Page images
PDF
EPUB

I will free you, O my people: behold, ye shall go forth of Babylon; ye shall be rescued from the hand of the Chaldees: go ye therefore from thence with triumph and exultation, and proclaim the great goodness of your God to all the world.

XLIX. 1 Listen, O ye isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; the LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.

O all ye foreign nations of the world, listen unto me, your Saviour and Redeemer: the Lord, who, before all times, had decreed me to be the Mediator of his Church, hath accordingly performed it; and hath, from my miraculous conception and birth, set me apart to the accomplishing of this great work.

XLIX. 2 And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished. shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me.

He hath given power and efficacy to his word in my mouth, that thereby I may rule my Church, and subdue my enemies: his Almighty protection hath been over me; and he hath destined me, from all worlds, to be a fit and perfect instrument of his service.

XLIX. 4 Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.

Then I said, I have omitted nothing on my part, that I might do, for the gaining of my people, the Jews; but all my cost, and pains, that I have bestowed upon them, is no better than cast away: but it is mine Everlasting Father, with whom I am one, who gives full approbation of all that I have done; who graciously accepts of both my active and passive obedience. So also verse 5.

XLIX. 5 Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength. Though Israel be so obstinate, that he will not reap the proffered benefit of my Redemption, yet my glory with the Lord shall be no whit the less.

XLIX. 6 And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

Yea, this is not all the honour, that God my Father will put upon me; for, Behold, saith he, it were a poor matter, if thy redemption and rule should be only limited to the tribes of Israel: no, I will so extend and advance this glorious and happy office and work of thine, that it shall reach unto the Gentiles, all the world over. XLIX. 8 And give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages.

I have given thee to renew and establish that covenant, which is between me and my Church; to raise up and settle all my chosen upon earth; and to bring into my Church those, which pertain unto it, so as even the most desolate parts thereof may be furnished and peopled.

XLIX. 9 They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.

Such plenty of provision will I make for my people, that the very highways and dry and barren mountains shall yield them abundance of nourishment and increase.

XLIX. 12 Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.. From all the coasts of the earth shall the Jews return to Jerusalem; in figure of that general recourse, which shall be from all the nations under heaven, to the Holy Church of Christ, under the Gospel.

XLIX. 18 Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth.

And now, O my Church, lift up thine eyes, and look round about thee: behold the multiplicity of all those nations, wherewith thou art encompassed: all these shall come in and submit themselves unto thee their number and accession shall be an excellent ornament unto thee, wherewith thou shalt deck thyself, as a bride doth on the day of her wedding.

XLIX. 20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me.

The children, which thou, O my Church, shalt have of this new supply of the Gentiles, since the casting off thy former issue of the Jews shall be so multiplied, that they shall have cause to complain of the want of room.

XLIX. 21 Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these?

Then shalt thou have occasion to think, How comes it about, that I am blessed with so large an issue, seeing my former brood is lost and perished? O God, this is thy wondrous mercy, thus to comfort me in my extreme desolation and captivity. thou, by the immortal seed of thy word, hast begotten them to thyself, and hast nourished and bred up them accordingly.

XLIX. 23 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, &c.

Whereas, now, the princes of the world are opposite unto thee: then, kings and queens shall gladly take upon them thy patronage and protection: yea, they shall, in all humility, yield themselves over to thy spiritual authority.

XLIX. 24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?

But now your diffidence is ready to say, Is it possible, that the Jews should be taken out of the hands of so great a monarch, as the king of Babylon; or the captive, which was according to the

law of war seized upon and possessed, rescued from so powerful a victor? So verse 25.

XLIX. 26 And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, &c.

I will give them up to a civil and intestine war; so as they shall be the mutual slaughterers of each other, and that with an insatiable fury.

L. 1 Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away. How willing ye are, to put off the fault and cause of your punishment, from yourselves, to me, saith the Lord! as if I had put you away, and cast you off, being once my acknowledged wife, without all just reason; or, being once my acknowledged children, had sold you to my creditors: go to, then; let the bill of divorce be shewed, that it may appear why I rejected you; and let it be known how and to which of my creditors I have, upon any contract, put you over: no, ye people of Israel, ye are they, who have sold yourselves for your iniquity, and for your wicked and adulterous misdemeanours are ye put away.

L. 2 Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem?

Whereas ye ought to have sought me, I have sought you, and been disregarded: when I came to you in my gracious solicitations, and invited and called you by my loving admonitions, you turned the deaf ear, and gave no respect unto me: what means this neglect of yours? Am I now less able to help and redeem you than I formerly was?

L. 3 I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

As I did then overspread Egypt with a three days' darkness, so I can still, when I please, vail the face of heaven with blackness, and put it into a mourning habit.

L. 4 The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

God the Father hath given to me, the Messiah his Eternal Word and Son, power to express him fully and exquisitely unto his people; that I should be able to speak comfortably to the weary and distressed souls: he doth not intermit to furnish me continually with his Good Spirit; but ever assisteth me with his divine and inseparable grace, to all the acts of my mediation.

L. 8 He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? My God is with me, yea, He is in me, and one with me, and I with him, so as I cannot but be borne out against all that shall stubbornly contend with me.

! L. 10 That rwalketh in darkness, and hath no light.

That seeth nothing but cause of discomfort and dejection, without all appearance of mitigation.

L. 11 Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall you have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.

Behold, all ye, that, out of your own thoughts raise up to yourselves imaginary comforts, not fetching true grounds of consolation from above; make use of those your own devices; please yourselves in your own projects: all, that ye shall get at my hands, is sorrow and disappointment.

LI. 1 Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.

Bethink yourselves, and look back to your first original: consider how easy it is for me, who gave you a being from the dry and barren loins and womb of Abraham and Sarah, to revive and raise you up in your greatest distress.

LI. For he shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, &c.

Thus shall the Lord comfort Zion, when she is most hopeless: he will so restore her, as that the most desolate parts of his Church shall be fruitful and beautiful, as the paradise of Eden, &c.

LI. 9 Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon!'

Art not thou he, that hast pulled down the pride of Egypt, and discomfited Pharaoh, that proud king ?

LI. 14 The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail. The captive Jews, now lying under an uncomfortable exile, shall soon ad dress themselves to their return: let them not faint under their bondage, for they shall not long continue under it.

LI. 16 And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth.

I have put my word into the mouth of thee, my prophet, and thy fellows; but especially into the mouth of that great and divine Prophet and Redeemer of my Church: I have held my safe protection over thee, and him; that, by the saving doctrine which I shall send into the world, and that mighty and effectual work of his Meq'iation, I may set at peace and settle all things, both in hea ven and earth.

LI. 1 Thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.

Thou hast drunk deep of the grievousest of God's outward afflictions; such, as thou mightest and didst justly tremble, to taste of : even the bitterest part thereof hast thou been forced to receive into thy soul.

LI. 18 There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath

brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up.

She is left utterly disconsolate: those, that should be most dear and most respective to her, (i. e. my Church,) even those spiritual sons, whom she hath brought forth to an outward profession, they ungratefully forsake her, and deny her their needful offices and

attendance.

LI. 20 Thy sons 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 rebuke of thy God.

Yea, those unthankful sons of thine are involved in the same calamity with thee if they would, they cannot help thee: they are caught and entangled, like some wild bull in a toil; and so lie roaring in vain, within thy streets; for the wrath of the Lord hath throughly seized upon them, without all possibility of redress.

LI. 21 Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with twine.

Hear this, ye, that are giddily distracted, not with wine, but with extremity of sorrow :

LI. 22 Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, &c.

Behold, I have taken off from thee those heavy afflictions, under which thou didst justly tremble, &c.

LII. 1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Stir up thyself, and rouze up thy drooping spirits, O my Church : deck thyself with the robes both of joy and holiness; for my pure worship shall be restored unto thee: there shall be no place within thee for the invasion of thy heathen enemies, and the pollution of the profane.

LII. 3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.

It was your own iniquity, that sold you into the power of your enemies: I took no price at all for you; and therefore am not bound to any restitution, which might be demanded of me, but will freely deliver you.

LII. 5 Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought?

Now therefore, what have I in lieu of this miserable affliction of my people?why should I forbear to revenge it ?

LII. 7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation!

How welcome and pleasing are the prophets of God, who, upon the mountains of Judea, preach these glad tidings of peace and deliverance! and how more welcome are those evangelical teachers, that proclaim everlasting salvation to all believers!

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »