ENGLAND'S OBLIGATIONS TO HER PIOUS MEN.

A SERMON

PREACHED IN

THE LION WALK CHAPEL, COLCHESTER,

ON SUNDAY, APRIL 9, 1848.

BY

T. W. DAVIDS.

COLCHESTER:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BRACKETT;

SOLD ALSO BY C. F. FENTON, COLCHESTER; AND SIMPKIN, MARSHALL,
AND CO., LONDON.

23

ENGLAND'S OBLIGATIONS, &c.

AS A TEIL TREE, AND AS AN OAK, WHOSE SUBSTANCE IS IN THEM, WHEN THEY CAST THEIR LEAVES SO THE HOLY SEED SHALL BE THE SUB

STANCE THEREOF.-ISAIAH VI. 13.

THE prophet is the best interpreter of history. He enables us to solve its problems, reconcile its apparent discrepancies, and penetrating the confusion which so often lies upon its surface, to discover the illustration which it always furnishes of the perfect unity, and the uninterrupted progress, of that great plan, in harmony with which God's universal Providence controls all human things. The vision' sheds millennial light upon the times' as they are passing over us; frequently instructs us how to read and understand their otherwise inexplicable signs,' and always serves for the strengthening of our confidence in the glorious fact, that all events are so ordained and so controlled, as most effectually to advance that glorious consummation under which the Wicked One shall have been finally overcome, and all the gracious purposes of the Saviour's mediation triumphantly accomplished in the perfect restoration of our fallen

race. Prophecy has been inspired not for the assistance of profane and prying curiosity, in its vain endeavours to determine what shall be: it is rather written to assist devout solicitude in its anxiety to understand what is. Like every other Scripture' it it is generally "profitable for. . . . instruction in righteousness, that the man of God might be.... thoroughly furnished unto all good works," and especially recorded, that amidst all the changes and vicissitudes of this world's affairs, the godly always "might have hope."

Isaiah prophesied in most portentous times. The virulent apostacy of Ephraim had devolved on Judah the exclusive custody of "the Oracles of God." On Judah therefore were suspended all the promises;' bound up with Judah were all the world's best hopes: -she had become the sole depositary of 'the truth,' by means of which, one day, 'the nations' were to be restored. And yet was Judah then in peril; she was fiercely threatened from without-she was also fearfully endangered from within.

of

It was foreseen by the prophet that, ere long, her guilty neighbour, goaded into madness by intestine revolution, would ally herself with Syria, in unnatural conspiracy for Judah's overthrow. Asshur also, hitherto by no means formidable, but already hatching the ambitious project of an Oriental Empire, it was now revealed to him, would, in the ecstacy her rejoicing over Ephraim's complete discomfiture, resolve upon attempting that of Judah too. And finally, the vision' shewed him in the distance, Babylon collecting her destructive armies, for that very conquest which apostate Ephraim, and ambitious Asshur, had attempted previously but in vain. For even generations therefore, Isaiah now foresaw that Judah would be placed in constant peril from invading violence-violence that in the issue would assuredly succeed.

Meanwhile, Isaiah saw too clearly that the perils of his country were, if possible, still more alarming from within. On the surface, Judah did indeed seem prosperous-as much so as ever she had been, but beneath that surface he discovered elements already working, which portentously foreboded her approaching doom. The canker was already at her root;her leaf was already withering at the stem;-leprous even to the core, although the outward skin of her prosperity appeared intact, her bloom was pallid, and her ruddiness was gone:-' her whole head was already sick,' and her whole heart' was already 'faint.'

Thus doubly certified of her catastrophe, Judah's prospects in Isaiah's time were dark indeed. Every aspect of her national affairs betokened the ripening of a crisis most intense. Patriotism, and philanthropy, and even ordinary piety, had they been permitted to indulge these prospects as Isaiah was, unaided by the torch of prophecy, must have pronounced the whole horizon of the future absolutely desperate. But the vision' interposes-strips the gloom-protests that there is, notwithstanding all these portents, brilliant hope-and even indicates the source from whence the restoration of Jerusalem after she had fallen should arise. What though "the cities should be wasted" and become "without inhabitant," and "the houses be without man, and the land be utterly desolate . yet in it (the nation, then a captive) there shall be a tenth, and it (the nation, then a captive) shall return . . . as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves: SO THE HOLY SEED SHALL BE THE SUBSTANCE THEREOF!"

Such then, my brethren, was the primary intention of this most suggestive passage. The opportuneness of its choice as our present subject will, I hope, be evident as we proceed.