Isaiah 57

Isaiah 57:3-12

Answer ye my charge, ye who, descended from wicked parents, have abandoned yourselves to witchcraft, adultery, and idolatry. Why do ye contemptuously deride me and my prophets, abandon yourselves to vices, and yet hypocritically pretend to serve me? Ye are violent and eager upon your idolatrous worship, and sacrifice your children to Moloch. Ye can hardly see a smooth stone in a river, but ye fancy it to be a god, and offer oblations to it. Can this fail to provoke me? Ye build temples and altars on every high place, and toil yourselves to go up and sacrifice there. Every corner of your houses is stored with memorials of your idols: and, by coveting whatever you have seen among heathens, ye have exceedingly multiplied them. By courting alliances with heathen princes, even on the basest terms, ye have partook with them in their idolatrous worship. Without ever being convinced by your disappointments, ye have wearied yourselves in foreign embassies and wickedness; and, obtaining present ease, have never repented of your conduct. Without any proper ground of fear, ye have thus acted treacherously towards me, never regarding my relation to you or the great things which I have done for you; and my patience exercised and forbearing, has but tempted you to disregard me the more. Therefore, by my fearful judgments executed upon you, will I manifest how criminal and ruinous your conduct has been. Nor shall your idols, or heathen allies, be able to protect either themselves or you

Isaiah 57:13-21

But such as believe my word, and trust in my perfections, shall return from their captivity to Canaan by my providence; and Cyrus, by his proclamation, shall remove every hindrance in their way. For, however high and lofty I am as the holy One who inhabits eternity, yet am I infinitely condescending towards persons destitute, distressed, and broken in spirit: nor will I continue my judgments till such be utterly ruined or discouraged.—For their injustice, and other abominations, I have indeed punished them by the Chaldeans, Syro-grecians, Romans, and others; and yet, under their affliction, they have become worse and worse. I will therefore, by an extension of sovereign grace, forgive and reform them, lead them back to their duty and their country, and restore comforts to them; and, by my prophets, publish peace and prosperity to them, that their lips may be filled with my praise. But, by their own lusts, guilt, and fears, and the judgments which I inflict, the wicked shall always remain in a restless, shameful, and loathsome, condition

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. LVII.—God kindly hides his people in heaven from his terrible judgments on earth. And, great is the folly and ignorance of men that such alarming warnings are often so little regarded. Dreadful indeed must be our inward corruption, which can thus push us to the utmost wickedness in every form, notwithstanding all the laws, mercies, and judgments, which God lays in our way to hinder it. And, when God himself is thus contemned and insulted, his faithful ministers must not hope to escape. But he will not always suffer our sins to pass unpunished. When he is wroth, not any created helper can in the least avail us. But an abiding faith will secure a blessed portion, both in time and eternity: and God himself will undoubtedly pity and relieve us in our depths of distress. Great is the happiness of those hearts in which he dwells. No evil can approach, no good be absent.—Alas, how covetousness provokes God 86 95* and ruins men! But infinite is that grace which heaps mercies on the richest deservers of hell. Delightful is the new covenant connection betwixt pardon, conversion, comfort, peace, and holy gratitude. But fearful is the guilt, and tremendous the misery, of such as perish in their sins amidst the offers and influences of God’s GRACE