prayer come too late to be heard. (3.) Their magistrates and ministers concurred in hastening the judgment by their ill examples and lying promises. The leaders of this people, or they take their pity, deceive them, encouraging their false hopes, and seeing visions of peace for them when there is no peace. Note, When ministers, instead of zeal against men's sins, suffer them to continue undisturbed, and speak smooth things to flatter them to their ruin, the case is desperate. The sick patient must needs die, if the physician administers poison instead of medicine. (4.) Hypocrisy, falsehood, and wickedness, were reigning sins, v. 17. They who kept up the form of religion, were as a bombinable as the profane and abandoned sinner; the one renounced openly all respect to God; the other approached him with their lips, whilst their hearts were far from him, or, trusting on the meritoriousness of their outward duties and devotions, more fatally deceived themselves to their ruin. 2. A heavy punishment is threatened, temporal and eternal. (1.) The ruin of their country, v. 11, 12. The adversaries of Rexin, whom Ahaa had hired, 2 Kings xvi. 7—9. had scarce sooner succeeded in the reduction of Demascus, than incorporating the Syrian forces with their own, they should fall upon Israel on one side, and the Philistines on the other, so that they should be grievously spoiled. Note, God sends lurid judgments first, and if these prove ineffectual, he hath heavier in force; for. (2.) Because, by their continued impenitence, his wrath was not turned away, but his hand stretched out still, he will make a more terrible havock among them, v. 14, 15. neither young nor old, high or low, priest or people, should escape: nor would God extend the least compulsion to the most miserable objects, v. 17. Note, (1.) When God visits for sin, the highest in station shall be among the first to suffer; crowns plead no privilege at his bar. (2.) The minister that speaketh lies, to Vol. II. cruity favour with the great, conceives at their sins, or indolently negligent, is a blind leader of the blind, will shortly appear a character the most detectable and bare, and receive a punishment proportioned to his guilt and perfidy. (3.) The wickedness of the poor is as much remembered as the sins of the rich, and their wears and wretchedness here will be no exculpation, rather an aggravation of their sin, that when they had less of this world to ensnare them, they did not more carefully seek a better. (3.) Intestine broils shall destroy them as well as the sword of the enemy, v. 20, 21. they should but and devour one another, and even the nearest relations not spare their own flesh and blood; various instances of which appeared when their desolations drew near; and the ravages the tribes made on each other, opened an easier conquest for their enemies. Note, Nothing so weakens God's church as castible divisions, and perverse disputes for in the heat of religious controversy, the power of godliness is usually bad, and Satan reaps the spoil. (4.) The wrath of God, terrible and eternal, would yet pursue them: their wickedness would kindle a fire of vengeance, which nothing could quench, and the smoke of their torment would ascend up for ever and ever: the darkness and distress of their outward situation, was but a faint image of their future prospects, when, as fuel for the flames, they should lie down in torment without measure and without end, v. 18, 19. for as in all their temporal judgments, their obituary provoked a repetition of the strokes, so in the eternal punishment of the wicked, God's wrath will never be turned away, but his hand be stretched out still, for his wrath is for ever wrath to come. 100. against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them; and the hills did tremble, and their carcades were torn in the midst of the streets: For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 26. And he will lift up a design to the nations from far, and will his union them from the end of the earth; and behold they shall come with speed swiftly. 27. None shall be weary nor flumble amongst them: none shall flumber nor sleep: neither shall the girdle of their loins be looted, nor the latcher of their shoes be broken. 28. Whole arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses hoods shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind. 29. Their roring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away fair, and none shall deliver it. 30. And in that day they shall roar against them, like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and furrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof. Two woes are denounced, but there are others yet to come equally grievous, and all during their origin from fire, which then, now, and ever is the cause of all our misery. Happy, did we but take warning by others woes, and flee their iniquities. 1. Their fins are many. (1.) They draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and fin as it were toils a one rope, strain every nerve, use every argument to accomplish their wicked purposes; ruffling into temptation, and bent on gratifying their lurks at all events. (2.) They dread God, despised the warnings of his prophets, and when his Son appeared, treated his pretensions with contempt. They joy, let him make fixed, and higher for sure; the men of that generation said, where are the threatened judgments? deriding their prophets who brought the millage: the Jews said, if he be the Son of God, let him come down from the cross; and the infidel finner continues thus to treat God's warnings in every age. (3.) They fought to confound good and evil, willfully misrepresented truth as fasthood, branding the ways of godliness as miserable, and boasting the paths of sin to be the only substantial bliss, v. 20. Not, The devil and wicked men study ever to dread up religion and its perfection in the most forbidding colours, which every glaring vice is palliated with some soft name, or pleaded for as commendable. Seriousness and singularity are termed pride and moroseness, which a life of dissipation is called a little innocent pleasure; a debauch, good company; forbid parsimony, frugality; and daring infidelity, free-thinking: but names alter not things, nor change their nature; the sweetness of God's good ways abides the same, and all the gladies of sinners will not prevent their feeling the bitterness of the flames of hell. (4.) They were proud and self-sufficient, wise in their own eyes, though so infatuated, and prudent in their own light, valuing themselves on their understanding and management. Thus the Pharisees said, we see, when most deeply their sin remained. Not, Concert of our own wisdom and righteousness, is among the most fatal errors. (5.) They were mighty to drink wine, strong heads, and gloried in the quantity of liquor they could carry off; and men of strength to mingle strong drink, delighting in being able to drink others down. Not, (1.) They who were mighty to drink wine, must shortly drink of the wine of the wrath of God. (2.) The strength of a man's constitution will not exculpate him from the guilt of drunkenness. To sit long at the cyan, and delight in them, is as evil as to fill the table with vomit, or flagger in their walk. (3.) They who glory now in their shame, of having out-drank their companions, in hell will find small joy in their exploits. (6.) They barely perverted justice for gain. Their magistrates justified the wicked for reward, money covered all crimes; which they take away the righteousness of the righteous from him, the poor that cannot bribe, or the upright that dare not, however just their cause, are sure to be cast: for iniquities like these, God will visit, and his soul be arranged of such a people as this. Therefore, 2. He denounces their doom. Because they have cast away the love of the Lord, the doctrine sent them by his prophets, and the gospel preached by his Son, and despised the word of the holy One of Jesus, treated it with contempt and disregard, therefore as his fire downwards the double, and the flame confounds the chief, to ludicrous, terrible, restless, and irreparable should their destruction be; if that their rest shall be as ruthless, and therefore the whole political tree must perish; and their idolatry go up at the day, all their pomp, rahas, and glory be dispersed, as wickedness becomes the wind. Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, once his chosen, now spoilage from him, and exposed to his wrath. Present judgments were upon them, their priors gain in their streets, and none to bury them; yet these but the beginning of fairness: God's anger was far from being turned away, and greater woes to come, his hand being stretched out still, v. 25. He will set up an enigma, as the signal for marching, to the nations from far; the Romans, composed of various people, and bringing their troops from distant provinces: he will hold more him, or them, the army, or the general, as a shepherd whistles his dog to come. Instantly they will obey, marching speedily; no weariness shall retard, or difficulties throught them: so eager would they be to hasten to the siege, that they would march day and night, and not even undress themselves, or loose their shoes, to lie down to sleep by the way; expressions denoting their indefatigable diligence, v. 27. Then arches ready to shoot, their cavalry strong, their charters of war soft, and thundering along, v. 28. Fence as lions, their hair should intimidate; strong as lions, their defenceless prey would fall, and none be able to deliver the devoted people of Judea from the cavenog Roman folders, v. 29. In that day of the siege of Jerusalem, they should roar with their founts and buttering engines, as the tempelinous sea, and the land of Judæ is te ranged and funk under its distress, as if the luminaries of heaven were extinguished, Manti. xxiv. 29. their whole polity, civil and ecclesiastical, be utterly dishonest; and priests, princes, and people, sink in one promiscuous ruin. Not, (1.) When sinners reject the country of God against their own lust, they bring upon themselves swift destruction. (2.) God never wants instruments to rest out his vengeance upon a guilty nation. (3.) When the Lord gives the word, the demnation of the wicked no longer flumbers. (4.) They who have fled from the light of truth to the darkness of sin, are justly consigned to the eternal darkness. Amidst dark threatenings to the ungodly, bright houses of hope break forth on the fastifed. In this chapter we know, 1. A prophecy of the defractions of the confederate kingdom of Syria and Syria by the king of Affyria, ver. 1—4. 2. Of the desulations that should be made by that proud wittarious prince, in the land of Israel and Judah, ver. 2—8. 3. Great encouragement given to the people of God in the midst of these defractions: they are offered, (1.) That their enemies shall not gain their point against them, ver. 9, 10. (2.) That if they kept up the fear of God, and kept down the fear of man, they should find God their refuge, ver. 11—14. And while others stumbled, and fall into defiance, they should be enabled to want on God, and for themselves reserved for better times, ver. 15—18. 1. MOREOVER, the LORD said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man's pen, concerning Maher-thalal-haft-baz. 2. And I took unto me faithful winnettes to record, Gilaib the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberezhah. 3. And I went unto the prophets, and the conceived and bare a son; then said the LORD to me, Call his name Maher-thalal-haft-baz. 4. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father and my mother, § the riches of Demafcus, and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Affyria. 5. ¶ The LORD ipake also to me again, saying, 6. For a stomach as this people refuse the waters of Shiloah that go softy, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son. 7. Now therefore behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Affyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks. 8. And he shall pass through Judah, he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck, and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel. The defraction of Damascus and Samaria are here threatened, and the rod of warning shaken over Judah. 1. The prophet is commanded to write this, with the four following chapters, on a large roll, and as a title to incribe on it Maher-thalal-haft-baz, before it the קול, before it the prey; an invitation to the king of Affyria, and repeated to shew the certainty of the event. Note, it is an unbreakable mercy the holy scriptures are committed to writing, and not handed down to us by uncertain tradition. 2. The prophet having obeyed the Divine injunction, gets it attested by two credible witnesses, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah, probably a Levite, 2 Chron. xxix. 13. that when the event corresponded with the prediction, his Divine million might incontestably appear. 3. On the conception of the prophets his wife, so called from her relation to him, and the birth of a second son; to engage greater attention to the prophecy, he by Divine command gives the child the same name as was inscribed on the roll. The design of which, 4. He explains, v. 4. That before the infant could speak plainly, Damascus and Samaria should be spoiled by the Affyrian king; which was fulfilled, 2 Kings xvi. 9 xvii. 3. and more fully xviii. 10. Note, (1.) War is God's scourge over guilty lands. (2.) They who have been troublers of others repose, are justly doomed to suffer in return. 5. Judah also shall not go unpunished, because many of the faithful Jews despised the waters of Shiloah that go softy; the gentle government of David's race, or the weakness of their kingdom, eclipsed by the greater dominions of Rezin and Pekah, whom, though avowed enemies, their nature of their country applauded and honoured, v. 6. therefore to punish them the Afyrian king, like a flood, with his armies tooud cover the land, rapid and relitless; reaching to the neck, even to Jerusalem the metropolis, 2 Kings xviii. 13—17. and spreading his wings should fill the breadth of Immanuel's land; so called, because there he should in the fullness of time be born, live, and die. Note, (1.) To abject the fashions, admire the manners and government of our inveterate enemies, and to despise our own, betrays a heart destitute of the love of our country. (2.) Though the waters of trouble each in the neck, yet even then can God say, Here shall thy proud waves be stayed, and save us out of the flood, when we seem in our own eyes most desperate. (3.) If the Lord Jefus have possession of our hearts, 9. ¶ 'Afflicate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear all ye of far countries: glad yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. 10. Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand; for 'God is with us. 11. ¶ For the LORD I take thus to me with a strong hand, and 'introduced me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying, 12. Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; 'neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. 13. Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. 14. And 'he shall be for a sanctuary; but 'for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel; for a gin, and for a horse to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15. And many among them 'shall stumble and fall, and be broken, and be feared, and be taken. 9. 9—15. In Judah's distressed case, the prophet encourages and instructs them, 1. With a promise of their enemies disappointment and defeat: though strongly confederate, the expeditious deeply planned, and the troops well armed and ready for the battle, they shall be broken to pieces. This is repeated to shew the certainty of the event, and the vanity of their hopes of success, when God will infatuate their councils, and Immanuel defend his own land, 9. 9. 10. Note, (1.) Though power and policy unite to crush the church of Christ, their efforts will prove the confusion of her enemies. (2.) God's promise is far, and they who trust it will never be disappointed. (3.) If God be with us and for us, we need neither fear nor care who are against us. 2. He directs them how to speak and act in their present situation. The Lord prays unto me with a strong hand, in the spirit of prophecy, not to walk in the way of this people, depicted with their fears, or flying with them to Assyria, for help against their invaders, Pekah and Raxin, saying, Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; join not in the general cry for a foreign aid, or in any factious party at home; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid on account of the confederate armies of Syria and Israel. Sanctify the Lord God of hosts, by your professed dependence upon, and subjection to him, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, who is the only worthy object. And he shall be for a sanctuary; a fare protection to those who trust him in every time of trial and distress. Note, (1.) In time of danger good men need encouragement against their fears. (2.) They who would follow Christ, must renounce the ways of a wicked world; a holy singularity is the inseparable badge of a holy conversation. (3.) When God teaches us with a strong hand, then shall we be enabled to walk aright ourselves, and to direct others in the way. (4.) In whatever difficulties we are involved, let us never use undue means for relief. (5.) The fear of God upon the heart, will preserve us from being terrified with the threatenings of men. (6.) God is sanctified, when by patient indignation we are content to wait for his salvation. (7.) If we have taken the Lord Jesus for our sanctuary, all the powers of earth and hell can never pluck us thence, nor endanger our safety. 3. He threatens those who continued rebellious with ruin: if they would not trust God as their sanctuary, they should find him a stone of stumbling, and rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, and for a gin and a horse to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; which was soon verified in the destruction the king of Assyria, at God's command, brought upon them; and hath a farther reference to the day of Christ, for 1 Cor. 1. 30. when, offended at the Lord Jesus, his character, birth, disciples, &c. the Jews, unable to reconcile it to their proud expectations of a conquering Messiah, rejected him, many among them stumbled and fell, and were broken, and feared, and taken, as was here predicted, and thereby perished under their unbelief and hardness of heart. Note, The same Jesus that is a sanctuary to the poor and helpless sinner, to the proud and self-righteous is still a stone of stumbling; they will not renounce themselves to trust in him, and therefore perish in their iniquities. 16. Bind up the testimony, 'feal the law among my disciples. 17. And 'I will wait upon the LORD' that hide his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. 18. 'Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me,' are for signs, and for wonders in Israel; from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion. 19. ¶ And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wiards? that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? 'for the living, to the dead? 20. 'To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no right in them. 21. And they shall pass through it, hardly be-ftead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king, and their God, and look upward. 22. And they shall look unto the earth: and behold, trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness. 1. The command given to the prophet. Bind up the testimony; the prophetic word concerning the Messiah, more precious than bags of gold, to be preserved for futurity; seal the law among my disciples; the disciples of Jesus, to whom the law of the spirit of life was intrusted, and though a sealed book to others, revealed to them, and transformed faithfully to their successors. Note, (1.) We can never enough be thankful for the inestimable pleasure of God's word. (2.) 'Till God opens our understanding to understand the scriptures, they are a book sealed, and a gospel hid. 2. The prophet professes his earnest expectation and hope. I will wait upon the Lord, the Redeemer of his people, that hide his face from the house of Jacob, either in frowns of displeasure, or as being yet hid from them, until his glorious manifestation in the flesh, and I will look for him, in confidence of his coming, and in joyful hope of the blessed issue of his appearing. Note, (1.) Patient waiting upon God will never be disappointed. (2.) When God hides his face, we must not think he hath forsaken us, but be shared up to pray, Lift up again upon us the light of thy countenance. 3. Christ, in answer to the prophet's expectation, appears to cheat and comfort him; of whom the words seem rather spoken than of the prophet himself and his two sons, though they were probably types of Christ and his people, for to him the words are expressly ascribed, Heb. xi. 13. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me, in virtue of the everlasting covenant, in which it was promised, that he should be his spiritual seed, Isa. lii. 10. but the world knoweth them not, because they knew him not; they are for signs, and for wonders in Israel; signs and wonders were wrought by them, yet Israel would not believe; yea, decided and reviled them; and still they continue in the world a people every where spoken against, and bearing the reproach of the cross; from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion, who freely gave his Son for us, and in his sovereign grace bestowed on him that peculiar people, the travail of his soul. Note, (1.) The relation between a minister, and those who are begotten by him in the gospel, is near and dear as between the parent and his natural offspring. (2.) We must not be ashamed of the reproach of Christ; nor, however strange the world may think us, join with them in their ways. 4. Christ cautions his disciples to beware of deceivers, and to keep close to the word of revelation: primarily it may refer to the Jews, who in their distress were reader to recur to any help than to God, 2 Kings i. 2. but it contains a warning against the false doctrines of the Scribes and Pharisees, who were much given to forgery and enchantments, and in their principles and practices were as contrary to God as wiards; them therefore it were folly to confide: should not a people seek unto their God? who besides the Redeemer can give a satisfactory answer to the questions of the guilty, and the cries of the distressed soul: it were highly absurd for the living to apply to the dead; to images, or necromancers, of the Scribes and Pharisees, and all like them, who, the pretending to teach others, are themselves dead in trespasses and sins. To the law and to the testimony; the scriptures, which are the only tells of truth: if they speak not according to this word, it is brought there is no light in them; they are blind leaders of the blind. Note, (1.) The superstitious folly of many professed christians, who trust in charms, and fortune-tellers, and the like, is scandalous as sinful. (2.) If God be our God, we may always seek, and always find help in him in every trial. (3.) The more we examine the Bible for ourselves, the less liable shall we be to be deceived. (4.) No doctrine is to be received as genuine, which hath not scripture proof to support it. (5.) A minister whose own soul hath never felt the enlivening influences of God's word and spirit, can scarce be expected to guide others might in the way to glory; the living might as soon expect instruction from the dead, as the soul exilication from such. 5. The doom of the wicked is read, who forsake God for familiar spirits, the truth for falsehood. And they shall pass through it (the land) hardly befreed and hungry; when in their captivity, they should scarce have bread to support their miserable lives, and with madness and vexation under their calamities blaspheme God, and their king Messiah, and look upwards to vain for help from their false Christs, having rejected the true Redeemer: wherever they turned their eyes, darkness, distress, and wretchedness, should appear, till a miserable life should close in a more Before Christ 7:00. more miserable death; which was fully verified in the judgments brought on the Jews by the Roman sword. Nate, (1.) The unhumbled fret and kick against the pricks, but they only thereby aggravate their own suffering. (2.) God's judgments upon sinners, instead of bringing them to repentance, provoke their blasphemies. (3.) They who forbade the God of their mercies, in death fool all their prospects terminated with darkness and despair. We have here, 1. The date of the prophecy, in the year of the siege of Ashdod, or Azores, Atti viii. 40. by Tartan, one of the chief captains of the halls of Affyria, when Sargon, the king of Affyria, son; which some suppose to be Salmanecer, and then this event will fall in the fourth year of Hezekiah, when Samaria was taken, 2 Kings xviii. 9. Others think him to be Efrahadon, called Sarchedon, Tab. i. 21. and then it must fall about the twenty-second year of Manasch; but he is generally thought to be Sennacherib, among whose captains Tartan is reckoned, 2 Kings xviii. 17. and the time about the fourteenth of Hezekiah. 2. The sign given of the destruction to be brought on Egypt and Ethiopia. Isaiah is commanded to take off his habit of sackcloth, (which, as a prophet, he wore to signify his deadness to the ornaments of deeds, or as mounting over the defoliations of Judah and Israel) to put off his shoes, and to walk naked, probably not absolutely so, but stripped of his upper garment, and barefoot. How long he continued to go thus is not certain; whether once, or three days, a day for a year, or three years, as our translation seems to imply; though the three years rather refer to the prophecy, which should be accomplished after that time; or so long the Affyrian king would employ in subduing them. The prophet without hesitation, as a faithful servant, obeys the divine command, dangerous as it might be to his health, and however much it regarded his person to contempt. And God explains the sign, as prefiguring the miserable and shameful captivity of the Egyptians and Ethiopians, who should thus be led away prisoners by the Affyrians, v. 4. Note, (1.) When duty calls we must trust health, character, and all in God's hands. If he says, Well done, good and faithful sevrant, it will infinitely overbalance every inconvenience or insult we may have received. (2.) Miserable is the plight of these poor captives; but how much more miserable those slaves of sin, who are led captive by the devil at his will? What confusion will cover them, when in the presence of God, his saints, and angels, the shame of their nakedness shall appear, and no eye pity them? 3. The warning given the Jews of the folly of depending on these nations. Ethiopia was their trust, and Egypt the ally in which they gloried; but now, afraid at the ruin of these potent neighbours, and confounded at seeing their supports thus removed, the inhabitants of this life, Judea so called, shall say, Behold, such is our expectation, so vain, so foolish, whether we flee for help to those who cannot help themselves; and how then shall we escape, when mightier foes are unable to withstand the victorious arms of the Affyrian army? Note, Creature-confidences will assuredly fall us; and they who have neglected to make God their refuge, in the day of calamity, will be abandoned to despair, and too late bewail their folly. CHAP. In this chapter we have a prophecy of fed times coming. 1. Upon Babylon, that it should be destroyed by the Medes and Persians, and that God's people should receive benefit from it, ver. 1—11. 2. Upon Dumah, ver. 11, 12. 3. Upon Arabia, or Kedar, the defelation of which country may vary near, ver. 13—17. Each. in. 14. Or, hath used a treacherous dealer, and the spoiler was that spoiled. In the midst of these terrible threatening, a bright beam of hope dawns from the great and precious promise of the Messiah, whose kingdom and glory should then be exalted, when those who had rejected him, received their righteous doom. 1. In that day of Jerusalem's desolations, shall the branch of the Lord, the Messiah, that should shoot from the firm of Jesus, Zoch. iii. 8. Jer. xxiii. 5. Isa. xi. 1. be beautiful and glorious, taken with the precious fruits of pardon, grace, and glory, and though springing in his humiliation as a root out of a dry ground, yet in his exaltation shining brighter than the sun, glorified of his faints, and admired of all that believe; and the fruit of the earth, Christ Jesus incarnate on the earth, shall be excellent and comely; though once a worm, and no man, his visage marred more than any, now become the chief of ten thousand, and altogether lovely; for them that are escaped of Israel, the choirs few, whom he hath returned for himself, whose eyes are opened to know his excellences, and who are ordained to eternal life, that they may behold his glory. Note, (1.) Though in the eyes of a carnal world there is no beauty in Jesus, wherefore they should desire him, faith can desery excellences, that make him above all things precious, so that we can say, Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is nothing I desire upon earth in comparison of thee. (2.) In the Saviour all fulness dwells; do we want pardon, peace, grace, comfort, we may come to him, and freely take, enough to supply the most enlarged desires of our souls. 2. When the Messiah comes, to him will the gathering of the people be. It shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, the remnant, according to the election of grace, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, the gospel church, shall be called holy, accounted such, in virtue of their compleateness in Jesus Christ, and really made such, in a measure, by the powerful operations of the Spirit of holiness on their hearts and lives; even every one that is written among the living, or unto life in Jerusalem; that is, they, and only they, who, by God's sovereign choice, are ordained unto eternal life, and whose names are written in the book of life of the Lamb Sain from the foundation of the world: and this Separation of his people for himself will then appear, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem in the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning; which may signify the judgments God would bring upon the wicked, till they were utterly consumed; or rather the purging thoroughly the church of his redeemed, and the daughters of Zion, particular believers, in the furnace of afflictions, in order to cleanse them from their remaining corruptions and defilement; and this the Lord would also farther effectually accomplish, by raising up ministers and magistrates, endured with a spirit of wisdom, and animated with holy zeal for the perfecting of the faints, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Note, (1.) They whom Jesus writes among the living, shall never taste of death; not one of them can be lost. (2.) Every elect vested is before prepared unto glory, through sanctification of the Spirit: vain are their hopes of an interest in heaven, whose hearts continue earthly, foolish, devilish. (3.) When the Lord is planted to work, he can easily find instruments, furnish them abundantly for their labour, and bless them with success. (4.) Whatever gracious changes are produced on a people, or an individual, we may be assured that it is the Lord's doing, whose power alone can convert the Sonner's soul. Vox. II. 3. The church of the redeemed, and every believer, will in the Lord enjoy protection, guidance, comfort, and security. As Israel's camp of old was preserved by God's pillar of the cloud and of fire, safely led through the howling wilderness, and hid from the scorching sun beams; and as the tabernacle was defended by several coverings from the storm and tempel; so shall God's people still enjoy as real, if not as thankful, tokens of his care in their passage through this wilderness, neither the storms of persecution, nor the bluffs of temptation; nor the scorchings of affliction, nor the burning wrath of a broken law, shall be able to hurt them. He will defend these glory, their souls, glorious in holiness, lead them safe through every trial, comfort them with a sense of his love, hide them in the day of wrath, as under the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; and after beholding the destruction of the ungodly, bring them safe to that high tabernacle he hath pitched in heaven for their everlasting abode. 25. Eph. ii. 26. Jer. c. 16. In the midst of wrath a beam of mercy gladdena the dreary scene. There is yet hope in their end, and spiritual blessing in flore, which would infinitely outweigh the heaviest temporal calamities. The accomplishment of this prophecy some refer to the conversion of many of them by the Jews, who did into Egypt from the Affyrians; but it seems rather to refer to the times of the gospel, when Egypt, by the preaching of St. Mark and others, was early converted to the Christian faith. 1. Their cities shall speak the language of Canaan, becoming acquainted with the word of God, and converting with the people of God. One shall be called the city of destruction, or, of the face; where idolatry was most rooted, the grace of God shall be most prevalent; or, the city that refused the gospel, would be devoted to ruin. Note, (1.) When the soul is converted to God, we learn a new language; the love of God in Christ, and his rich salvation known and believed, is the pleasing subject of our conversation, a language that is the world appears flunged and unknown. (2.) That soul is doomed to destruction, who continues a stranger to the divine teachings, and experimentally underquanted with the truths of gospel-grace. 2. The worship of God should be publicly established. The name of idols should come no more into their lips, but their appeals be made to the heart-searching Jehovah, and to the Lord Jesus would they pledge their fidelity, v. 18. To him shall they go, as the only altar where atonement had been made for their fins, and where acceptance of their services can be alone obtained. And in the utmost borders a pillar shall be erected, intimating the general profession of the faith of Christ throughout the land. Note, (1.) An oath is a solemn act of religion, and therefore to God alone must we appeal. (2.) Christ is our altar, in and by whom alone our persons and services can be accepted of God. (3.) If there be but one true altar, what a pity is it, yes, what a sin, for the professors of the religion of Jesus by causeless divisions to set up altar against altar? 3. God's truth being thus embraced, and his ordinances of worship established, they would be a sign between him and his people. In time of distress, when they cry unto him, he will hear and answer them, and by a Saviour, a great one, yea, an almgher Saviour, Jesus, deliver them from every opposition, from sin, Satan, death, hell, and every foe, v. 20. Some interpret this of Ptolemy Soter, or the Saviour, one of their kings; but the former souls seems much preferable. Note, (1.) God's ears are ever open to the prayers of his people, and Jesus ever near to help his afflicted ones. Whilst we pray, he will never leave nor forsake us. (2.) They who feel they have great sins, and tremble under their great corruptions, should remember they have a great Redeemer, able to dare to the utterhood. 4. They shall be brought to the knowledge of God, and, as the blessed effect of it, shall have their hearts engaged to him, paying the grateful tribute of praise and thanksgiving for his mercies, v. 21. By the translation of the Hebrew signatures into Greek at Alexandria, the knowledge of divine truth was, in a measure, laid open; but more especially were they enlightened, when the ministers of Christ carried the gospel thither, and preached unto them the grace which is in Jesus Christ. 5. By his word and providences he will smite their hearts, effectually awakening their consciences; and as he wounds, healing them, forgiving their sins, and converting their souls, Note, When God wounds, it is to heal, not to destroy. 6. They shall be admitted into the communion of God's saints. All quarrels now terminated, Egypt and Affyria should become friends, and maintain intimate intercourse, and both unite in the service of the same God, v. 23, and Israel, which lay between them, through the Saviour, who was of their stock, should become a blessing to them; and, cordially uniting with them, the destruction of Jew and Gentile shall cease, when they become one fold under one shepherd, v. 23. For thus God, as their common Father, will regard them. Egypt is equally his people with Israel his inheritance, and blessed in the same covenant of grace; and Affyria, alike the work of his hands, choses, called, and created anew in Christ Jesus, and all untried in him, and members one of another, v. 24. Note, They who are the servants of the same God, bought with the same blood, and begotten by the same spirit, should unite in love, lay aside all animosities, and with one mind and one mouth join in his worship and praise. C H A P. XX. This chapter is a production of the captivity of the Egyptians with the Ethiopians by the king of Affyria. Here is, 1. The sign by which this was foretold, ver. 1, 2. 2. The explanation of the sign, ver. 3—5. 3. The life which the people of God should make of it, ver. 6. 1. IN the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod (when Sargon the king of Affyria sent him) and fought against Ashdod, and took it: 2. At the same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amor, saying, Go, and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot: and he did so, walking naked and barefoot. 3. And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia: 4. So shall the king of Affyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. 5. And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory. 6. And the inhabitant of this life shall say in that day, Behold, such is our expectation whither we flee for help to be delivered from the king of Affyria: and how shall we escape?