Isaiah 1

Isaiah 1:2

Ye heavens and earth, and all that dwell therein, with astonishment know and bear witness that I have marvellously raised up, privileged, preserved, protected, and advanced, this Jewish nation, and yet they have on occasions, and in ways, unnumbered, perfidiously violated my covenant and rebelled against my commandments

Isaiah 1:3

Brutishly ignorant and inconsiderate of every thing important, they scarcely pay me and my ordinances the regard that cattle do to their owners and their stables

Isaiah 1:4

Alas! the whole nation is polluted with, and guilty of, the most shocking and multiplied abominations! Unlike to their pious ancestors, they tread in the wicked steps of their immediate parents: they wax worse and worse themselves, and labour to render their posterity still more and more wicked. Revolting more and more from the service and worship of JERHONAH their God, they have provoked his fearful indignation against themselves

Isaiah 1:5

Further punishment of their sin with temporal calamities would but render them still more outrageous and obstinate in wickedness. Already corruption hath infected all ranks, the rulers and the ruled, without any proper means used to prevent it; and misery and distress have overwhelmed the whole nation

Isaiah 1:7-9

The Israelites, Syrians, Assyrians, or others, have already, by fire and sword, desolated the whole country of Judah; and Jerusalem alone remains, and that in great danger and distress: and, were it not from regard to a few righteous persons still left 2 among us, the whole nation had been utterly destroyed by God in the most wrathful manner

Isaiah 1:10-15

Be therefore assured, saith God, ye detestable monsters of wickedness, that, while ye indulge yourselves in your sinful courses, all your ceremonial services, however solemn and expensive, and even your prayers, amounting to nothing more than legal dissimulation, are utterly abominable, and do but more and more provoke me to wrath

Isaiah 1:16-20

By faith applying the word, the blood, the Spirit, of Jesus for your effectual purification from sin, repent of, and turn from, your vices; and conscientiously exercise yourselves in the contrary virtues of piety, equity and kindness.—In so doing you shall not only find your most grievous iniquities, the murder of the Messiah not excepted, fully and freely forgiven, but enjoy a safe and happy continuance in your country. But, if you remain obstinate in your evil ways, your destruction, by the sword of your enemies, is inevitable. —21—24. Jerusalem, once so famed for a faithful adherence to the laws and worship of God, and for the justice and integrity of its magistrates and people, has now apostatized to idolatry and every other form of wickedness, and is filled with murders of innocents, saints, and prophets, and even of the Messiah. The practices of all ranks are quite corrupted, and their principles depraved, and even the oracles of God debased, by false glosses and human traditions. Magistrates, and other great men, are ringleaders in wickedness, conniving at, or protecting men in dishonesty; giving sentence according as they are bribed; and suffering the poor, fatherless, and widows, who have nothing to give, to be oppressed without redress. Therefore shall JEHOVAH manifest his almighty power, which has been so long employed in acts of mercy to Israel, in utterly destroying these monsters, who desperately hate and oppose him, and are a burden to his Spirit

Isaiah 1:25-27

Part of the nation shall, nevertheless, be preserved and remarkably reformed by his power and grace. Magistrates and ministers, as in the days of Joshua and David, shall be active, upright, and faithful, and the people famed for righteousness in their dealings with men, and for their adherence to the covenant and worship of their God. Thus, through God’s righteous execution of judgment upon his enemies, and chiefly through the satisfactory righteousness of his Son, shall his true worshippers, Jews and Gentiles, be delivered from corruption and misery

Isaiah 1:28-31

But dreadful and general shall be the ruin of his worship and Son. Their idols and groves, instead of preserving them, shall add to their confusion and misery.—Deprived of every delight and every enjoyment, they and their idols shall, in the most easy, irresistible, and remediless, manner be destroyed by the flaming vengeance of God, procured by their sins

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. I.—Prophets and ministers must always declare that will of God which themselves have seen and believed: and God often much diversifies the opportunities which he gives them to declare it. In the most awful manner both heaven and earth attests the importance of what he speaks, and the equity of what he inflicts. How horrid is ingratitude, notwithstanding mercies innumerable received! And shocking is the ignorance and thoughtlessness which are sometimes found among professors of the truth. When heinous corruptions become universal, inveterate, and highly aggravated, what can be expected but ruinous judgments, in which every act and form of wickedness will be resented! But desperate is their case who are hardened by both mercies and judgments, and to whom God ceases to be a reprover. It is a great mercy for a nation, universally ripe for ruin, to have but a small remnant of eminent saints. Thrice happy are they who are of the number, and are by free grace preserved from going to hell with the multitude. The greatest enemies to the power of godliness are often the most rigid observers of the form; and men will flee to their most costly devotions for relief while they cleave to the sins which are the cause of their misery. But nothing is more abominable to God than indulged hypocrisy in our devotions. Indulged sin is so odious to him, that it renders all our prayers hateful in his sight.—What an extensive and laborious work is the real exercise of godliness! God, by the most gracious pardons, and the most full, though merciful rewards, encourages us to it: and graciously he warns men before he strikes them with his judgments. But, alas, nothing is too horrid for apostate professors to commit. And injustice to men, especially the poor, marks magistrates and others as the detested enemies of God, whom he can easily destroy. Reformation and redemption are wholly the work of God through the blood of his Son. In his high sovereignty he redeems a remnant, when the bulk are permitted to perish in their sin. And no ruin is more certain and dreadful than of those who obstinately refuse and apostatize from Christ