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Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 12:1 And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. 9 BOOK 3 PROPHECIES FROM THE ACCESSION OF HEZEKIAH TO THE DEATH OF SARGON 727-705 B.C. THE prophecies with which we have been engaged (chapters 2-10:4) fall either before or during the great Assyrian invasion of Syria, undertaken in 734-732 by Tiglath-pileser II, at the invitation of King Ahaz. Nobody has any doubt about that. But when we ask what prophecies of Isaiah come next in chronological order, we raise a storm of answers. We are no longer on the sure ground we have been enjoying. Under the canonical arrangement the next prophecy is "The Woe upon the Assyrian". { Isaiah 10:5-34 } In the course of this the Assyrian is made to boast of having overthrown "Samaria" ( Isaiah 10:9-11 ) "Is not Samaria as Damascus? Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?" If "Samaria" mean the capital city of Northern Israel-and the name is never used in these parts of Scripture for anything else-and if the prophet be quoting a boast which the Assyrian was actually in a position to make, and not merely imagining a boast, which he would be likely to make some years afterwards (an entirely improbable view, though held by one great scholar), then an event is here described as past and over which did not happen during Tiglath-pileser’s campaign, nor indeed till twelve years after it. Tiglath-pileser did not require to besiege Samaria in the campaign of 734-32. The king, Pekah, was slain by a conspiracy of his own subjects; and Hoshea, the ringleader, who succeeded, willingly purchased the stability of a usurped throne by homage and tribute to the king of kings. So Tiglath-pileser went home again, satisfied to have punished Israel by carrying away with him the population of Galilee. During his reign there was no further appearance of the Assyrians in Palestine, but at his death in 727 Hoshea, after the fashion of Assyrian vassals when the throne of Nineveh changed occupants, attempted to throw off the yoke of the new king, Salmanassar IV Along with the Phoenician and Philistine cities, Hoshea negotiated an alliance with So, or Seve, the Ethiopian, a usurper who had just succeeded in establishing his supremacy over the land of the Pharaohs. In a year Salmanassar marched south upon the rebels. He took Hoshea prisoner on the borders of his territory (725), but, not content, as his predecessor had been, with the submission of the king, "he came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years." { 2 Kings 17:5 } He did not live to see the end of the siege, and Samaria was taken in 722 by Sargon, his successor. Sargon overthrew the kingdom and uprooted the people. The northern tribes were carried away into a captivity, from which as tribes they never returned. It was evidently this complete overthrow of Samaria by Sargon in 722-721, which Isaiah had behind him when he wrote Isaiah 10:9-11 . We must, therefore, date the prophecy after 721, when nothing was left as a bulwark between Judah and the Assyrian. We do so with reluctance. There is much Isaiah 10:5-34 which suits the circumstances of Tiglath-pileser’s invasion. There are phrases and catch-words coinciding with those in chapter 7-9:7; and the whole oration is simply a more elaborate expression of that defiance of Assyria, which inspires such of the previous prophecies as Isaiah 8:9-10 . Besides, with the exception of Samaria, all the names in the Assyrian’s boastful catalogue-Carchemish, Calno, Arpad, Hamath, and Damascus-might as justly have been vaunted by the lips of Tiglath-pileser as by those of Sargon. But in spite of these things, which seem to vindicate the close relation of Isaiah 10:5-34 to the prophecies which precede it in the canon, the mention of Samaria as being already destroyed justifies us in divorcing it from them. While they remain dated from before 732, we place it subsequent to 722. Was Isaiah, then, silent these ten years? Is there no prophecy lying farther on in his book that treats of Samaria as still standing? Besides an address to the fallen Damascus in Isaiah 17:1-11 , which we shall take later with the rest of Isaiah’s oracles on foreign states, there is one large prophecy, chapter 28, which opens with a description of the magnates of Samaria lolling in drunken security on their vine-crowned hill, but God’s storms are ready to break. Samaria has not yet fallen, but is threatened and shall fall soon. The first part of chapter 28, can only refer to the year in which Salmanassar advanced upon Samaria-726 or 725. There is nothing in the rest of it to corroborate this date; but the fact, that there are several turns of thought and speech very similar to turns of thought and speech in Isaiah 10:5-34 , makes us the bolder to take away chapter 28 from its present connection with 29-32, and place it just before Isaiah 10:5-34 . Here then is our next group of prophecies, all dating from the first seven years of the reign of Hezekiah: 28, a warning addressed to the politicians of Jerusalem from the impending fate of those of Samaria (date 725); Isaiah 10:5-34 , a woe upon the Assyrian (date about 720), describing his boasts and his progress in conquest till his sudden crash by the walls of Jerusalem; 11, of date uncertain, for it reflects no historical circumstance, but standing in such artistic contrast to 10 that the two must be treated together; and 12, a hymn of salvation, which forms a fitting conclusion to 11. With these we shall take the few fragments of the book of Isaiah which belong to the fifteen years 720-705, and are as straws to show how Judah all that time was drifting down to alliance with Egypt-20, Isaiah 21:1-10 ; Isaiah 38:1-22 ; Isaiah 39:1-8 . This will bring us to 705, and the beginning of a new series of prophecies, the richest of Isaiah’s life, and the subject of our third book. 6 CHAPTER X THE SPIRIT OF GOD IN MAN AND THE ANIMALS ABOUT 720 B.C. Isaiah 11:1-16 ; Isaiah 12:1-6 BENEATH the crash of the Assyrian with which the tenth chapter closes, we pass out into the eleventh upon a glorious prospect of Israel’s future. The Assyrian when he falls shall fall forever like the cedars of Lebanon, that send no fresh sprout forth from their broken stumps. But out of the trunk of the Judaean oak, also brought down by these terrible storms, Isaiah sees springing a fair and powerful Branch. Assyria, he would tell us. has no future. Judah has a future, and at first the prophet sees it in a scion of her royal house. The nation shall be almost exterminated, the dynasty of David hewn to a stump; "yet there shall spring a shoot from the stock of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit." The picture of this future, which fills the eleventh chapter, is one of the most extensive that Isaiah has drawn. Three great prospects are unfolded in it: a prospect of mind, a prospect of nature, and a prospect of history. To begin with, there is ( Isaiah 11:2-5 ) the geography of a royal mind in its stretches of character, knowledge, and achievement. We have next ( Isaiah 11:5-9 ) a vision of the restitution of nature, Paradise regained. And, thirdly ( Isaiah 11:9-16 ), there is the geography of Israel’s redemption, the coasts and highways along which the hosts of the dispersion sweep up from captivity to a station of supremacy over the world. To this third prospect chapter 12 forms a fitting conclusion, a hymn of praise in the mouth of returning exiles. The human mind, nature, and history are the three dimensions of life, and across them all the prophet tells us that the Spirit of the Lord will fill the future with His marvels of righteousness, wisdom, and peace. He presents to us three great ideals: the perfect indwelling of our humanity by the Spirit of God; the peace and communion of all nature, covered with the knowledge of God; the traversing of all history by the Divine purposes of redemption. I. THE MESSIAH AND THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD { Isaiah 11:1-5 } The first form, in which Isaiah sees Israel’s longed-for future realised, is that which he so often exalts and makes glistering upon the threshold of the future-the form of a king. It is a peculiarity, which we cannot fail to remark about Isaiah’s scattered representations of this brilliant figure, that they have no connecting link. They do not allude to one another, nor employ a common terminology, even the word king dropping out of some of them. The earliest of the series bestows a name on the Messiah, which none of the others repeat, nor does Isaiah say in any of them, This is He of whom I have spoken before. Perhaps the disconnectedness of these oracles is as strong a proof as is necessary of the view we have formed that throughout his ministry our prophet had before him no distinct, identical individual, but rather an ideal of virtue and kinghood, whose features varied according to the conditions of the time. In this chapter Isaiah recalls nothing of Immanuel, or of the Prince-of-the-Four-Names. Nevertheless (besides for the first time deriving the Messiah from the house of David), he carries his description forward to a stage which lies beyond and to some extent implies his two previous portraits. Immanuel was only a Sufferer with His people in the day of their oppression. The Prince-of-the-Four-Names was the Redeemer of his people from their captivity, and stepped to his throne not only after victory, but with the promise of a long and just government shining from the titles by which He was proclaimed. But now Isaiah not only speaks at length of this peaceful reign-a chronological advance-but describes his hero so inwardly that we also feel a certain spiritual advance. The Messiah is no more a mere experience, as Immanuel was, nor only outward deed and promise, like the Prince-of-the-Four-Names, but at last, and very strongly, a character. The second verse is the definition of this character; the third describes the atmosphere in which it lives. And there shall rest upon him the Spirit of Jehovah, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of Jehovah; and he shall draw breath in the fear of Jehovah-in other words, ripeness but also sharpness of mind; moral decision and heroic energy; piety in its two forms of knowing the will of God and feeling the constraint to perform it. We could not have a more concise summary of the strong elements of a ruling mind. But it is only as Judge and Ruler that Isaiah cares here to think of his hero. Nothing is said of the tender virtues, and we feel that the prophet still stands in the days of the need of inflexible government and purgation in Judah. Dean Plumptre has plausibly suggested, that these verses may represent the programme which Isaiah set before his pupil Hezekiah on his accession to the charge of a nation, whom his weak predecessor had suffered to lapse into such abuse of justice and laxity of morals. The acts of government described are all of a punitive and repressive character. The hero speaks only to make the land tremble: "And He shall smite the land with the rod of His mouth" [what need, after the whispering, indecisive Ahaz!], "and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked." This, though a fuller and more ethical picture of the Messiah than even the ninth chapter, is evidently wanting in many of the traits of a perfect man. Isaiah has to grow in his conception of his Hero, and will grow as the years go on, in tenderness. His thirty-second chapter is a much richer, a more gracious and humane picture of the Messiah. There the Victor of the ninth and righteous Judge of the eleventh chapters is represented as a Man, who shall not only punish but protect, and not only reign but inspire, who shall be life as well as victory and justice to His people-"a hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." A conception so limited to the qualifications of an earthly monarch, as this of chapter 11 gives us no ground for departing from our previous conclusion, that Isaiah had not a "supernatural" personality in his view. The Christian Church, however, has not confined the application of the passage to earthly kings and magistrates, but has seen its perfect fulfilment in the indwelling of Christ’s human nature by the Holy Ghost. But it is remarkable, that for this exegesis she has not made use of the most "supernatural" of the details of character here portrayed. If the Old Testament has a phrase for sinlessness, that phrase occurs here, in the beginning of the third verse. In the authorised English version it is translated, "and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord," and in the Revised Version, "His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord," and on the margin the literal meaning of delight is given as scent. But the phrase may as well mean, "He shall draw his breath in the fear of the Lord"; and it is a great pity, that our revisers have not even on the margin given to English readers any suggestion of so picturesque, and probably so correct, a rendering. It is a most expressive definition of sinlessness-sinlessness which was the attribute of Christ alone. We, however purely intentioned we be, are compassed about by an atmosphere of sin. We cannot help breathing what now inflames our passions, now chills our warmest feelings, and makes our throats incapable of honest testimony or glorious praise. As oxygen to a dying fire, so the worldliness we breathe is to the sin within us. We cannot help it; it is the atmosphere into which we are born. But from this Christ alone of men was free. He was His own atmosphere, "drawing breath in the fear of the Lord." Of Him alone is it recorded, that, though living in the world, He was never infected with the world’s sin. The blast of no man’s cruelty ever kindled unholy wrath within His breast; nor did men’s unbelief carry to His soul its deadly chill. Not even when He was led of the devil into the atmosphere of temptation, did His heart throb with one rebellious ambition. Christ "drew breath in the fear of the Lord." But draughts of this atmosphere are possible to us also, to whom the Holy Spirit is granted. We too, who sicken with the tainted breath of society, and see the characters of children about us fall away and the hidden evil within leap to swift flame before the blasts of the world-we too may, by Christ’s grace, "draw breath," like Him, "in the fear of the Lord." Recall some day when, leaving your close room and the smoky city, you breasted the hills of God, and into opened lungs drew deep draughts of the fresh air of heaven. What strength it gave your body, and with what a glow of happiness your mind was filled! What that is physically, Christ has made possible for us men morally. He has revealed stretches and eminences of life, where, following in His footsteps, we also shall draw for our breath the fear of God. This air is inspired up every steep hill of effort, and upon all summits of worship. In the most passion-haunted air, prayer will immediately bring this atmosphere about a man, and on the wings of praise the poorest soul may rise from the miasma of temptation, and sing forth her song into the azure with as clear a throat as the lark’s. And what else is heaven to be, if not this? God, we are told, shall be its Sun; but its atmosphere shall be His fear, "which is clean and endureth for ever." Heaven seems most real as a moral open-air, where every breath is an inspiration, and every pulse a healthy joy, where no thoughts from within us find breath but those of obedience and praise, and all our passions and aspirations are of the will of God. He that lives near to Christ, and by Christ often seeks God in prayer, may create for himself even on earth such a heaven, "perfecting holiness in the fear of God." II. THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD { Isaiah 11:2-3 } This passage, which suggests so much of Christ, is also for Christian Theology and Art a classical passage on the Third Person of the Trinity. If the texts in the book of Revelation { Revelation 1:4 ; Revelation 3:1 ; Revelation 4:5 ; Revelation 5:6 } upon the Seven Spirits of God were not themselves founded on this text of Isaiah, it is certain that the Church immediately began to interpret them by its details. While there are only six spirits of God named here-three pairs - yet, in order to complete the perfect number, the exegesis of early Christianity sometimes added "the Spirit of the Lord" at the beginning of Isaiah 11:2 as the central branch of a seven-branched candlestick; or sometimes "the quick understanding in the fear of the Lord" in the beginning of Isaiah 11:3 was attached as the seventh branch. {Compare Zechariah 4:6 } It is remarkable that there is almost no single text of Scripture which has more impressed itself upon Christian doctrine and symbol than this second verse of the eleventh chapter, interpreted as a definition of the Seven Spirits of God. In the theology, art, and worship of the Middle Ages it dominated the expression of the work of the Holy Ghost. First, and most native to its origin, arose the employment of this text at the coronation of kings and the fencing of tribunals of justice. What Isaiah wrote for Hezekiah of Judah became the official prayer, song, or ensample of the earliest Christian kings in Europe. It is evidently the model of that royal hymn-not by Charlemagne, as usually supposed, but by his grandson Charles the Bald-the " Veni Creator Spiritus ." In a Greek miniature of the tenth century, the Holy Spirit, as a dove, is seen hovering over King David, who displays the prayer: "Give the king Thy judgments, O God, and Thy righteousness to the king’s son," while there stand on either side of him the figures of Wisdom and Prophecy. Henry III’s order of knighthood, " Du Saint Esprit, " was restricted to political men, and particularly to magistrates. But perhaps the most interesting identification of the Holy Spirit with the rigorous virtues of our passage occurs in a story of St. Dunstan, who, just before mass on the day of Pentecost, discovered that three coiners, who had been sentenced to death, were being respited till the Festival of the Holy Ghost should be over. "It shall not be thus," cried the indignant saint, and gave orders for their immediate execution. There was remonstance, but he, no doubt with the eleventh of Isaiah in mind, insisted, and was obeyed. "I now hope," he said, resuming the mass, "that God will be pleased to accept the sacrifice I am about to offer." "Whereupon," says the veracious "Acts of the Saints," "a snow-white dove did, in the vision of many, descend from heaven, and until the sacrifice was completed remain above his head in silence, with wings extended and motionless." Which may be as much legend as we have the heart to make it, but nevertheless remains a sure proof of the association, by discerning mediaevals who could read their Scriptures, of the Holy Spirit with the decisiveness and rigorous justice of Isaiah’s "mirror for magistrates." But the influence of our passage may be followed to that wider definition of the Spirit’s work, which made Him the Fountain of all intelligence. The Spirits of the Lord mentioned by Isaiah are prevailingly intellectual; and the mediaeval Church, using the details of this passage to interpret Christ’s own intimation of the Paraclete as the Spirit of truth, -remembering also the story of Pentecost, when the Spirit bestowed the gifts of tongues, and the case of Stephen, who, in the triumph of his eloquence and learning, was said to be full of the Holy Ghost, -did regard, as Gregory of Tours expressly declared, the Holy Spirit as the "God of the intellect more than of the heart." All Councils were opened by a mass to the Holy Ghost, and few, who have examined with care the windows of mediaeval churches, will have failed to be struck with the frequency with which the Dove is seen descending upon the heads of miraculously learned persons, or presiding at discussions, or hovering over groups of figures representing the sciences. To the mediaeval Church, then, the Holy Spirit was the Author of the intellect, more especially of the governing and political intellect; and there can be little doubt, after a study of the variations of this doctrine, that the first five verses of the eleventh of Isaiah formed upon it the classical text of appeal. To Christians, who have been accustomed by the use of the word Comforter to associate the Spirit only with the gentle and consoling influences of heaven, it may seem strange to find His energy identified with the stern rigour of the magistrate. But in its practical, intelligent, and reasonable uses the mediaeval doctrine is greatly to be preferred, on grounds both of Scripture and common sense, to those two comparatively modern corruptions of it, one of which emphasises the Spirit’s influence in the exclusive operation of the grace of orders, and the other, driving to an opposite extreme, dissipates it into the vaguest religiosity. It is one of the curiosities of Christian theology, that a Divine influence, asserted by Scripture and believed by the early Church to manifest itself in the successful conduct of civil offices and the fulness of intellectual learning, should in these latter days be so often set up in a sort of "supernatural" opposition to practical wisdom and the results of science. But we may go back to Isaiah for the same kind of correction on this doctrine, as he has given us on the doctrine of faith: and while we do not forget the richer meaning the New Testament bestows on the operation of the Divine Spirit, we may learn from the Hebrew prophet to seek the inspiration of the Holy Ghost in all the endeavours of science, and not to forget that it is His guidance alone which enables us to succeed in the conduct of our offices and fortunes. III. THE REDEMPTION OF NATURE { Isaiah 11:6-9 } But Isaiah will not be satisfied with the establishment of a strong government in the land and the redemption of human society from chaos. He prophesies the redemption of all nature as well. It is one of those errors, which distort both the poetry and truth of the Bible, to suppose that by the bears, lions, and reptiles which the prophet now sees tamed in the time of the regeneration, he intends the violent human characters which he so often attacks. When Isaiah here talks of the beasts, he means the beasts. The passage is not allegorical, but direct, and forms a parallel to the well-known passage in the eighth of Romans. Isaiah and Paul, chief apostles of the two covenants, both interrupt their magnificent odes upon the outpouring of the Spirit, to remind us that the benefits of this will be shared by the brute and unintelligent creation. And, perhaps, there is no finer contrast in the Scriptures than here, where beside so majestic a description of the intellectual faculties of humanity Isaiah places so charming a picture of the docility and sportfulness of wild animals, -"And a little child shall lead them." We, who live in countries from which wild beasts have been exterminated, cannot understand the insecurity and terror that they cause in regions where they abound. A modern seer of the times of regeneration would leave the wild animals out of his vision. They do not impress any more the human conscience or imagination. But they once did so most terribly. The hostility between man and the beasts not only formed once upon a time the chief material obstacle in the progress of the race, but remains still to the religious thinker the most pathetic portion of that groaning and travailing of all creation, which is so heavy a burden on his heart. Isaiah, from his ancient point of view, is in thorough accord with the order of civilisation, when he represents the subjugation of wild animals as the first problem of man, after he has established a strong government in the land. So far from rhetorising or allegorising-above which literary forms it would appear to be impossible for the appreciation of some of his commentators to follow him-Isaiah is earnestly celebrating a very real moment in the laborious progress of mankind. Isaiah stands where Hercules stood, and Theseus, and Arthur when "There grew great tracts of wilderness, Wherein the beast was ever more and more, But man was less and less till Arthur came. And he drave The heathen, and he slew the beast, and felled The forest, and let in the sun, and made Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight, And so returned." But Isaiah would solve the grim problem of the warfare between man and his lower fellow-creatures in a very different way from that, of which these heroes have set the example to humanity. Isaiah would not have the wild beasts exterminated, but tamed. There our Western and modern imagination may fail to follow him, especially when he includes reptiles in the regeneration, and prophesies of adders and lizards as the playthings of children. But surely there is no genial man, who has watched the varied forms of life that sport in the Southern sunshine, who will not sympathise with the prophet in his joyous vision. Upon a warm spring day in Palestine, to sit upon the grass, beside some old dyke or ruin with its face to the south, is indeed to obtain a rapturous view of the wealth of life, with which the bountiful God has blessed and. made merry man’s dwelling-place. How the lizards come and go among the grey stones, and flash like jewels in the dust! And the timid snake rippling quickly past through the grass, and the leisurely tortoise, with his shiny back, and the chameleon, shivering into new colour as he passes from twig to stone and stone to straw, -all the air the while alive with the music of the cricket and the bee! You feel that the ideal is not to destroy these pretty things as vermin. What a loss of colour the lizards alone would imply! But, as Isaiah declares, -whom we may imagine walking with his children up the steep vineyard paths, to watch the creatures come and go upon the dry dykes on either hand, -the ideal is to bring them into sympathy with ourselves, make pets of them and playthings for children, who indeed stretch out their hands in joy to the pretty toys. Why should we need to fight with, or destroy, any of the happy life the Lord has created? Why have we this loathing to it, and need to defend ourselves from it, when there is so much suffering we could cure, and so much childlikeness we could amuse and be amused by, and yet it will not let us near? To these questions there is not another answer but the answer of the Bible: that this curse of conflict and distrust between man and his fellow-creatures is due to man’s sin, and shall only be done away by man’s redemption. Nor is this Bible answer, -of which the book of Genesis gives us the one end, and this text of Isaiah the other, -a mere pious opinion, which the true history of man’s dealing with wild beasts by extermination proves to be impracticable. We may take on scientific authority a few facts as hints from nature, that after all man is to blame for the wildness of the beasts, and that through his sanctification they may be restored to sympathy with himself. Charles Darwin says: "It deserves notice, that at an extremely ancient period, when man first entered any country the animals living there would have felt no instinctive or inherited fear of him, and would consequently have been tamed far more easily than at present." And he gives some very instructive facts in proof of this with regard to dogs, antelopes, manatees, and hawks. "Quadrupeds and birds which have seldom been disturbed by man dread him no more than do our English birds the cows or horses grazing in the fields." Darwin’s details are peculiarly pathetic in their revelation of the brutes’ utter trustfulness in man, before they get to know him. Persons, who have had to do with individual animals of a species that has never been thoroughly tamed, are aware that the difficulty of training them lies in convincing them of our sincerity and good-heartedness, and that when this is got over they will learn almost any trick, or habit. The well-known lines of Burns to the field-mouse gather up the cause of all this in a fashion very similar to the Bible’s. "I’m truly sorry man’s dominion Has broken nature’s social union, And justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion And fellow-mortal." How much the appeal of suffering animals to man-the look of a wounded horse or dog with a meaning which speech would only spoil, the tales of beasts of prey that in pain have turned to man as their physician, the approach of the wildest birds in winter to our feet as their Providence - how much all these prove Paul’s saying that the "earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God." And we have other signals, than those afforded by the pain and pressure of the beasts themselves, of the time when they and man shall sympathise. The natural history of many of our breeds of domesticated animals teaches us the lesson that their growth in skill and character-no one who has enjoyed the friendship of several dogs will dispute the possibility of character in the lower animals-has been proportionate to man’s own. Though savages are fond of keeping and taming animals, they fail to advance them to the stages of cunning and discipline, which animals reach under the influence of civilised man. "No instance is on record," says Darwin, "of such dogs as bloodhounds, spaniels, or true greyhounds having been kept by savages; they are the products of long-continued civilisation." These facts, if few, certainly bear in the direction of Isaiah’s prophecy, that not by extermination of the beasts, but by the influence upon them of man’s greater force of character, may that warfare be brought to an end. of which man’s sin, according to the Bible, is the original cause. The practical "uses" of such a passage of Scripture as this are plain. Some of them are the awful responsibility of man’s position as the keystone of creation, the material effects of sin, and especially the religiousness of our relation to the lower animals. More than once do the Hebrew prophets liken the Almighty’s dealings with man to merciful man’s dealings with his beasts. { Isaiah 63:13-14 ; Hosea 11:4 } Both Isaiah and Paul virtually declare that man discharges to the lower creatures a mediatorial office. To say so will of course seem an exaggeration to some people, but not to those who, besides being grateful to remember what help in labour and cheer in dreariness we owe our humble fellow-creatures, have been fortunate enough to enjoy the affection and trust of a dumb friend. Men who abuse the lower animals sin very grievously against God; men who neglect them lose some of the religious possibilities of life. If it is our business in life to have the charge of animals, we should magnify our calling. Every coachman and carter ought to feel something of the priest about him; he should think no amount of skill and patience too heavy if it enables him to gain insight into the nature of creatures of God, all of whose hope, by Scripture and his own experience, is towards himself. Our relation to the lower animals is one of the three great relations of our nature. For God our worship; for man our service; for the beasts our providence, and according both to Isaiah and Paul, the mediation of our holiness. IV. THE RETURN AND SOVEREIGNTY OF ISRAEL { Isaiah 11:10-16 } In passing from the second to the third part of this prophecy, we cannot but feel that we descend to a lower point of view and a less pure atmosphere of spiritual ambition. Isaiah, who has just declared peace between man and beast, finds that Judah must clear off certain scores against her neighbours before there can be peace between man and man. It is an interesting psychological study. The prophet, who has been able to shake off man’s primeval distrust and loathing of wild animals, cannot divest himself of the political tempers of his age. He admits, indeed, the reconciliation of Ephraim and Judah; but the first act of the reconciled brethren, he prophesies with exultation, will be to "swoop down upon" their cousins Edom, Moab, and Ammon, and their neighbours the Philistines. We need not longer dwell on this remarkable limitation of the prophet’s spirit, except to point out that while Isaiah clearly saw that Israel’s own purity would

And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise Thee. Isaiah 12:1-3 Praise for redemption F. Delitzsch. As the Israel that was redeemed from Egypt raised songs of praise on the other side of the Red Sea, so likewise does the Israel of the second redemption when brought not less miraculously over the Red Sea and Euphrates. ( F. Delitzsch. ) A song in the night J. Parker, D. D. It is time we had a hymn in this prophecy of Isaiah, for the reading has been like a succession of thunderstorms and earthquakes. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Did Isaiah write this song J. Parker, D. D. ? — Some say Isaiah did not write this song. It is of no consequence to us who wrote it: here it is, and it is in the right place, and it expresses the right thought, and there is probably more evidence for the authorship of Isaiah than for the authorship of any other man. Some have said it is not like his style: but what is his style? What is the style of the sky? Is it for two days alike? Who could write the history of the sky simply as it appears to the vision of man? The accounts would seem to contradict one another, for the sky passes through panoramic changes innumerable, infinite, and all beautiful where they are not grand. So with the style of this great statesman Isaiah. He handles things with the infinite ease of conscious power; he is as strong in his music as he is in his prophecy. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Praise for redemption by the individual and by the Church In that day — I. EVERY PARTICULAR BELIEVER shall sing a song of praise for his own interest in that salvation (vers. 1-3). "Thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise Thee." Thanksgiving work shall be closet work. II. MANY IN CONCERT. shall join in praising God for the common benefit arising from this salvation (vers. 4-6). "Ye shall say, Praise the Lord." Thanksgiving work shall be congregation work. ( M. Henry . ) A new song for new hearts The text is many sided. We shall find out the very soul of the passage if we consider it as an illustration of what occurs to every one of God's people when he is brought out of darkness into God's marvellous light. I. THE PRELUDE of this song. Here are certain preliminaries to the music. "In that day thou shalt say." Here we have the tuning of the harps, the notes of the music follow after in the succeeding sentences. 1. There is a time for that joyous song which is here recorded. The term, "that day," is sometimes used for a day of terror, and often for a period of blessing. The common term to both is this, they were days of the manifestation of Divine power. "That day," a day of terrible confusion to God's enemies; "that day," a day of great comfort to God's friends. Now, the day in which a man rejoices in Christ, is the day in which God's power is revealed on his behalf in his heart and conscience. 2. A word indicates the singer. "Thou." It is a singular pronoun, and points out one individual. One by one we receive eternal life and peace. You fancy that it is all right with you because you live in a Christian nation; it is woe unto you, if having outward privileges, they involve you in responsibilities, but bring you no saving grace. Perhaps you fancy that your family religion may somewhat help you, but it is not so; there is no birthright godliness: "Ye must be born again." Still, I know ye fancy that if ye mingle in godly congregations, and sing as they sing, and pray as they pray, it shall go well with you, but it is not so; the wicket gate of eternal life admits but one at a time. This word, "thou," is spoken to those who have been by sorrow brought into the last degree of despair. 3. The next thing to be noted in the preliminaries is the Teacher. It is God alone who can so positively declare, "thou Shalt say." If any man presumes to say, "God has turned His anger away from me," without a warrant from the Most High, that man lies to his own confusion; but when it is written. "Thou shalt say," it is as though God had said, "I will matte it true, so that you shall be fully justified in the declaration." 4. Here is another preliminary of the song, namely, the tone of it. "Thou shalt say." The song is to be an open one, avowed, vocally uttered, heard of men, and published abroad. It is not to be a silent feeling, a kind of soft music whose sweetness is spent within the spirit. II. IN THE SONG ITSELF, I would call to your notice — 1. The fact that all of it is concerning the Lord. It is all addressed to Him. "O Lord, I will praise Thee: though Thou wast angry, Thine anger is turned away." When a soul escapes from the bondage of sin, and becomes consciously pardoned, it resembles the apostles on the Mount Tabor — it sees no man, save Jesus only. God will be all in all when iniquity is pardoned. 2. The next thing in this song is, that it includes repentant memories. "Though Thou wast angry with me." There was a time when God was to our consciousness angry with us. In the Hebrew the wording of our text is slightly different from what we get in the English. Our English translators have very wisely put in the word "though," a little earlier than it occurs in the Hebrew. The Hebrew would run something like this, "O Lord, I will praise Thee; Thou wast angry with me." Now we do this day praise God that He made us feel His anger. 3. The song of our text contains in itself blessed certainties. "Thine anger is turned away." Can a man know that? can a man be quite sure that he is forgiven? Ay, that he can; he can be as sure of pardon as he is of his existence. 4. Our song includes holy resolutions. "I will praise Thee." I will do it with my heart in secret. I will praise Thee in the Church of God, for I will search out other beliers, and I will tell them what God has done for me. I will cast in my lot with Thy people. I will praise Thee in my life. I will make my business praise Thee; I will make my parlour and my drawing room, I will make my kitchen and my field praise Thee. I will not be content unless all I am and all I have shall praise Thee. I will make a harp of the whole universe; I will make earth and heaven, space and time, to be but strings upon which my joyful fingers shall play lofty tunes of thankfulness. 5. This is a song which is peculiar in its character, and appropriate only to the people of God. I may say of it, "no man could learn this song but the redeemed." It is not a Pharisee's song — it has no likeness to "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men"; it confesses, "Thou wast angry with me," and therein owns that the singer was even as others; but it glories that through infinite mercy, the Divine anger is turned away, and herein it leans on the appointed Saviour. It is not a Sadducean song; no doubt mingles with the strain. It is not the philosopher's query, "There may be a God, or there may not be"; it is the voice of a believing worshipper. It is not, "I may be guilty, or I may not be." It is all positive, every note of it. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) The heart's diapason It is a full song — the swell of the diapason of the heart. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Grace upon grace R. Macculloch. "Thou comfortedst me." Persons may be liberated from slavery by the arm of power; they may be rescued from oppression by the exercise of justice; they may be relieved from want by the hand of bounty; but to pour reviving consolation into the dejected mind is the kind office of pure affection and pity ( Isaiah 66:13 ). ( R. Macculloch. ) The song of the ransomed Anon. Such will one day be the song of a ransomed nation, and such is even now the song of the ransomed soul. Until we can sing this song we do not know what praise really means. It is a striking contrast indeed.(1) It is a stern and terrible fact that there are some persons on whom the wrath of God does rest ( John 3:36 ). There are few more startling expressions in the whole Bible than this. Think of the wrath of God abiding on you! You rise up in the morning, and there it is — hanging over you. You go forth to your work, the sun is shining in the outer world, making all nature jubilant, and over you this dark funereal pall is still hanging. You surround yourselves with all the pleasing scenes of a comfortable home. In the very midst of your comfort and prosperity still that cloud is there. You lay your head upon your pillow at night, and if you should think at all, your last thoughts might well be: If I never wake again here on earth, I must certainly wake to find the wrath of God abiding on me. This is not the only passage in which such an affirmation is made.(2) How did this great change indicated here take place? If you refer to the immediate context, you will learn a valuable lesson. In the previous chapters we meet with a very mournful refrain: "For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still." These sorrowful words come after a description of terrible and overwhelming judgment. This points to the solemn conclusion that, although it is perfectly true that sin always brings punishment in its train, the punishment which we endure, as the result of our sin, does not expiate its guilt. What was it that turned away the anger of God from Israel? The tenth chapter is merely a parenthesis. It is when the Rod of the stem of Jesse has appeared, and the eye of God, looking down upon His own nation, sees something within that nation that He is well pleased with, that a complete change comes over the aspect of things. The anger of God disappears, the sunlight of Divine pleasure bursts upon a rejoicing nation, and the next moment we are introduced to this song of triumphant praise. The moment that the eye of God, gazing down upon you, sees in your nature that which He beheld of old in the sacred land, and which He will behold again one day on a consecrated earth, the Plant of renown — Christ received into your nature, Christ growing in the thirsty, barren soil of your fallen humanity, like a root in a dry ground, and making all things fertile and fruitful by His presence — when God, gazing down, sees within you a received Christ, He has no anger, no judgment for that. You will be able to say, "Thou wast angry; Thine anger is turned away: Thou comfortedst me." I. In reaching this point the soul proceeds to make the most astonishing and glorious discovery it is possible for us to make. "Behold, God is my SALVATION." I suddenly discover that I have no longer anything to fear in God. He bridges over in His own blessed Person the vast chasm between my sin and His purity, and as I step upon this wondrous bridge I find that it will bear my weight. God Himself brings me to God. This salvation is offered to us for nothing. But it cost the Son of God something. This salvation is to be appropriated by simple trust. "I will trust, and not be afraid." II. But not only does the happy soul find out that God is his salvation; he goes on to find out that the Lord Jehovah is his STRENGTH. The very title which the prophet gives to God suggests the eternal immutability of the great "I Am." As we obtain salvation by taking God for our salvation, so we obtain strength by taking God for our strength with equally simple, childlike faith. III. When you have made the discovery that the Lord Jehovah is your strength, no wonder if you go on to make yet a third. He is our SONG. God designs that from this time forth you shall be perfectly happy; but, if you want to be really happy, God must be your song. When we think upon God there is always something to sing about. His faithfulness and truth; His unchanging love; His readiness to be to us all that we want; the hope that He holds out to us, blooming with immortality. IV. And, as the result of this, we shall "WITH JOY DRAW WATER OUT OF THE WELLS OF SALVATION." Some have sat beside the wells of salvation, from time to time, as a matter of custom and habit, and yet have never known what it was to draw water out of the wells with joy. You have come to church on Sunday because it happened to be Sunday. You were expected to be there, and there you were. Some of you have read your Bible because it is a proper thing to do. Your life has been a life of legal performances. Your prayers have been little better than superstitious incantations. Now all that is changed. It is with joy, and not with murmuring, that we are to find our wells. On more than one occasion the Israelites applied for water in this spirit, and found a curse mingled with their blessing. Let us dig our wells as they dug the well of old at Beer, when, though they lacked water, they were wise enough to leave the matter in the Lord's hands. Then it was God undertook for them. ( Anon. ) The present happiness of God's people set before the unconverted B. W. Noel, M. A. God, in His infinite mercy, has addressed the most various motives to sinners in general, to induce them to turn to Him. He has been pleased to set before sinners in His Word the immediate happiness that they may enjoy in His service, as incomparably greater than any they can hope to have in this world while absent and alienated from Him And this truth is not before us most strikingly in these words. I. We have to consider THE JOY THAT FLOWS FROM THE SENSE OF PARDONED SIN. 1. The first thing here declared to us is, that God does pardon the penitent believer. He was originally angry with him. God is, and must be, according to His Divine perfections, angry with those who are living in a state of rebellion against Him. But when a person is brought to believe in Christ that anger is gone. 2. And as this is the blessing itself, so is the believer, when faith is strong, assured of that blessing. But when I speak of this as a constraining motive why sinners in general should turn to God, they may feel that ungodly persons have no such burden. Yet though now the sinner may not feel his need of such a consolation, he may be assured that it is a consolation surpassing in value and in peace and in joy all that he has ever experienced in a life of indifference and ungodliness. II. THERE IS A JOY ARISING FROM TRUST IN GOD FOR FUTURE BLESSINGS. "Behold, God is my salvation," etc. 1. God is become the "salvation" of a penitent believer. That is, He accomplishes His entire deliverance from sin and its consequences. 2. God is his "salvation" from all present evil, and introduces him to the possession of all real good ( Psalm 121:7 ; Psalm 84:11 ; Romans 8:28 ). Hence, then, the Lord does not reserve all the blessings of His people for the eternal world, but pours out His treasures of mercy upon them even now. And as God bestows upon His people this assurance that He is "their strength and their salvation," it must fill them with abiding joy. ( B. W. Noel, M. A. ) The joy of salvation Methodist Times. At the Southport Convention, 1901, the Rev. W.Y. Fullerton told an amusing incident of a friend of his, not a Methodist, but with enough fire for two, who wrote a post card to a friend, and having filled up the back, wrote a closing message on the front of the card, "Be of good cheer, brother." And the Post Office authorities not only surcharged the recipient, but stamped beneath the message, "Contrary to regulations." Christian joy is legitimate, and not opposed to the regulations of heaven. ( Methodist Times. ) Assurance of salvation John Bate. makes the firmest, the most active, the most useful, the holiest, the happiest, the most even and regular Christians. ( John Bate. ) Behold, God is my salvation. Isaiah 12:2 Rejoicing in God J. Walker, D. D. These words are used by the prophet, in the name of the Church, to set forth the happiness and salvation of the Jews when they shall be gathered in with the fulness of the Gentiles. They also express the experience of a believer — I. WITH RESPECT TO HIS MORAL STATE. "God is my salvation." Some would have the aid, the consolation, and the favour of God, but refuse His salvation, and remain in sin. This, however, is vain and impossible. The privileges of a believer are unspeakably great, but they all are founded on that change which the grace of God makes in his nature, here called salvation. Salvation is deliverance, and how does this show itself in a believer? He is delivered from darkness ( 2 Corinthians 4:6 ). From insensibility ( Ezekiel 36:26 ). From pride. From creaturely dependence. From a sense of condemnation ( Romans 8:1 ). From slavery ( John 8:36 ; Romans 6:22 ). He is delivered from misery, into union with God, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost; no longer a stranger and foreigner, but a fellow heir, rejoicing in Christ Jesus, and in the hope of His glory. Observe, to whom the believer refers us as the Author of this salvation — "God." II. WITH RESPECT TO HIS AID. "The Lord Jehovah is my strength." If we have not yet learned that our own strength is weakness, and that we shall never be sufficiently strong until the Lord Jehovah Himself strengthens with 'all might in our inner man, we have learnt little of Christianity. But he who knows that God is his salvation, knows also that God is his strength. Dost thou fall? "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me." Art thou faint? "He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength." Art thou wounded? A touch of the Divine hand shall heal thee. Art thou buffeted by Satan? God shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. In one word, behold a Divine and almighty power everywhere, and always surrounding you, sufficient for all purposes to bless, support, deliver. III. WITH RESPECT TO HIS CONSOLATIONS. "And my song." Here is an allusion to the ancient custom of composing and singing sacred odes or songs upon occasions of any signal deliverance, or the communication of any peculiar blessing. Such were the songs of Moses and Miriam, when Pharaoh and his host were swallowed up in the Red Sea; of Moses, after he had brought the Israelites to the borders of the promised land; of many of the Psalms of David, etc. Observe, the subject of his song, "the Lord Jehovah." His nature; His dispensations. IV. WITH RESPECT TO HIS CONFIDENCE. "I will trust, and not be afraid." ( J. Walker, D. D. ) Salvation of the Lord R. Macculloch. The physician may be the means of restoring to health, but it is God who performs the cure. The counsellor may give good advice, but it is God who guides by His counsel and conducts to glory. Soldiers may fight our battles, but it is God who crowns them with victory. Friends may try to assist, relieve, and comfort us, but their success depends entirely upon God. From providences and ordinances we may derive much benefit, but for this purpose it is absolutely requisite that they be accompanied with the Divine blessing. In this manner we are taught that salvation is of the Lord. ( R. Macculloch. ) Salvation J. Parker, D. D. The word "salvation" is too narrowly defined in many instances. People suppose that it means a kind of spiritual selfishness which, being expressed in more words, would run in some such fashion as this: Thank God I am safe, whatever may become of anybody else! Any man who can say that, or mean that, or be in any way under such a delusion, simply knows nothing whatever about the spirit of the Gospel. "Salvation" is one of the largest terms in human speech. Emancipation does not mean — you are now no longer under obligation to serve your old tyrant or your old master. That is but a negative aspect of emancipation. The true meaning is — you are invested with all the responsibilities of organised liberty; you have conferred upon you an opportunity of developing your whole manhood; you may now show the very best aspect of your character, and unless you do it, then slavery were for you better than freedom. It is so with the fullest meaning of this word salvation. Saved people are generous people, beneficent, charitable, anxious about others; nay, the only explanation of their anxiety about others is that they themselves are conscious of having been saved — not saved from fear only, but saved into life, liberty, and conscious possibility of doing great and small things. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) The Old Testament interpreted by the New J. Parker, D. D. "Behold, God is my salvation." translates this, "Behold, God is my Jesus." Jerome was right in going back to the Old Testament with the key of the New. In fact, we are entitled to begin at Genesis after we have perused the whole Gospel story with the profoundest interest and have received its spirit into our heart. The Gospels explain the Pentateuch. There are arithmetics which are awful in their initial hardness. They are all questions. Arithmetic is the most audacious interrogator I ever knew. But at the end of the arithmetic, in some cases, there is a key. What different reading! There is not a question in the whole key unless it be at the beginning of an answer, and who, having read the answer, does not feel how easy it was to have worked out the sum after all if one had only taken pains enough at the beginning? At the same time there is a strong disposition just to appropriate what the key says, and then, perhaps, to appear before the spectacled master as if we had never heard of such a thing as a key. That would be illegitimate in arithmetic. There have been young arithmeticians who have been guilty of that meanness. But we are called to look at the key in open day; we are referred to the key; we are invited and challenged to peruse it, and then to go back with the key in our hand to work out all the mystery of the lock. This is what Jerome did; so he did not hesitate to take out the word "salvation" in the second, verse and put in the word "Jesus," and say with unction and thankfulness, Behold, God is my Jesus." "His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Salvation, the possession of God A. Maclaren, D. D. If there is a man or a woman that thinks of salvation as if it were merely a shutting up of some material hell, or the dodging round a corner, so as to escape some external consequence of transgression, let him or her learn this the possession of God is salvation; that and nothing else. ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) God our salvation J. Monte Gibson, D. D. The prophet has been looking forward through times of darkness and captivity to the coming day of light and freedom; and in the hymn of which our text is the keynote he shows what will be the spirit of the new age, what the prevailing thoughts and emotions of the time. It is an exultant song, but without a word of self-congratulation. It is the keynote of the kingdom of heaven; and the regeneration of society for which ardent spirits long will not be reached until this old song become again a voice of the time. 1. We are far enough from it now. We have the song in our Bibles, we quote it in our pulpits, we sing it in our church services, but it is not in our modern life. There is nothing of it in the current literature. It is the function of the poet to give voice to the nobler thoughts and emotions of his time. Now can you imagine a poet of our times bursting out into a song like that; and if he did, would the editors of our first-class reviews be eager to glorify their pages with it? Instead of exultation in the name of God, there is all eagerness to avoid it. It is not that the age is indifferent: there is much real earnestness. The word "salvation" is not much in vogue; but the thing meant is by no means despised. If the spirit of earnestness now abroad had been foreseen fifty years ago, men would have thought that the kingdom of heaven was verily at hand at last. But now, here all around us, is the earnestness — philanthropic, moral, even spiritual, earnestness to a considerable extent; but where is the kingdom? Alas, it still seems very far away! 2. We are better than we were. Year by year there is some improvement. But not nearly enough. The end will not be brought within sight till the spirit of this old song comes back to us; till the nation as a nation, not one here and there among the people, but the people as a people, look upwards to the hills from whence cometh their aid; till the inhabitant on every side cries out, "Behold, God is my salvation." 3. Let it be remembered that trust in God does not mean neglect of ordinary means. We who believe in God are thoroughly with the humanitarians so far as they go. We believe with them in heredity and in its power for evil and for good; only we do not believe that there is any inheritance of evil so terrible that the grace of God cannot reach and save its victim, nor any inheritance of ancestral nobleness so excellent that the grace of God is not needed to make and keep pure, and to raise to still higher things. We believe in education, in refinement, in progress of all kinds, in all processes of evolution which are moving in the right direction, onwards and upwards; only we recognise that none of these, nor all of them together, quite meet the case, or mean salvation. There remain with us mystery, unsolved; sin, crying for forgiveness and cleansing; sorrow, scarce abated or diminished; death, with all its victory — mystery, sin, sorrow, death: all present, patent facts, not to be disputed, not to be conquered by the freest education, or the highest culture; and then there is judgment to come, to which the con. science is a witness not in any case to be forever silenced, though it may be hushed and quieted for a time; and there is the great eternity, the thought of which God has put into our hearts. When we look at these things we see our need, not of education merely, but of salvation, and heart and flesh cry out for God. 4. But is not this the watchword of the Churches? Do not they sufficiently represent the Divine factor in the world's salvation? Would that they did. Look, first, at the national Church. What is its great message? Is it, "Behold, God is thy salvation"? What we all want is to be so filled with the Spirit of God, and so thoroughly saved ourselves, that the keynote of every minister's sermon, and of every Christian's life shall be, "Behold, God is my salvation." 5. There is, indeed, a human side of Divine truth which is of very great importance. If God is to be my salvation, He must be in touch with me. If He show Himself to me, it must be in my likeness; if He speak to me, it must be in my language; if He act on me, it must be through my faculties and in accordance with the laws of my being. He is the God of nature as well as of grace. But important as it is to show the Gospel natural, it is far more important to hold fast to the supernatural. ( J. Monte Gibson, D. D. ) God the soul's salvation A character in a modern book says, "I said I would leave the saving of my soul to Him that made my soul; it was in right good keeping there I'd warrant." Man's Saviour Divine Dr. Mason of America said — "I need such a Saviour; for I would not trust my soul to the hands or heart of the brightest seraph that burns before the eternal throne." Full assurance of salvation Mrs. Edwards, wife of President Edwards , says, "In 1742 I sought and obtained the full assurance of faith. I cannot find language to express how certain the everlasting love of God appeared; the everlasting mountains and hills were but shadows to it. My safety and happiness and eternal enjoyment of God's immutable love, seemed as durable and unchangeable as God Himself. Melted and overcome by the sweetness of this assurance, I fell into a great flood of tears, and could not forbear weeping aloud. The presence of God was so near and so real that I seemed scarcely conscious of anything else. My soul was filled and overwhelmed with light and love and joy in the Holy Ghost, and seemed just ready to go away from the body. This exaltation of soul subsided into a heavenly calm and rest of soul in God, which was even sweeter than what preceded it." I will trust, and not be afraid. Our liability to fear, and the power of faith to overcome it A. Raleigh, D. D. Naturally any creature must be liable to fear. The finite nature, however exalted, must always feel itself transcended and surrounded by the infinite Unknown. There can be only one Being in the universe absolutely and forever free from that liability — He who knows everything, and who controls everything — who knows all beings, agents, facts, possibilities, and rules them. We are manifestly far more liable to the inroads of this fear than those creatures who have never fallen. I. THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF EXISTENCE HAVE A TENDENCY TO PRODUCE FEAR. Something depends, of course, on the susceptibility of the individual; a strong practical nature is not so much affected by mysteries; but there are few thoughtful persons who do not sometimes feel the shadow of them on the path; and the continual contemplation of them does not irradiate or dissolve them; they become only more impenetrable and more densely dark, and then comes the fear lest this aspect of them should never be relieved, lest they should be unfathomable and unconquerable forever. 1. Has not every thoughtful mind bowed and almost trembled before the great mystery into which so many others may be resolved — the existence of evil in the universe, under the government of an infinitely powerful and infinitely benevolent Being? We have, indeed, to consider that along with sin was introduced the Gospel — the glorious, all-sufficient remedy, by which sin is to be taken away and purity restored; but they exist together. The remedy, although we have the utmost confidence in its perfect sufficiency, does not destroy the disease in a moment; it struggles with it, and overcomes it only by slow degrees, and in some instances the disease seems to return with increasing virulence, and to reassert its supremacy after the cure has been more than half effected; while, in a multitude of other instances, the remedy never takes effect; at all, and whole generations of human beings are swept away by death, in a moral condition that augurs ill for any future happiness. He who can say that he has had no difficulties with such a subject, only shows that he has had no thoughts about it. And yet it is not at all desirable to be under the influence of this oppression of evil; it is very desirable, and quite possible, to rise superior to it. But how? "I will trust, and not be afraid." Many have tried to reach the ground of satisfaction by knowledge. They have said, "I will know, and not be afraid"; but they have had no success. 2. There is great mystery also about the plan of Divine providence in this world. We see glimpses of Divine meaning shining out of the plan at intervals, and we make our way with certainty to some of the leading principles of that providence. We are sure, e.g. , that God is the friend and protector of the righteous man, and yet, see how some righteous men are tried! And see, on the other hand, how ungodly men rise into influence sometimes. If we gaze upon God's great providence in the hope of being able to scan its parts and explain all its movements, we shall be sadly disappointed. But if we cease from the vain attempt to understand the complexities of providence and, looking above all its visible movements, rest our faith on Him who conducts them all, we shall begin to have peace. It would be easy to mention many other providential mysteries which are very appalling and perplexing to the natural understanding. Do you say, It is all according to law? But are you not afraid as you see how stern and unrelenting law is? Where is your relief? Will you try to vanquish nature and providence by thought? Will you resist and seek deliverance by strength? Will you be wiser and trust? Ah, that is relief! II. THERE ARE CERTAIN POSSIBILITIES, THE THOUGHT OF WHICH HAS A TENDENCY TO DARKEN THE SPIRIT WITH FEAR. Unsatisfied with past and present, we cast our hopes always within the veil of the great tomorrow; but our fears go with our hopes. And it is not merely that there are such bare possibilities in every man's future, but these are always shaping themselves into probabilities. Perhaps there is no one person who cannot fancy, and who is not sometimes almost compelled to expect, some particular form of ill, something which he shrinks from. What is the remedy? "I will trust, and not be afraid." There is yet one dread possibility, the contemplation of which is more appalling than the very worst of earthly calamities — the possibility of spiritual failure, ending in a final exclusion from the presence of God and the joys of the blessed. There is but one way of grappling with and overcoming this great fear. ( A. Raleigh, D. D. ) Trust in relation to the will Mrs. H. W. Smith. A Christ

12:10-16 When the gospel should be publicly preached, the Gentiles would seek Christ Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, and find rest of soul. When God's time is come for the deliverance of his people, mountains of opposition shall become plains before him. God can soon turn gloomy days into glorious ones. And while we expect the Lord to gather his ancient people, and bring them home to his church, also to bring in the fulness of the Gentiles, when all will be united in holy love, let us tread the highway of holiness he has made for his redeemed. Let us wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, looking to him to prepare our way through death, that river which separates this world from the eternal world.