same heavens which shall vanish away, and on the earth which shall wax old, and we die in like manner; and the lesson for us as for them, is simply this-to lay hold on that salvation which shall be for ever, and on that righteousness which shall not be abolished.

May God grant that such may be the effect wrought in us by this faithful admonition of Scripture, and by those awful confirmations of its truth, which we daily behold in the mysterious exercises of God's providences.

The immediate object which the prophet has in view in the chapter to which the text directs our attention, is not very apparent; generally we may suppose that he designs to comfort the people, then suffering under the fury or terror of the oppressor, in the in the prospect of that happier time when God should, in his own appointed way, yet secret to them, work out their deliverance. Whatever might be the immediate cause of their affliction, there are certain promises of comfort held forth.

When, for example, the prophet makes a bold allusion to a former exercise of God's power in behalf of his people-" O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days! art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon ?"* meaning thereby, Egypt and her king; "Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?"+ He suggests the comfortable hope that the same power exercised of old for God's people, when brought low by oppression, was still ready to be displayed in their behalf, and that though now depressed and threatened with exile from their land, yet "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." But the people of Israel, dispirited by calamities en

*Isaiah li. 9.

Isaiah li. 10.

Isaiah li. 11.

dured or anticipated, "forgot God their Maker," their minds were fixed on worldly support alone. They would "go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, and in horsemen ; but they look not to the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord!"* And this, although they had already experienced his mighty and merciful interposition in freeing them from the grasp of the Assyrian, when he had been defeated "by a blast from the Lord," and had fallen by the sword in his own land. Therefore the prophet pleads for the Lord, and utters the appointed expostulation: "Who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast 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?"+

There is presented to us in this language, and generally in the warnings connected with the text, the picture of a people cast down by the fear of calamities which they could not effectually resist. In their distress they discovered no refuge save in an arm of flesh; God entered not into the account, and need was, therefore, that God's messenger, the prophet, should tell of the marvellous victory which his " right hand and holy arm" had achieved for them, and that, when all things else were against them. It is to recall these things to their remembrance-to confirm their failing faith, that the prophet labours. They had the promises of God, no less than his miraculous intervention in their behalf to refer to, and the words of the text are in themselves a direct confirmation of the whole, because in them Isaiah brings the instability of all created things, and of man himself, the noblest, into comparison with the certainty of the promises of God; of that safety and deliverance to be

found in God and his righteousness.

"Lift

up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished." And this salvation and righteousness, thus contrasted by the prophet with the transitory things of creation, is declared to be near at hand; whatever the fear of the people, or their calamity, their God was declared to be " a God at hand and not a God afar off,"* ready to strengthen or deliver. For in the verse preceding the text, such is the declaration of God by his prophet-" My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust."+

But here we cannot, I think, fail to observe

*Jeremiah xxiii. 23. † Isaiah li. 5.