Isaiah 59

Ver. 5, 6. With the utmost labour and care they frame villanous schemes of doctrine or practice, by which their neighbours and partners are destroyed, and themselves nothing profited

Isaiah 59:9-11

To punish our iniquity, men deny us justice, and God refuses to plead our cause. When we expect deliverance and prosperity our miseries are increased, our spirits are overwhelmed with despair, and our anguish and grief inexpressible

Isaiah 59:16-21

Finding that there is scarcely any left to stand up for injured honesty and truth, or even to plead for mercy, God will exert his immediate power in the righteous and faithful salvation of his people, and the destruction of their enemies, Chaldeans, Syro-grecians, Romans, Papists, or Mahometans; and thus shall the nations around be awed by, or turned to, the Lord. Whenever Satan, or his instruments, make any assault, God, by the preaching of the gospel, and by his providence, shall effectually and suddenly repress their attempts. Jesus the almighty Redeemer, shall not only appear in his debased estate in the Jewish church and temple, but shall dwell in his gospel church, and at last convert to himself the remnant of the Hebrew nation along with the fulness of the Gentiles. And the Spirit and oracles of God, granted to him and his church, shall always, especially in the happy millennium, abide with his ministers and people, to direct and instruct them in every thing necessary

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. LIX.—It is vain to expect favours from God while we indulge ourselves in sin: and absurd to love that which separates us from our God, and entails his vengeance on our heads. Dreadful is that root of original 2 corruption which springs up in so many abominable courses; miserable their condition, who have their own conscience upbraiding them while JEHOVAN and his instruments are punishing them: and awful the situation when the universal prevalency of wickedness is attended with general wretchedness, perplexity, and anguish! Thrice happy is it to reflect, that where sin abounded grace doth much more abound; and that our whole salvation, and the destruction of our enemies, depend on God himself, and not on us: that Jesus Christ and his Spirit are appointed to accomplish the whole work of our conversion and conversation, nothing being left to the prudent care and good management of our own free will