Isaiah 64

Isaiah 64:6-12

might flow down at thy presence. 2. As made the meeting fire burneth, the fire cauleth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adverferees, that the nations may tremble at thy presence. 3. When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camelt down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence. 4. For force the beginning of the world, are have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye? Sen, O God, besides thee, what he hath prepared for him that waireth for him. 5. Thou meeteth him that rejoiceth, and worketh righteousness, thief that remember thee in thy ways: behold thou art wroth, for we have fished: in thofe is dondidante, and we shall be faved.

1. The church’s request, w. 2, a. defining some glorious manifestation, as in the days of old: that God would appear for the salvation of his people, and, with vengeance burning as the most vehement fire, terrify and chastize their enemies. And this may respect either Christ’s first coming in the flesh, to destroy the spiritual enemies of his people; or that manifestation of his glory which shall be made, when he shall come down from heaven, devour the lest of Antiochist, and destroy his tyranny; or that appearance of Jesus on the streets of heaven, when he shall come to judge the world, and all created nature be dissolved in one universal conflagration. Note, God will make himself known to all; to his people in mercy, to his enemies in terrible judgment!

2. God had wrought strange wonders of old, therefore his praying people hope for the same interposition. When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for; when, objected in Egypt, they saw no hopes of deliverance, then did God show his wonders great and terrible; thou camelt down, as on mount Sinai, in all the pomp of awful majority; his mountain passed down at thy presence; and if he is pleased still to appear, all mountains of difficulty shall quickly vanish; and all oppressors, though lofty as the summit of these mighty hills, be laid in the dust.

3. The promises of the great things in store for God’s people, more than eye hath been, or no heard, throughout their faith, and quickened their desires of his appearing gloriously and forcibly to help them. For fear the beginning of the world, men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye been, O God, besides thee, what he hath prepared for him that waireth for him: great as the wonders of God’s mercy in this deliverance of his people have appeared, yet other wonders of mercy and grace, known only to God in his secret countries, are yet in store for them. The apostle, a Cur. 2. 6. particularly applies these words to the knowledge of the gospel truth, which neither the light of nature, nor the deepest resources of human wisdom, could discover, without a revelation from God; nor even then, till he gave the loving eye, and opened the unfulfilling to understand the scriptures: and when the eyes are in a measure enlightened, and we comprehend many truths, we still know but in part; many revealed truths are full mysterious and incomprehensible, and we wait for a more perfect state, when we shall know even as we are known. Thus out-of him that rejoiceth, and worketh righteousness; rejoiceth in God his Saviour, in the grace hethomest, and the glory promised; and, in consequence, walks under the influence of the Spirit of holiness, desiring to please God in all things: they that remember the in thy way; in all sufficient ordinances, means of grace, and providences, in improving them, in order to maintain nearer communion with God. Now, where a soul is that found making on God, he will meet such with his mercies, denoting his readiness to hear, pardon, and save them out of all their crossings. Note, (1.) I wish in God will produce patient writing upon him, and that shall never be disappointed. (2.) Much is yet unknown by us of the rulers of grace to which in this life we may attain, and more with respect to the glory prepared for us in eternity. (3.) They who would meet God, must be found in the way of righteousness; not of that we may meet expect his presence or blessing. (4.) Chorefulness in the ways of God is the ornament of our walls, as well as highly our duty. Gloomy and melancholy Christians are a discouragement to his service. (5.) As all God’s ways are right, in all let us remember him; in preparing thankful and humble, in advertise designed and patient; praising him in all and for all, and affiants that all shall work together for our good.

4. They trust in the unchangingness of his promises, notwithstanding their fine, behold, thou art notwith, for, or harmless, we have found, and justly provoked God’s dispensers; but he will not finally destroy his people, though he long and favorably untruths them. In this is emphrasm; in the steps of righteousness God’s favour would be soared to them; or in the steps of God’s grace and mercy there is confidious and perpetuity; his covenant is revealing, and his gain and ceilings without repentance; and we shall therefore be found, finally and eternally, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the people,

f Chap. I. LXV. Silent Card 9.26.

shall be served, through the riches of a Redeemer’s grace extending to the case of the most desperate lumen. Note, (1.) If the covenant of grace were not everlasting, and the blessings of it secured by a better obedience than our own, we shall sink into despair. (2.) Whilst we see and lament our sins, acknowledge God’s justice in our punishment, and call our souls at his foot, we cannot perish there.

6. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as if filthy rags, and we all do fate as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind, have taken us away. 7. And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that flirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast confessed us, because of our iniquities. 8. But now, O LORD, thou art our father: we are the clay, and thou our porter, and we all are the work of thy hand. 9. Be not wroth very fore, O LORD, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, fee, we beseech thee, we are all thy people. 10. Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. 11. Our holy and our beautiful boods, where our fathers praised thee; in burnt up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waft. 12. With thou refrain thyself for these things, O LORD! wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very fore!

They had confessed, We have fioned; here they enlarge on their transgressions, confessing and bewailing them, justifying God in their afflictions, acknowledging their own unworthiness of the grace they craved, and, pleading their misery, call themselves on his mercy.

1. They confess their guilty state. But we are all as an unclean thing, or person, which is the state of every man by nature; and they, whose eyes are most enlightened to know their real condition, will most lament their deep and desperate corruption within. This also particularly respected the deplorable estate of the Jewish people, who were sunk almost universally into the drugs of iniquity. And all our righteousness are as filthy rags, or a nonphrasic dish, impure and nauseous, which is true, not only of the ceremonial righteousness of forms, and rites, and outward devotions, but of all moral righteousness, which, however plausible, and wrought with greatest exactness, if trusted upon to commend us to God, or to embolden us to appear in his presence, can stand us in no more stead, than rags to cover our nakedness; can no more adorn us, than filthy rags can fit us to appear in the presence of a king: for to all we can do so much pollution and impurity cleaves, that our righteousness must be our ruin, and our very duties damn us, if on them we were to roast for acceptance.

2. They acknowledge the general carefulness and neglect of God’s worship. And there is none that calleth upon thy name; none, comparatively speaking, that had any desire to look to God for pardon or grace: There is none that flirreth up himself to take hold of thee; they who performed their devotions, did it sicker to support a good opinion of themselves, or merely to satisfy conscience, or through the force of habit, and were to libel, takeover, and negligent in them, that they knew nothing of the importunity of prayer, or the wretlings of faith; and such services added but to the number of their sins. Now, (1.) There is not a fairer proof of a careless and loft soul, than the neglect of private prayer. (2.) The life of prayer is faith, that layeth hold of God’s promises, and will not quit him without a blessing. (3.) Our cold hearts need much to be stirred up to the work of prayer, for spiritual faith is grievously apt to creep even upon the faithful.

3. They were their afflictions to be the fruit of their sins. We do all fude as a leaf; our professions wither, our root is hapless, our boughs blasted; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. As the autumnal bluffs shake down the widowed leaf, and hurl it away, so did the wrath of God, because of their iniquities, disperse them first in Chaldea and the countries of the Babylonish monarchy, and now the dispersion is become universal. For thou hast hid thy face from us in dispiant, and hast confessed us, because of our iniquities. Note, (1.) Falls professors, however blooming they may for a time appear, will quickly be blasted: actually in this world their demise are manifest; at least, at death their leaf falls and the wind of vengeance hurts them into hell. (2.) As God is of above even than to behold iniquity, they who have no better covering than the filthy rags of their own miserable performances, may never hope to see his face with comfort.

4. They plead their relation to God, notwithstanding the prevailing iniquity. Some were still found faithful, and, as a people, God had not cast them away. But now, O Lord, thou art our father; though we have done so much against thee, the disease upon this endeared relation: toyeath us as a father, but do not utterly disinherit us. We are the clay, and thou our porter, and the wind, to thy will; we are content to be and suffer

according to thy pleasure; only remember, we are all all word of thy hands, created by thy powers, by peculiar energy called into a people, therefore destroy our those own words.

5. They intract, if not the removal of their sufferings, for the obligation of them, and some prospect of their end. Do not wreck very far, O Lord; correct us, but in measure, not in farce anger, lest we be utterly confused: neither remember iniquity for ever; but forgive at last, and remove from us thy hearty hand. Behold, for, we beseech thee, we are all thy people in covenant, and therefore, according to the spirit of him, though thou visit our iniquities with the rod, and as far as with cleavages, thou hast promised that thy loving-handness thou wilt not entirely take from us, nor suffer thy truth to fail.

6. They spread their miserable lives before God. Their cities desolate and in ruins, their country a wilderness, and Zion’s palaces lying in the dull; and, what was still a human cause of anguish, their holy and beautiful body, that verifies so magnificent and glorious, where the Shechrist once abode, and holy worship was offered to God, where their fathers of old praised the Lord, is now home with fire, which was the consummation of their miseries: and all our pleasant things are laid waft; not merely their palaces and possessions raised, but, above all, their sacrifices ceased, their feasts of gladness at an end, the worship of God interrupted, and no more songs of praise refound in the courts of the Lord’s house. Note, (1.) Human misery is an object of the divine compassions. (2.) They who have truly at heart the untruth of God’s kingdom, are more concerned for the desolations of the temple, than for any lofts of their own.

7. They humbly and earnestly expostulate with the Lord on their unhappy case. With thou refrain thyself for these things, shall not jealously for thy own glory awake: thy breezes of mercy yearn over our miseries? With thou hold thy peace, as an unconcerned spectator of these things, and afflict us very far, shall there be no end nor abatement of our sufferings? Surely thou wilt not contend for ever: arise, O Lord, plead thy own and thy people’s cause. Note, Though God may and humbly afflict his people, let them not utterly despair; there is yet hope in their end.