AS TO PROPHECY. 369 shown to have been too limited, and to require modification as well as expansion, we may yet be sure, that in proportion as it is the more positive and matter-of-fact, so it is the truer and more scientific; and that we shall find that the new will harmonize with the old, in proportion as we enlarge--not our theories but-our basis of facts, and inductions from facts. BB CHAPTER XXIV. ISAIAH XL.-LXVI.—THE VISION OF THE EXILE AND RETURN.-THE TRANSITORY AND THE PERMANENT. THE GOD OF NATURE, AND OF MAN.-THE POWERLESS GODS OF THE NATIONS.-THE JEWISH INSTITUTION OF THE REDEEMER. -ITS EFFECT ON THE MORE ENLIGHTENED JEWS.-THE DELIVERER, KING, AND TEACHER. THE WORK OF ISAIAH AND HEZEKIAH.-ITS SUCCESS AND ITS FAILURE.-JEWISH IDEA OF THE MESSIAH.-ITS RELATION TO THEIR POLITICAL LIFE. ATONEMENT A HUMAN FACT.-A RATIONAL IDEA.UNION OF HALF-TRUTHS. THE MESSIAH OF THE GOSPEL.-THE PROPHETS AND THE APOSTLES.-ISAIAH'S SCIENCE OF POLITICS.-HIS DEATH.-HIS TRIUMPH. OF F the manifest continuity of these twenty-six chapters, it has been well said that the whole flows on like a river, poured forth at one time from a breast entirely possessed and filled by the Holy Spirit :' and we might add, that the frequent repetition of the same thoughts, résembling the rise and fall of the waves, while the stream holds its steady, onward, course, is among the indications that the inspired seer speaks as the vision rises before his illumined eye, and as the word of Jehovah impels him to describe it; and that he did not sit down to write with any systematic and deliberate arrangement of all that he had to say. The first two verses of chapter xl. form an introduction, in which the prophet throws himself into the future, beyond the end of the great national judgment foretold in the last chapter. The great desert between Babylon and Judea suggests the like imagery with that which Isaiah had already employed to express the like idea in chapter XXXV. and probably both here, and there, may be traced an under-thought of the passage of Israel through the wilderness when he came out of Egypt. But the prophet's language now is more ideal than before; and we shall ex ISAIAH XL. 1—11. THE DELIVERER. 371 clude a main part, if not the whole, of his meaning, if we introduce arbitrary limitations to define what he leaves indefinite, and pronounce, more positively than his own words do, that he supposes himself in Babylon, or Jerusalem, or the Desert; or that he does, or does not, represent Jehovah as bringing back the captive nation from the former city. The period is no doubt that of a Captivity, and not of the reign of Hezekiah; but the words and images of the prophet show that his eye glances from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, with little restraint of time and place with the ubiquity of genius and of inspiration, he sees the appointed term of Israel's hard warfare arrived; he hears the herald of the approaching Jehovah; he calls on Jerusalem and Zion, themselves free and rejoicing in a moment, to spread the good tidings among the other cities of Judah, and to declare that this Jehovah is their own King, and their God. What enemies he has been triumphing over, what deliverance he has been effecting, whether he comes alone to a people already waiting to receive him, or is bringing them with him, redeemed or recovered from captivity, the vision defines not but it sees that the triumph will be complete, and the glory manifest; that the LORD God will do the whole work that has to be done, and earn the effectual deliverance of his people; and that, with a love no less tender than his power is strong, 'He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom; and shall gently lead the milch ewes.' The prophet sees into the dark night of the future only by momentary flashes of light; but his vision is still farther interrupted by the doubt expressed in verses 6 and 7, where he seems to ask, How can these promises of God be more effectual now than before, when, after they had been made in a manner apparently so ample, we saw them all nullified by that act of Hezekiah? And the other voice within him,' voices of two different natures,'-replies, that it is true that man is at best so weak and sinful, that if God leaves him for a moment, to try him, and to know all that is in his heart, he falls away 372 ISAIAH XL. 12—31. THE GOD OF NATURE, : as certainly as the grass withers when the wind of heaven blows on it but what then? The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the Word of our God shall stand for ever that Word which in nature has been so efficacious, that every created thing still keeps the whole law and course which was imposed on it when, in the first day of its creation, God SAID, Let it be so, can and will be no less informative and quickening in the spirit of man. Isaiah looks on the whole Jewish polity, which had in his days attained to the highest development of which it was capable; he sees and feels that not in this is there any continuance, anything which can be really trusted in for strength, and righteousness, and eternal life; and thus he is able to hear and understand the voice which declares that those things may and will fade like grass, yet that men may rise out of this transitory state, by laying hold on the permanence of God. And what the prophet thus implies, the apostle, in the fulness of time, could actually assert, when he quotes these words, and explains, that while man's corruptible nature is like the fading grass, the gospel preaches to us that we may be born again to a new and incorruptible life, by the Word of God; and that thus being made partakers of the divine nature, we may each personally escape the corruption which is in the world, and purify our souls in obeying the truth through the spirit; and at the same time become members of a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people.* Cicero could ask, 'When we look at the heavens, first in all their unclouded beauty, and then with such rapid changes passing over their face; when we consider the alternations of day and night, and the succession of the four several seasons; when we behold the sun which regulates all these, and the moon and stars all keeping their courses with unfailing constancy; can we doubt that some present and efficient ruler is over them?'† And Seneca says, * 1 Peter i. 22 to ii. 10; 2 Peter i. 4. All the epistles indeed, from first to last, are expositions of the practical substitution, wrought by Christ, of the power of an endless life' for 'the law of a carnal commandment,' as Paul expresses it. + Tusc. Quæst. i. AND OF MAN'S SPIRIT. 373 They all continue, not because they are eternal, but because the watchfulness of their governor protects them : imperishable things need no guardian; but these are preserved by their maker, who, by his power, controls their natural tendency to decay.'* And Hume, though his philosophy was irreligious in comparison with that of either Roman, could raise his hands to the starry sky, and show that he too had a human heart, by exclaiming to Fergusson, 'O Adam, how can a man look at that, and not believe in a God!' But Isaiah, while he here handles this argument with an eloquence sublimer and more earnest than any of theirs, does not stop in this 'Court of the Gentiles,' but makes that assertion of the reality and power of the Creator which is their end, a step to his higher conclusion, that he is also the God of the spirits of men; and that the wisdom and power which he exhibits in nature are but the symbols that He fainteth not, neither is weary, there is no searching of his understanding,' in a region in which natural order and life are of no avail. It may seem at first as though this were to prove a higher by a lower attribute of God: but the works of creation have this special effect, that they bear witness that God Is in himself, and not merely in relation with us; and then, through this revelation of an Absolute Being in creation, we are the easier led on to apprehend the higher truth and fact of an Absolute God of our spirits, in whom we are to trust, even though this or that accustomed relation between him and us seems to have failed. The pious Israelite, the Nation, the Church, must not suppose that, because their way is hid from themselves, and nothing appears but the oppression of utter desolation of spirit and circumstances, therefore God does not see the way, and is not actually working it out, and preparing to do his people right and justice, by methods not the less wise because they are for the time inscrutable. Let man wait for God:-'They that wait on Jehovah shall renew their strength they shall lift up their wings like eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.' |