Now I think, that our times and our own nation more closely resemble the time of Isaiah's preaching, and the nation of Israel to whom he preached, than any other time or nation that could be named. The worship of God was established by law amongst the Israelites as it is amongst us: they and we are alike in this, that both professed, as a nation, to believe in and to worship the true God. They honoured God with their lips as a people, though their heart was far from him: and so, at this very day, through all the ten thousand parishes of this land, how many voices will have joined in our Christian services of prayer and praise, whose hearts to-morrow will go their several ways to their pride, their pleasure, their covetousness, and their selfishness, without any thought or love for Him whom their tongues so lately honoured! Israel, in the days of Isaiah, was full of great riches and great poverty, great covetousness and luxury on one side, great misery and carelessness of God on the other. Who can look through this land at this moment, and not see the same state of things here? Israel, in the days of Isaiah, had those who measured things and actions not by the word of God, but by the custom of men;-if practices were common and of long continuance, they were called by some honourable name, whether they were an abomination in the sight of God or no. So it is among us, when we

are for ever asking, not whether things and actions are such as become the Gospel of Christ, but whether they are worse than the state of other nations, or than the state of our own fathers. Again, Israel, in the days of Isaiah, had too many of those who scorned at God's word and his promises; who went on in evil after their own devices, following their own bad passions of violence and disobedience, and impatience of the laws of God and man, and who said that God would not see, neither would the God of Jacob regard it. And of this too, they who know what is the present state of England, know that there is too much amongst us.

The prophets, then, are in a most remakable manner the mirror, or glass, in which we may see our own likeness. It is only the names and outsides of things that are ancient and different; the reality is exactly the same. Now the thirty-second chapter, which was read as the lesson for this evening, is just such as we might all say of ourselves, looking forward to the time of Christ's second coming: "Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an 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." Is not this the Christian's language? -we look for new heavens and a new earth,

wherein dwelleth righteousness;-where there shall be a perfect rest for the people of God. Again, Isaiah goes on, "And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The heart also of the hasty shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly." All this ought to have been the case, and was the case amongst Christ's true followers, at his first coming; it is so now, wherever his Gospel is received, not in word only, but in deed and in power; it will be so entirely, when Christ comes once more to complete the number of his redeemed. Then, indeed, every eye shall see him, and shall own him, and every ear shall hearken to the voice of his awful judgment; then the heart of the hasty, or thoughtless, shall understand what it is that it has despised; while the tongue of the humble believer, which want of education, or of natural ability, may have here on earth made to speak feebly and hesitatingly, shall then be ready to speak, as with an angel's voice, the praise of its Redeemer. But Isaiah says again: "The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful. For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. The instruments also of the

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churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand." Now this only requires a little attention to render it, I think, perfectly plain. The general sense is this, now, in this present state of things, covetousness and oppression work very often without breaking any human law, and without being blamed by men as they deserve. We are told that the Pharisees, who were covetous, derided what our Lord said about the danger of riches; upon which he answered, "Ye are they that justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth the heart. For that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God:" that is, the vile person and the churl,-in other words, the selfish and the close-handed,―may be praised now, and obtain, for any slight acts of liberality which they may perform, the credit of being liberal and bountiful; and this, even although their heart be really set on covetousness and though their general conduct be that of maintainers and supporters of things unjust and oppressive. But in that day when all hearts are open, and when God's judgment shall judge all things as they are in very truth,-they shall lose the false names which men gave them, and shall be called, as they really were, selfish and hardhearted; while the truly liberal and charitable

only, they, whose charity is formed after the pattern of Christ, and the picture drawn by Christ's Apostles," shall stand fast for ever and ever, and shall not be ashamed." The prophet then proceeds to speak of the judgments that are going to befal Israel, mixing with his threatenings the promise of blessings upon repentance. He speaks of the desolation of Israel;-that on "the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers, yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city." But he speaks also of a restoration, of a period of repentance, and pardon, and peace, and blessedness. And this we know, that Israel after the flesh,-that is, the nation or people of the Jews, has never yet seen, except so far as that they were restored to their own land after having been carried captives to Babylon. But even when thus restored, they were neither free, nor righteous, nor happy; and a far heavier judgment fell upon them in the second destruction of their city and temple by the Romans; since which it has never been restored at all. I believe, then, that from the time of our Lord's rejection by the Jews as a people,-they as a people were rejected by God; and that since that time the Israel of prophecy is what St. Paul calls the Israel of God, that is, the Christian church composed out of Jews and Gentiles together, and the heirs of the faith and promises of Abraham, although not all were his heirs in natural descent.